A Sermon About Gun Violence, May 2022

Friends, I have said before that this country, and particularly White Euro-American culture, is not good at grieving. We have trouble talking about our emotions. We don’t know what to do when they boil over, so we tend to hide them and downplay them and dismiss them and repress them. But I know that each of us as individuals has much to grieve right now—and as a church, as human beings, we have much to grieve. Every culture around the world has some kind of ritual for expressing communal grief, whether that be moments of silence or crying out with wailing; gathering next to water or around a fire; sharing stories or making up new ones together. There are many ways to express grief, and I invite you to reflect on ways you were taught, or not, to express your grief.  

 We might feel a bit awkward talking about sad things, but God can handle our emotions. We don’t need to hide our hearts from the Holy. 

This week has been heartbreaking. 

On top of already heartbreaking and horrifying news of continued war in Ukraine, refugee crises in Eastern Europe, continued violence in Palestine, natural disasters and oppressions continuing all over the globe, and the most recent mass shootings that were targeting Black people in Buffalo and Taiwanese American people in Orange County...nineteen children and two teachers were gunned down in their elementary school during an end of the school year celebration. And more were injured. 

It is too much. How long, O God? How long? It is too much.  

We’re not here to go over the details of this horrific tragedy. We’re not here to speculate about what led another 18-year-old young man to murder. We’re not here to parse out timelines about law enforcement and what they did and didn’t do.  

 Here in this space, in our place of worship, we are here to mourn the loss of these beautiful lives. To grieve all of the recent happenings in the world that have just become too much, too overwhelming. To hold each other, particularly our siblings of color who, some have said, feel like they’re walking around with targets on their backs. We are here as followers of the Way of Jesus to comfort the heartbroken, to protect the vulnerable, to love those who feel forgotten, to welcome and celebrate our children... 

And we are here to act, because Jesus didn’t just say “thoughts and prayers,” and keep on moving. He didn’t shrug and say, “that’s awful,” and divert his attention. He engaged with those who were hurting. He laid hands on those who needed healing. He conversed with those who thought differently from him. He gathered crowds of people needing to hear the good news of God’s love and then fed them. Jesus is one example of how prayer can look like action. And so are you. 

 The choir recently sang an anthem called “There are no other people’s children.” Do you remember it? Part of it goes “there are no other people’s heartaches. There are no other people’s injuries. There are no other people’s children in this world.” 

That is about the only good news I can come up with, the only gospel to be preached this week.  

We are not alone, though the powers and principalities in this world try, and too often succeed, in dividing us. We are not separate, though this country and many forms of Christianity insist that individuality is sacred. We are not better or worse than anyone else—each of our lives is precious, no matter what we’ve done or who we’ve been or how we’ve hurt or been hurt. We do not exist in a vacuum, we cannot turn our faces away from each other, what affects one of us affects us all.  

We are connected as siblings through our beating hearts. There are no other people’s children. We are each other’s.  

And so, as followers of the Way of Jesus, which is a way of peace and a way of liberation and a way of love, let us turn our lament towards action. Let us pray with our minds and hearts and words and writing and calling and marching. Let us end the white supremacy culture that is so deeply internalized in this country. Let us liberate young men from standards of masculinity that they only know how to express through subjugation and violence. Let us see all little children as precious and do what is in our power to protect them, not through militarizing our schools but by eliminating civilian access to assault rifles, at the very least. Let us take on the prophetic acts of turning swords into plows and guns into gardening tools, creating tools of flourishing from tools of destruction. Let us recognize the inherent dignity in all humanity, though our hearts break over and over, let that knowledge of divine interconnectedness break our hearts open so that action emerges.  

Another world is possible, beloveds. As the apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 6:9, “do not grow weary of doing good.”  

 How long, O God?  

Not one more life lost to gun violence. Not one moment longer.  

Photo by @manunalys on Unsplash. Sculpture is The Knotted Gun also known as “Non-Violence,” created by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd.

Preached on May 29, 2022 for Seattle First Baptist Church as part of a worship service focused on lament and action in the wake of the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and the targeting of Black people in Buffalo, NY and the targeting of Taiwanese Americans in Orange County, CA.