Jeremiah 31:15-17
Thus says the Lord:
A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.
Thus says the Lord:
Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears;
for there is a reward for your work,
says the Lord:
they shall come back from the land of the enemy;
there is hope for your future,
says the Lord:
your children shall come back to their own country.
My facebook interchanges this week have – as you might expect among a community of clergy types – been awash with grief, discussion, stories and prayers for the horrific killings at Mother Emmanuel AMC church in South Carolina.
I am a white woman living, at this time, in a largely white part of the world. I do not presume to speak as anyone who has ever experienced purely racially motivated hatred, but I can speak of irrational hatred in general and the violence that is too often the only answer of those twisted by such hatreds.
All acts of violence and hatred are horrible – wherever they happen – but I think we instinctively recoil even more strongly at the idea of such violence happening in a place of worship. Whether it has been true in reality or not, at least in our minds, churches and holy places have traditionally been places of sanctuary – places we can be in contact with another world beyond this one we live in everyday.
Unfortunately hatred does not recognize holiness, either in places or in people, and some of the worst scenes of irrational ugliness have taken place in houses of worship. In the 1990's, during the Rwandan genocide, thousand of native people were herded into churches, where they were told they would find sanctuary, and then systematically hacked to death with machetes. Sitting here safely on the other side of the world, my soul still carries scars just from reading of those hideous events.
But there is in reality no “safely here on the other side of the world,” because we too are capable of slaughtering innocent people at prayer in a place they thought of as safe. Here is a handful of examples I’ve culled from various news stories and blogs - all (except perhaps one) acts of violence for no reason other than racial hatred - the sickening belief of too many that any race but their own is sub-human and worthy of nothing but death:
I am a white woman living, at this time, in a largely white part of the world. I do not presume to speak as anyone who has ever experienced purely racially motivated hatred, but I can speak of irrational hatred in general and the violence that is too often the only answer of those twisted by such hatreds.
All acts of violence and hatred are horrible – wherever they happen – but I think we instinctively recoil even more strongly at the idea of such violence happening in a place of worship. Whether it has been true in reality or not, at least in our minds, churches and holy places have traditionally been places of sanctuary – places we can be in contact with another world beyond this one we live in everyday.
Unfortunately hatred does not recognize holiness, either in places or in people, and some of the worst scenes of irrational ugliness have taken place in houses of worship. In the 1990's, during the Rwandan genocide, thousand of native people were herded into churches, where they were told they would find sanctuary, and then systematically hacked to death with machetes. Sitting here safely on the other side of the world, my soul still carries scars just from reading of those hideous events.
But there is in reality no “safely here on the other side of the world,” because we too are capable of slaughtering innocent people at prayer in a place they thought of as safe. Here is a handful of examples I’ve culled from various news stories and blogs - all (except perhaps one) acts of violence for no reason other than racial hatred - the sickening belief of too many that any race but their own is sub-human and worthy of nothing but death:
• In April 2014, a gunman opened fire at a Jewish community center and a Jewish assisted living facility in a Kansas City suburb, killing three, including a 14-year-old boy.
• In August 2012, an attacker entered a kitchen at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in suburban Milwaukee before Sunday services and began shooting. He killed three people inside the house of worship and three people outside.
• In July 2008, a man walked into a children's musical performance at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, pulled out a shotgun and began shooting. Two people died and seven were wounded. The attacker stated that the church's "liberal teachings" had compelled him to kill. This one is the only one where race doesn’t appear to be an overt factor - but, a children’s musical?
• In December 2007, a man shot up the Youth With A Mission training center in Arvada, Colorado, killing two people. He then killed two more at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where Youth With A Mission kept an office.
• In August 2007, a man attacked a Micronesian community of the First Congregational Church (didn’t get what town) with bullets. Three people died and five were wounded.
• In July 2006, a man barged through the security entrance of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and shot six women, killing one.
• And, of course, there is the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, where four young girls were killed in a bomb attack in 1963.
The sadest thread with these murders is that the killers seem to prefer the defenseless - the elderly, children, people at prayer.
This week’s slaughter was clearly racially motivated - a racism stoked by fear and by unchecked ignorance – but we as a nation have been increasingly showing ourselves to be less and less tolerant of anyone remotely different from our sacred selves -- in race, in politics, in religion. And the time has come – the time is in truth long past when we have to stop pretending that it is all someone else’s problem - “if only they would shape up and change everything would be just fine” - and acknowledge that we are all in this together. There is no longer room for anyone to sit on the sidelines and think it is other people’s problem to deal with.
