Charleston

After the last week, I feel like Jon Stewart: "I got nothin'." I am saddened, and sickened, and stunned by the act of violence against the members of Emmanuel AME Church. There is no reason. There is no justification. There is no excuse.

I'm referring to the murder of innocent people, of course.  But more than that, I'm referring to the response (or lack thereof) of the larger community. "This means you need to take your guns to worship." "It's just another senseless act of violence. So, what's on Facebook?" Really? Fifty years after Selma, fifty-some years after the murder of those four beautiful young girls in Birmingham, and here we (still) are.

My gut reaction is to despair, to move to a bunker somewhere in South Dakota and live an isolated life that's in my control, to drown my sorrows with people who look and think exactly like me and to deepen the divide between myself and those who are different, to mourn the anger and insensitivity of everyone else. That's what guts are for, to think stupid things like that.

If things are ever to change, we're going to have to go beyond our gut re-actions and move into deliberate, courageous action. Now more than ever, the world needs the real church: not the judgmental, pious, politically-driven stuff that we often associate with "church," but the real thing. The place where two or more are gathered in worship, prayer and study, to hold each other when we cry and to hold each other accountable. The place from which we draw the courage to speak the truth in love.

We Presbyterians believe that the #1 sin continues to be that of idolatry: worshiping any thing or any one more than we worship the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God we know as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In Psalm 115, the Psalmist talks of those who are idol makers and worshipers. The idols, says the writer, have "mouths but do no speak, eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear..." and then goes on to say that "those who make them are like them."

Could it be that, for those of us who find the power to resist idolatry - the worship of flags, of firearms, of race, of violence - that the opposite could be true? That "those who worship God are more like God?" Yes. Those who worship God, not lifeless idols, can find the courage to speak out, the power to resist evil, the wisdom to forgive, and the strength of character to recognize our connectedness with all of God's creatures. But we have to do it. And that's what it's going to take to make any change in the current situation.

We can't feel good about the fact that the evil is in some poor, sick, deranged soul. We can't satisfy ourselves that taking down every Confederate flag will do away with someone else's racism. The potential for evil and hate is within each of us. And only as we see our own complicity will there ever be the possibility of change.

A Meditation for Good Friday 2015

Luke 23:44-49

44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent.” 48 And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. 49 But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

My son told me last night

about a video he had seen on the social media site, Vine.

It was a tribute to the death and resurrection of Jesus,

which he found to be very moving.

He had planned to leave a message for the maker of the video

to tell him what a great job he had done.

“But Mom,” he said.

“You wouldn’t believe all the horrible messages on there.

There had to be something like six hundred responses

and none of them were good.

I couldn’t believe it.”

When the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place,

they returned home, beating their breasts.

At first I thought it would have been worse

had Jesus died in the twenty-first century,

with all the self-styled paparazzi

who can’t wait three minutes to post their latest experience

or hammer down to critique someone else’s.

“Here I am at Golgotha. Selfie!”

These days we have more ways at our disposal

to make public idiots of ourselves,

but idiocy doesn’t require social media.

Can’t you just hear the crowds that were gathered

on their way home that day?

Can’t you just imagine what some of them were saying?

“Wasn’t that just the worst thing? What’s for dinner?”

“That was so awful I couldn’t look away. 

So what is there to do now?”

“I would have gotten closer,

but all those people pushed their way in front of me.”

When the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place,

they returned home, beating their breasts.

For some, who were gawkers, it was a real sight to see. 

A reality crucifixion.

Something to tell the grandkids about.

But there were others, who were watchers,

who were witnesses,

who saw something else.

But all his acquaintances,

including the women who had followed him from Galilee,

stood at a distance, watching these things.

To those who didn’t know him,

it was just another Vine to gawk at,

just another video to criticize,

a diversion to take their minds off

what they needed to be thinking about.

It was something terrible that happened

to some guy and two other criminals –

but since it didn’t happen to me or to someone I know,

I don’t have to think about it.

But all his acquaintances,

including the women who had followed him from Galilee,

stood at a distance, watching these things.

They had watched him in life,

they had ministered at his side,

and they witnessed his awful death

with no assurance of resurrection.

In life, and in death,

Jesus had to deal with a certain number

of gawkers and gossipers –

those who felt they had more to lose in what he offered

than they could ever stand to gain.

And as you know,

in every life there’s no shortage of those who gawk and gossip.

Far smaller is the number of those

who watch and witness and wait,

who testify even to the most awful truth

with their presence.

Those who didn’t know who Jesus was,

in any sense of it,

went home talking about the awful death they had seen happen

before setting the awfulness aside as fast as they could

and waiting for the next awful, gossip-worthy event

to come along.

But all his acquaintances,

including the women who had followed him from Galilee,

stood at a distance, watching these things.