Earlier this week, our nation was home to another tragic school shooting, this one taking place at Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota. As a parent and pastor, this particular incident combined two of my greatest fears – violence while worshipping God, and violence in school. To be honest, one of my greatest fears is that something will happen to one of my children when I’m not there to protect them. While logically, we all know we can’t protect our loved ones every second of every day, events like this remind us of how much our fate and that of loved ones is beyond our own control.
Unsurprisingly, our national media has spent a great deal of time and energy on where responsibility lies for this tragedy, and partisan politicians naturally are making sure their opinions are made known as well. Perhaps I’m showing some of my cynicism here, but people from all corners are seeming to want to bend the facts of this case to serve their political cause, rather than deal with the true cost of such a tragedy – two children senselessly murdered. There are powers that would rather use this event as another tool to create mistrust and discord rather than come together to address some of the practical reasons that shootings like this happen in our nation. And our news media is more than happy to go along with it.
Family of God, there are many who would like nothing more than for those of us who disagree on political matters to look at one another with fear and mistrust. There are many who see that if we’re busy looking at one another with suspicion, we won’t notice as they go about doing harmful things to us and our neighbors. And there’s a lot of evidence that this strategy has worked especially well in our nation. Sadly, tragedies that used to help us become more introspective and united now are used as flashpoints for further division.
So what is it that we do about this? I think we start by holding fast to our Christian call to be a body of Christ together – even if we aren’t all the same. We are challenged to see the horrible tragedy that happened in Minnesota (and can and has happened anywhere) as a clarion call to loving action for the sake of the neighbor – not as an opportunity to score cheap political points. We are called to be people of hope for our communities and our world.
So as we move forward through the tragedies of this world, I pray you hold fast to the promise – God is with us. We are called to hope in the Lord. And with that hope comes loving action, working to serve our neighbor, to comfort the afflicted, and to remind all the world of God’s boundless love that draws us closer to God and one another. And by being Christ’s presence in the world, perhaps the hurt and brokenness of our neighbor will begin to find healing. By being Christ’s presence, perhaps we can encourage others to see one another with an eye toward healing and love rather than anger and mistrust. Today, even in the midst of the hurt in our world, I invite you to choose hope. It might be the most revolutionary thing any of us do.
Pastor Chris