Love One Another

There was another mass shooting today, the 146th mass shooting this year. Mass shootings are defined as a shooting death where four or more individuals are killed. One hundred forty-six times four at a minimum – that is 584 people dead since January 1, 2023, at a minimum. In reality, more than 11,500 people have been killed as a result of gun violence in 2023. That is 115 individuals killed every day in this country due to gun violence.

How are we not getting the message that gun violence is an important health and safety issue in this country?

Before I go any further, I probably need to state for the record that I am NOT anti-gun. I don’t want to take away your “right to bear arms.” This is not an attack on the 2nd Amendment. What I want to say in this post really doesn’t have anything to do with owning guns, it has to do with how we treat one another.

As I watch what is happening in our country regarding this polarizing issue, we always try to make it about gun ownership and the rights of the individual. What I want to drill down and touch today has more to do with how we choose to live in community.

We just celebrated Easter yesterday. We talked about the resurrection of Jesus, about the power of change and transformation. When it comes to this issue, however, we are unyielding. No one wants to find any kind of middle ground.

The numbers I gave you in the first paragraph represent those who are now no longer with us. Regardless of the circumstances of their deaths, gun violence does not have to be our legacy. As a community, we can change and be transformed into something wholly different than what we are now.

Hear the words from Ephesians 3:14-19, 4:1-3, (The Message) —

“14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

20 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

4 1-3 In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.”

Scripture calls us to be firmly planted in love. It is hard to love someone when you have a gun pointed at you. It is hard to “live and let live” when you are walking in fear every time you walk into a school building worried that it might be your last. Scripture is putting us on notice that we are to love with humility and discipline. We are to remain teachable and to stick it out until we get it right. This is what it means to live in community, a real community. For the sake of each other, we offer love not hatred. We learn to listen to one another without judgement. We begin to act in the interest of the whole community, not just our own self-interest.

To be followers of Christ, we have to be willing to put the interest of others ahead of our own. We need to see the needs of the people living all around us and ask how we can be of assistance to them. Trust me, if this were easy or simple, I wouldn’t need to write about it. This is something that we all must learn and practice. It isn’t our natural inclination. No, we are actually hardwired for survival. Our biology wants us to live, amidst all kinds of threats – mastodons come to mind. I hope you just said to yourself, “But mastodons don’t exist anymore…” Exactly. The kinds of threats that we faced in our humble beginnings don’t exist anymore, but our bodies don’t know that.

When we perceive threats everywhere, we are likely to act on that perceived threat by protecting our lives at all costs. Jesus walked into danger by leaving the safety of Galilee and traveling to Jerusalem. His disciples tried to stop him. He insisted on going. Jesus knew what was going to happen if he went to Jerusalem for Passover. He knew that he would be killed. But he did it anyway. Jesus didn’t “protect” himself or prevent his own arrest, and he told Peter point-blank to put down his sword. Here is the moment when his disciples could have created such a ruckus that Jesus could have escaped, but that isn’t what Jesus demonstrated. Instead, he took it all.

I know you aren’t Jesus; neither am I. Faced with that kind of decision, I’m fairly certain I would chicken out. Still, Jesus provides us with the ideal. He is showing us what it means to live a faith that is grounded in compassion. This is our best hope for the future, to always begin with compassion. Maybe it is time to re-evaluate how we talk to one another, how we listen to one another, and most importantly, how we behave toward one another. The love that Jesus calls us to exhibit is never easy, but we have to start somewhere, if for no other reason than to reduce gun violence in this country.

John 13:34-35

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Matthew 28:1-10 : Resurrection Life - Ditch the Cross

Matthew 28:1-10, NRSVUE

28 After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

This afternoon I was leaving the church and pulled up beside an SUV that had a sticker on its back window that read “He is Risen” with “He is” on the top line, “Risen” on the bottom line, and a cross running right through the middle of it.

You might be thinking, sure, well, it is Easter and He is Risen is something we see a lot on signs, etc. Yes, that is correct, but here’s what I don’t get…

The cross is a symbol of death, of horrific pain, of suffering; why pair that with the slogan “He is Risen”? Jesus was not raised from the cross, he was raised from the dead.

Admittedly, there are times when I get hung up on little details such as this, but I happen to believe in this case, my angst is justified.

The cross as a symbol for the risen Christ has always seemed odd to me. Other symbols are, perhaps, more appropriate. The symbol for the Alpha and Omega or the beginning and the end is one, the anchor – widely used prior to the adoption of the cross – acting as a sign of hope and steadfastness, the angel meaning the messenger, the butterfly to represent change or transformation, the daisy as a symbol of chastity and humility, a descending dove present at Jesus’ baptism, the fleur-de-lis which represents the trinity, the Ichthys which directly denotes “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” using the Greek alphabet, and the Tree of Life as a symbol of eternal life and healing. Any of these symbols work better than the cross for this resurrection moment.

Why does this matter? And more importantly, why am I taking an entire blog post to talk about something that seems rather trivial?

The cross, as a symbol, is a tool of the Roman Empire. This symbol wasn’t adopted until Constantine implemented the cross on military uniforms as a way to help him win an important battle. The cross has been used primarily as an instrument of torture. By elevating the cross, we are giving the cross more gravitas than it deserves. When we wear this symbol around our necks, it speaks volumes about what it is we choose to focus on in the world of Christianity – the suffering Christ.

It is not lost on me that in order for Jesus to be resurrected he had to first die, but it makes more sense to celebrate the life of Jesus; even his resurrected life, because that is what is most important.

Whether you believe in Jesus as just being a man, Jesus as the son of God or son of man, or that Jesus was God incarnate, it just makes no sense to focus on his death, this relatively short moment in Jesus’ life, when there is so much life to celebrate and emulate.

