MESSAGE FOR SUNDAY, APRIL 22
BASED ON SERMON SUGGESTION FROM TIMOTHY MERRILL/HOMILETICS
We are shocked by the events of Monday in Blacksburg, Virginia.
We are shocked by the death of a Disciples Minister during Holy Week in a small Virginia town.
We are confused by the continued bombing in Bagdad – wondering why there are people who don’t want to accept peace.
And many in our world – and perhaps some of us – ask how could God let this happen?
Why does God allow so many innocent people to suffer?
The student shooter at Vir. Tech was angry and hurt – but many of the people he hurt: not only those he shot but the families of the dead and injured – didn’t know, had never met him or done him any harm. So why did they have to suffer?
There’s a scene form the Oscar-nominated film of last year, Blood Diamond, that’s provocative. The movie is set in 1999 Sierra Leone where a civil war rages, fueled by the sale of conflict diamonds – diamonds sold to pay for weapons. Leonardo DeCaprio plays a mercenary who with good-guys and bad-guys alike is hunting for a huge pink diamond. In the midst of the carnage of villiages being leveled, people being murdered and maimed, young boys being kidnapped to fight in the armies he chats with a journalist and says to her:
“Sometimes I wonder, will God ever forgive us for what we’ve done to each other? Then I look around and I realize. God left this place a long time ago.”
When events like the carnage at Virginia Tech happen, it shatters our peace, it intrudes upon our consciousness, it interrupts and irritates and saddens and shocks, and we wonder if indeed God hasn’t left this place a long time ago.
Let me offer a few thoughts – perhaps some of them are things you have been asking or thinking. Perhaps I can give some of your thoughts words – and maybe even give you a few more ideas to ponder.
1. REV. TIMOTHY MERRIL – PASTOR & ED OF HOMILETICS MAG ASKS AN INTERESTING QUESTION: WHY ARE WE SURPRISED?
It’s happened before – only the scale changes. We ask “Why?” – perhaps the bigger question in our time is “Why not?” Why wouldn’t this sort of thing happen form time to time in our culture?
Judy Muller on NPR’s “Morning Edition” recalled a remark made to her following the Columbine shootings 8 years ago. A woman at the ‘makeshift memorial’ of flowers and teddy bears that appeared almost immediately said, “The really sad thing is that we already know what to do.” Muller went on to talk about all the public rituals and so forth that we now know must follow such events. We’ve done it before. We’ve buried our children.
…we shouldn’t be surprised – shocked, yes, but not surprised when events like this occur.
WE CAN’T SHIELD OURSELVES IN ANY ABSOLUTE SENSE FROM RISK
The disciples locked themselves in the upper room – afraid of what had happened, afraid of what might happen to them, … But Jesus sends them out – telling them to go boldly and trust that God, through the Holy Spirit will give them all they need to do what they are supposed to do. He does not promise them they will not be harmed – in fact, in some of his other discussions with them he promises just the opposite – they will be reviled and laughed at – and even killed. But those disciples, and we, are to trust in the ultimate triumph of good, and keep going – keep living – keep witnessing – keep serving.
4. PARENTS ARE THE POWER [AND SO IS THE COMMUNITY AROUND OUR CHILDREN]
We must ask the parents among us to love each other and to love their children, even if that means saying NO to them – and believe me, it does!
[And we must give both the parents and the children all the support and resources we can as a larger family of faith.]
Granted, some psychos and cold-blooded killers come from good homes and loving parents. Some people are born without a conscience, and others, for reasons we don’t really understand, manage to bury it, despite loving homes. Yet nurture IS an important component.
[what about a loner?] “Parents are not doing their jobs when they allow their children to withdraw from a community of support and accountability.” Said one expert.
[We must consider how we balance individual freedom with the need to protect both the individual and the community. When is helping interference – and when is it essential.]
And I suggest we must love one another enough to help, even when help is refused because of illness.
5. WHAT WOULD JESUS HAVE US DO NOW?
This is the central question for us as Christians today.
The answer is found in today’s Gospel – in the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus:
Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’
Jesus “breathes” on them – giving them the spirit to do what he is sending them to do.
This is the only time this verb is used in the new testament, and it calls to mind the creation story when God breathes life into the first human. Jesus breathes new life into them.
It’s important to respond to these events as a community and to look for where God is at work and to look for where God is at work in the aftermath of violence and death. “We need to affirm that God always gives the gift of new life,” says Henry Brinton, Senior Minister at Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, VA. “and that God can reclaim Virginia Tech as a place for kids to grow in knowledge and faith.”
God has not left this place – God has left the tomb and God is with us now.
What can we do? First, we pray. We pray for those whose lives have been taken. We pray for those families and friends who will mourn them. We pray for our sister churches in Blacksburg - for their good people and their pastors - who will be ministering in the midst of this horror. We pray for the family of the one who took these lives, hard as that is, for that family´s grief and shame too must be almost unbearable.
