May 29, 2022 – Seventh Sunday of Easter

Sorrow. Disbelief. Shock. Anger. Confusion. Deep, inconsolable mourning. And a sense of being on repeat. Our nation was once again rocked by an act of evil that everyone dreads to hear – the senseless killing of lives by a soul killing defenseless children and teachers in a rampage of rage.

Why? How can such violence happen? Where is God in the midst of this insanity? How do we respond to yet another mass murder in our country? Is anyone safe anymore? Many deep and heart-wrenching questions. So many people are wondering and asking these difficult questions, and of course, it’s OK to ask these questions of God as we seek comfort and understanding from the Almighty.

I can’t tell you the number of times over the past three weeks that I have heard someone say that their “thoughts and prayers are with you”. These are our safe words – we say them when we don’t really know what to do with that empty feeling in our stomach, when we feel like there’s something we should be doing to help, but we don’t know what exactly it is that we can do. We use them when we try to be faithful when we’re faced with an overwhelming, horrific tragedy.

These are words that we utter when we feel helpless to do something. We don’t intend to hurt with these words… In fact, we just want to get on with our lives and your pain is taking up too much space in our lives that might cause a change, and so we utter them.

“Thoughts and prayers” has become our go-to phrase when we really don’t want anything to change (most particularly ourselves), or when the pain is too great, but we still want to be acknowledged by and listened to by others. With “thoughts and prayers”, we can in a way say that we’ve “done something” in our society that marginalizes and oppresses just as society did in Jesus’ time. 

Because, truth be told, I’m not a black person living in Buffalo, where my one source of fresh, healthy food has become a graveyard, a reminder of supremacy based simply on the color of one’s skin. I’m not experiencing a life where I have simply $2 a day to feed my family. I don’t struggle to make ends meet, fret about how to keep a roof over my family’s head, figure out how to buy clothes for my son to go to school, or have to choose between paying the gas bill to keep us warm and going to a movie.

But if I do more than offer thoughts and prayers, I might have to feel sorrow. Disbelief. Shock. Anger. Confusion. Deep, inconsolable mourning. Every day, I might have to experience the frustration, hopelessness, or grief that others experience at the hands of a system that I benefit from. I might have to examine how portions of my “success” are gained from the power and privilege I have. To boil it down, I might have to change and become uncomfortable  as I begin to see “those people” [an intentional choice of words here] as another of God’s creations who lives in discomfort and distress daily. As long as my prayers are FOR you, I do not have to be WITH you.

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear “Jesus prayed for his disciples” (Jn 17:20). For prayer to have meaning, it cannot be empty words. It cannot simply be equated with thoughts forgotten the moment they are spoken. For us Christians, prayer is an act, in which we participate in the pain and the suffering of the world. It is a conscious decision to name something that we want to be different. Prayer MUST become a call to change not only one’s heart and actions in relationship to God, but indeed to the world in general. Yes, we can change our heart alone FOR others, but to change our actions requires a need to be WITH others.

God and Jesus used the ultimate act – death on a cross – as the action in which Jesus participated in the pain and suffering of the world. We are not called to do the same, although we hear over and over of heroes at the sites of mass shootings who have given their lives to save and protect the other innocent victims. You and I are not called to act by taking a bullet. 

John goes on to write:

Righteous Father, the world has never known you, 
But I have known you, and these disciples know
That you sent me on this mission.
I have made your very being known to them—
Who you are and what you do—
And continue to make it known,
So that your love for me
Might be in them
Exactly as I am in them. (Jn 17:25-26, The Message)

Each one of us is called to act through love. To love our neighbor as ourselves. To take care of the least, the last, and the lost, our fellow humans. To live in love as a community that has different members, but one purpose. 

As we reflect on the tragedies of the past two weeks, some may wonder whether anyone is safe anymore. We live in a world that witnesses one violent tragedy after another. You may have seen the Facebook post that has been circulating with the names of schools which have had some kind of shooting since 1998. That list has 245 lines. TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE SCHOOL SHOOTINGS SINCE 1998. 

We live in an uncertain world, which seems to have gotten more chaotic and less certain. Evil and disaster come in many forms, which include natural disasters too. That can cause stress, worry, and fear. But as Christians, we believe that God is with us. And if we are with God, abiding in God’s love, and taking shelter daily under God’s comforting shadow, then we never have reason to worry about anything or to fear anything. The Lord will walk with us through each valley of the shadow of death, protecting us, comforting us, and guiding us into God’s eternal reign.

Right now, friends, the world does not need more self-soothing thoughts and prayers. In fact, over time, they’ve become mere ineffective platitudes. The world needs our prayers of confession and action… prayers that commit us to one another in a beloved community.

The massacre in Buffalo and the shooting in Uvalde are national tragedies that we will not soon forget. They have joined the list of infamous events in our country’s history. But let us view these tragic mysteries through the prism of faith – with love and compassion for those in pain, with mercy for those filled with anger, with repentance for our own participation in this evil, and with a comfort of hope and divine security for those who fear the future. Let us take this opportunity to commit to loving our neighbors as ourselves, to taking care of the lost, the least, and the last, and to living in love as a community that takes care of its own, one in which we truly “may be one.”