“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more” (Matthew 2:18).
A grocery store.
A church.
An elementary school.
Buffalo. Laguna Woods. Uvalde.
When I was a little boy, I was told about “safe spaces.” These were places you could go if you were lost or in trouble. The people there would help you. If you added “fire station” to the above list, you’d have just about every space I was told would be a refuge.
In the span of just 10 days, all these supposed safe spaces have been drowned in tears and blood and screams and gunfire. They’ve been exposed as not being safe at all in the presence of assault rifles.
Tell me, beloved, where should I tell my children to go?
We aren’t meant to bury our babies.
I’ve been told that having a heart broken over and over makes it nimble and compassionate, but maybe having a heart broken over and over makes it numb. Or calloused. Or ineffective.
We must do something.
It’s beyond terrifying and sad that these incidents happen so frequently that denominations, including our own, have had to include a “gun violence litany” in our worship resources. The litany is powerful, expressing pain and sorrow. It’s one of those tools you hope you never have to use.
But we’ve had to haul it out three times in the past 10 days — including just last night, to stand with parents who wouldn’t be tucking their babies into bed because we can’t seem to find a way to come together to pry these weapons of mass destruction out of hands that harm or close the stores that profit off them or shut down the gun lobbyists who care more about their bottom lines than the souls who stare down the barrels.
The issue is complex, but for the life of me — for the lives of those babies, teachers, churchgoers and daily-bread shoppers — I can’t understand how something can be so complex that it paralyzes the halls of power.
The ELCA’s “60-day journey toward justice” provides an excellent path for communities of faith to walk with one another, exploring ways to grieve, advocate and live into Christ’s call to be peacemakers. I commend it to you and your community to use together.
We must do something.
In the second chapter of Matthew, we find the matriarch of the faith, Rachel, weeping over the slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem, having been sacrificed on the altar of political power and fear.
I can’t help but think that Rachel wept again last night, joining her tears with ours and joining her voice with the anguished cries coming from Uvalde.
But if crying and prayers alone worked, we wouldn’t be here again. We must cry and pray with our shoes on, ready to do the next best thing, as hard as it may be.
