As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! –Luke 19:41-42
Sometimes it seems all I do is write pastoral letters or spiritual reflections about violence and tragedy.
Tonight I watched the latest news about the terrorist attacks on the mall in Nairobi. I saw pictures of some of the dead–a young public health worker whose baby was due within a few weeks, the nephew of the President of Kenya. I heard the story of a woman who had been teaching a cooking class for children in the mall; she told of her struggle to protect the children not only from the gunmen but also from the adults trampling them on their way out.
Then the newscasters turned to another story–the Sunday bombing of a Christian church in Peshawar, Pakistan, in which more than 80 people were killed.
As I watched, I realized it has been one week since the Navy Yard shooting. I remembered my moment of panic when I heard about it; my brother works at the Naval Research Lab, and I didn’t know if it was part of the Navy Yard. It is not, and my brother is fine. But there are too many sisters and brothers who are not fine.
I also thought about the report I saw of 23 people shot in one night last week in Chicago. We didn’t hear a lot about those shootings.
Too many of God’s beloved children killed, wounded, or terrorized. Jesus weeps–at their suffering, at the brokenness of humanity.
Each of these attacks was different; all of them were senseless and horrifying. Some were motivated by hatred and greed and misplaced desire for vengeance. Some were inspired by gross distortions of sacred scripture. Some, we imagine, reflect deep despair, or loss of a sense of meaning, or mental illness.
As a society, as a nation, as a global community, we need to wrestle hard with how to prevent mass shootings. Meaningful gun control, better mental health care, careful assessment of anti-terror efforts, deep examination of the roots of alienation–these are only a start. As people of faith, we need to be actively involved in that wrestling.
I don’t have any answers. With every one of these tragedies, though, I am more certain that what we do on Sunday mornings–and Wednesdays at noon and Thursday evenings and Tuesday mornings–matters to our world. Every time we gather we tell the world a different story than the one the gunmen want us to hear. Through our conversations and meals and phone calls and visits, we tell the story of how human beings can listen to one another and value each other’s worth. When we share in Bible Study or gather for worship, we proclaim the story of God whose love is more powerful than any weapon of mass murder. When we sing together, we tell those who would like us to live in fear that we refuse to do so.
More than ever, the world needs to hear the story we tell. We know it will never make the headlines. Fortunately, there are millions of faith communities all over the world telling this story, in different languages and with different images and rituals and songs. The chorus grows with every potluck supper, with every hymn sung, with every meditation shared, with every prayer offered. Our story will be heard.
Jesus, we hear your weeping, and we join with you. May our sorrow lead us not to despair, but to an ever greater commitment to tell the story you taught–the story of love that cannot be defeated. Amen.