Transformation comes through imitating the life of Christ. Yes, we must die to self in the process, but letting go of those parts of us that are no longer serving us well is all part of the process of living…LIVING…a better life.

Resurrection was and is always possible. Nature reveals to us every spring how resilient it is. Life regenerates itself all the time. Humanity is no different other than the fact that the whole of our life cycle isn’t visible to us. When our physical bodies die, others don’t always witness our souls ascending back to God, nor do we see our souls being reborn. Likewise, there are thousands of what I call “ego deaths” that occur on a regular basis – moments where the selfish, self-centered parts of our being are removed from us and we become more Christ-like. This, too, is all a part of our resurrection story.

Ultimately, the cross is not a necessary part of Easter for me. I don’t need to see or experience the suffering Christ to appreciate the resurrected Christ. Life teaches me that suffering is a part of life. We all suffer. No one is ever immune. However, how we respond to our suffering determines whether we will continue to suffer or whether new life will emerge. When we choose new life, we are also choosing the path that Jesus, the Christ, chose. This is the path that determines how we show up in the world, and how we live and love within our respective communities.

May God bless you this Easter Sunday, and may you be attuned to the ongoing transformative and resurrection power of God’s love.

Palm Sunday: Matthew 21:1-17

21 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:

5 “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11 The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

12 Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 He said to them, “It is written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers.”

14 The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did and heard the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry 16 and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,

‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?”

17 He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

Once again, it is Palm Sunday. In a sense, we are reaching the end of one journey and the beginning of another. Palm Sunday represents the final journey of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem, even knowing that he would be arrested and killed. This liturgical year we have been focusing on the concept of covenant with a particular look at how we violate covenant throughout the season of Lent. Technically, Palm Sunday is the last Sunday of Lent. So, I'd like to spend a little more time at talking about one of the ways in which we violate covenant that has become ubiquitous in the church. The way to get at this covenant violation is by reading the story carefully and paying attention to how Jesus holds sacred the Temple.

We typically think about Jesus' journey into the city as the key event. For some, his entrance through the back gate while Pilate entered through the front gate reveals Jesus' humility and desire to be a servant to all. But what stands out for me, even more than this, is his first activity after entering the city...He goes to the Temple.

This story is familiar, but maybe the context has been lost on us.

When Jesus entered the Temple, he started flipping the tables of the money changers and driving out the sellers and the buyers. It doesn't appear that he has anything against the sacrificial system of the Temple, what he was bothered by was where the sellers chose to set up their operation; in the courtyard, an area of the Temple reserved for foreigners and non-Jews to come in a pray.

As he drives out the merchants and their livestock, he is noticed by the authorities. We might even ask, "Why draw that kind of attention to yourself?" Clearly, Jesus was trying to make a point: There is a way to be in the Temple, and a way NOT to be in the Temple. Nothing, not even the money changers, merchants, and livestock should be inside the Temple. All commerce should happen outside the Temple. The temple, as Jesus describes it should be a "house of prayer".

After this dramatic scene, Jesus stays in the Temple and begins receiving all those who need healing. In the span of a couple of paragraphs, the purpose of the Temple begins to take better shape. 1. A house of prayer; 2. A place for healing.

So, what is our covenant violation? Turning our houses of worship into something other than houses of prayer and healing. What I keep asking myself, though, is where do you draw the line? When we think of what Jesus did in this moment, he was creating space for the people, rather than allowing the religious leaders and merchants to simply line their pockets. If we look at it from a people perspective, then we might say that all activities that support the coming together of the people would be okay.

Feeding people is a prayer of the soul, nurturing, and healing.

Providing safe space for people to gather is a prayer for the soul, nurturing, and healing.

But are their activities that should not take place in the church? The truth is, I don't really know the answer to this. I suppose this is a matter of discernment. When do we cross the line from being prayerful and healing to being ego-driven and destructive? I'm not even sure if I've captured the right words here. The more I've wrestled with this passage, it has made me ask some of these harder questions about how we use our "facility". What is an appropriate use of space? Does it really matter in this day and age? And most importantly, is this why we have empty buildings all throughout the week because we are afraid to use them inappropriately?

Jesus raises some interesting questions when he clears the temple and starts healing people within its walls. This is not something that we can simply write off as a "that was then, this is now," scenario. And, not to put to fine a point on it, is it the building itself that is "sacred" or is it the people who occupy the building? My gut tells me that it is the people.

After all, we talk about "sacred spaces" as being places where people gather for the purpose of having some sort of encounter with the divine. This doesn't just occur inside the walls of a church building. It is more a function of the activity than it is the actual space; although, the space can play a huge role in creating the atmosphere for certain kinds of activities - I'm thinking of hikes in the mountains, or even being out on the big water...these spaces are like thin veils between us and the divine.

What is at stake here? Ultimately, I think that Jesus is calling us to be mindful of how we serve, and that we are serving everyone who desires to be served. As he drove out the merchants and livestock, he was creating space for those who would normally not be allowed in the Temple. Jesus understood, in that moment, the necessity for space for all. Maybe his reaction was geared toward reclaiming space that was traditionally set aside for a specific purpose, but I think the lesson goes beyond this. I think Jesus is calling us to view all the spaces in which we occupy as potential sacred space open to all who desire to come in - especially for the purpose of prayer and healing.

If our intentions are always focused on the prayer and the practice of healing, those who need both will find their way to what is important. If the people aren't coming, we might need to ask, "What kinds of barriers have we put in place, just like the merchants, livestock, and money changers, that keep people out?" Maybe this question is too simplistic - or the issue much more complicated, but it is worthy of our attention.