There are other things we can do in the longer term: we can continue or start being a regular blood donor, so that when tragedy strikes physicians have a crucial tool available. We can support those who are seeking to find ways to help particularly our children find other means for dealing with conflict that won’t so often escalate into violence. We can model what it is to think and act civilly, to live with respect for one another, ourselves and the world around us..
IN THE AFTERMATH OF THIS VIOLENCE, WE CAN EMPATHIZE WITH OTHERS WHO LIVE WITH VIOLENCE EVERY DAY.
Not to minimize this event … and it is truly a horrendous unprecedented event.
But in Bagdad, the Gaza strip, Jerusalem, the West Bank, Darfur, the Sudan, and elsewhere, children of God suffer and die on a daily basis in human generated violence.
We can offer our assistance to those who are there to help, through such support systems as Week of Compassion. Following similar tragic events at places like Columbine High School in Littleton, CO and Jonesboro (AR) Middle School, Week of Compassion has been able to respond to church-related recovery and healing efforts and will continue to monitor events at Virginia Tech about efforts Disciples can support in that community.
But those things and others like them are for tomorrow. Today is for prayer and for mourning and for the affirmation - for it is times like this when we need it most - that God is a God of love who will seek to comfort the hurting with mercies gentle and abiding.
Jesus came bringing peace. He demonstrated peace by the way he lived. He gave peace by the gift of the Holy Spirit. The peace of Christ would dispel all doubt from Thomas. Truly Jesus Christ was God with us! Generations have passed and countless persons have confessed their faith. In Jesus Christ resides the hope that all people may one day dwell together in peace. (When we Gather: C, p. 68)
Horatio G. Spafford was a Chicago business man who suffered great financial losses caused by the great Chicago fire in 1871. For health reasons he sent this wife and four daughters to Europe expecting to follow them upon completion of some urgent business. On November 22, 1873 the ship which carried his family was struck by another vessel and sank. His wife survived by all four daughters perished. In December, as he sailed to join his wife abroad and share their grief the captain of the ship he was on pointed out where his daughters had drowned. With a heavy heart, but a stalwart and firm faith, he wrote the poem that is our hymn of response this morning. The tune was composed by a Chicago lawyer who named it for the ship on which the girls were lost.
It is a song of struggle, yet peace. It is a hymn which acknowledges the tragedies which are sure to befall us all, but also reminds us of the certainty of God’s compassion and comfort.
[adapted from Chalice Hymnal worship leader’s edition, #561]
* HYMN OF RESPONSE It Is Well With My Soul
Aug. 8 - Our nation has been at war in Iraq for over 40 months now, longer than that in Afghanistan. There seems to be no real willingness on either side of the conflict between Israel and Hezballah to find a peaceful solution and so Lebanon continues to be ravaged. I came across this prayer in my notes this morning and seems like a good day to share it once again. I hope you will join me in prayer:
A Prayer for Peace in a Time of Fear, Anger and Violence
General Board Meeting - Monday Morning, April 19, 2004
Scriptural Backgroud: Isaiah 65:17-25
Lord, somewhere deep inside we know that it’s not supposed to be like this.
People are not supposed to strap themselves with explosives and stroll into crowded markets.
People are not supposed to be assassinated with missiles leaving places of prayer.
People are not supposed to fly airplanes into buildings.
People are not supposed to lose their loved ones on fields of battle.
People are not supposed to dance over the charred remains of their enemies.
Neighborhoods are not supposed to be turned into battle zones.
Children are not supposed to be casualties, and
war is supposed to be the last resort, if even then.
It’s the Garden that we miss, Lord; it’s the Garden that we need.
We carry its memory; we hum its melody; we mourn its absence.
The echo of Eden is peace. It’s faint, but we still hear it.
The temptation to hate, to seek revenge in the guise of justice,
to let our anger and fear stake us into the descending spiral of violence is almost irresistible.
We all want to be safe. We all want to be secure.
And we think that it’s force that will deliver our safety and security.
So we put our trust in chariots, and we give ourselves to princes,
and we place our confidence in the strength of our own feeble arms,
and then we’re surprised by wars and the rumor of wars.
So God of Peace, teach us another way; teach us the ways of peace -
Let us know the peace that we have with you because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us (Romans 5:1).
By Your indwelling Spirit in our hearts, cultivate the fruit of your presence, one of which is peace (Galatians 5:22 ).
Just as in Christ you broke down the walls of hostility that used to keep us separate from each other,
leaving peace in their place, so let Jesus be our peace in all of our relationships. (Ephesians 2:11ff).
Let your daughters and sons be known in this world as peacemakers (Matthew 5:9);
use us as your ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:20 ).
And as the angels sang of peace on earth on the day the Prince of Peace was born,
so inspire us now to beat our swords into plowshares and to lean into that day when the lion sleeps with the lamb
and your children study war no more.
Plant a seed of peace in New York and in Kabul , in Washington D.C. and in Baghdad ,
in Madrid and in Morocco , in Gaza and in Jerusalem ,
over there and right here, in them and in us,
and let that Garden of shalom we remember sprout and bloom.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ who is our peace. Amen.
(Provided by Rev. Douglas Skinner, Second Vice Moderator of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