We are ALL God’s children - whether we are white or black, Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Sikh; whether we are religious or non-religious; Americans or Iranians or Chinese or Sengalese – EVERY person on the earth is a beloved child of God and we had better start seeing them that way.
We have to look – really look – honestly – inside ourselves and face our own ambiguous feelings. We have to check our own behaviors - do we speak up when someone makes a racist or homophobic joke or do we just let it slide? Do we ever, even in our innermost thoughts classify some people – any people – as “those people”?
We have to pay attention to what is done by cities and states and our nation “in our name.” Cities are increasingly passing laws to make it almost impossible to be poor and homeless and remain there. What would we do if that happened here? One of the fastest growing "industries" in our country right now is privately owned and run prisons -- run for profit and increasingly filled with people who do not deserve to in prison with long sentences just to make someone, somewhere a profit. And we allow this.
Our courts are increasingly used to bar certain groups of people from their basic rights as citizens -- all while the perpetrators of these new "laws" chant "I am not a bigot/ racist/whatever." And we allow this, too.
And God alone really knows what is done in the name of our “national security.” Drone strikes murder women and children on the other side of the world - but it's deemed OK because they are not our women and children. Clear back in 1980, in El Salvador, when Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down while standing at the communion table, he was murdered by paramilitary supported and trained by our US government. There is no real reason to assume that we have stopped this kind of violent meddling in the affairs of other countries. And we allow this.
If we are going to call ourselves Christians, we have got begin being personally responsible for the world we have helped create. Do I have a magic answer, no, there is no one magic answer, although one important piece is to stop standing off to the side, shaking our heads, but saying and doing nothing. One piece is to stop tolerating intolerance. It IS our job to speak out against hatred. It IS our job to speak out against ignorance being allowed to run unchecked.
This is what we – as Christians, as basic decent human beings – are called to do. We are called to make a difference – and the only way to get there from here requires lots of hard work and real caring – and prayer – lots and lots of prayer.
This week’s slaughter was clearly racially motivated - a racism stoked by fear and by unchecked ignorance – but we as a nation have been increasingly showing ourselves to be less and less tolerant of anyone remotely different from our sacred selves -- in race, in politics, in religion. And the time has come – the time is in truth long past when we have to stop pretending that it is all someone else’s problem - “if only they would shape up and change everything would be just fine” - and acknowledge that we are all in this together. There is no longer room for anyone to sit on the sidelines and think it is other people’s problem to deal with.
We are ALL God’s children - whether we are white or black, Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Sikh; whether we are religious or non-religious; Americans or Iranians or Chinese or Sengalese – EVERY person on the earth is a beloved child of God and we had better start seeing them that way.
We have to look – really look – honestly – inside ourselves and face our own ambiguous feelings. We have to check our own behaviors - do we speak up when someone makes a racist or homophobic joke or do we just let it slide? Do we ever, even in our innermost thoughts classify some people – any people – as “those people”?
We have to pay attention to what is done by cities and states and our nation “in our name.” Cities are increasingly passing laws to make it almost impossible to be poor and homeless and remain there. What would we do if that happened here? One of the fastest growing "industries" in our country right now is privately owned and run prisons -- run for profit and increasingly filled with people who do not deserve to in prison with long sentences just to make someone, somewhere a profit. And we allow this.
Our courts are increasingly used to bar certain groups of people from their basic rights as citizens -- all while the perpetrators of these new "laws" chant "I am not a bigot/ racist/whatever." And we allow this, too.
And God alone really knows what is done in the name of our “national security.” Drone strikes murder women and children on the other side of the world - but it's deemed OK because they are not our women and children. Clear back in 1980, in El Salvador, when Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down while standing at the communion table, he was murdered by paramilitary supported and trained by our US government. There is no real reason to assume that we have stopped this kind of violent meddling in the affairs of other countries. And we allow this.
If we are going to call ourselves Christians, we have got begin being personally responsible for the world we have helped create. Do I have a magic answer, no, there is no one magic answer, although one important piece is to stop standing off to the side, shaking our heads, but saying and doing nothing. One piece is to stop tolerating intolerance. It IS our job to speak out against hatred. It IS our job to speak out against ignorance being allowed to run unchecked.
This is what we – as Christians, as basic decent human beings – are called to do. We are called to make a difference – and the only way to get there from here requires lots of hard work and real caring – and prayer – lots and lots of prayer.
RSS Feed