A pilgrimage is a journey made to some sacred place as an act of spiritual devotion. This Lent, our sacred destination is the Empty Tomb on Easter. But I like to believe that the journey IS the destination.
Last Wednesday (Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day) changed my thinking about Lent. On Wednesday we again experienced a horrific mass shooting in our country. This time it was in Parkland, Fla.: 14 high schoolers and three teachers dead. The gunman, a 19-year-old former student, took an AR-15, a semiautomatic weapon, and gunned down his classmates.
Horrible, tragic, and senseless. It is every parent’s nightmare. It is every grandparent’s nightmare. And now, of course, kids across this country are anxious and fearful that next week or one day in the not-so-distant future their school will be the target.
Who can blame them after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown, and 10 other school shootings in this century where at least five students have been shot and killed? I am just talking about school shootings, not Orlando, Charleston, Las Vegas, or the Texas church shooting last fall where 26 worshipers were killed.
Since Wednesday, several people have expressed to me not only their sadness but also their mounting frustration that we in this country cannot or will not do the necessary things to stop this madness. They want to know what they can do. So do I.
I have lots of questions about why we can buy semiautomatic weapons in this country, or where mental health comes into the discussion or where the line is drawn between our individual rights and what is best and right for our country’s health and well-being.
So during Lent, my pilgrimage will include praying about gun violence in our country. I will pray for these latest families who have lost their beloved children and for the families of the three teachers who lost their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons.
I will pray for the people who are trying to make a difference, who are seeking solutions that will find a way around people, institutions and organizations who, for whatever reason, are not helping us solve this heinous, destructive problem.
I will pray that good people can find a way and that a way will become obvious to those of us who believe this must stop.
My pilgrimage will include learning. During Lent I will be reading position papers, studies, and statements from churches and theologians on guns and gun violence; and I will seek biblical studies that focus on this issue. Because for me, as a Christian, and as a pastor, your pastor, I don’t really care about opinions or about the politics. What I care about is what it means to be a Christian in this debate and what my faith, our faith, would lead us to think and do. What would Jesus do?
I don’t know where this will lead or where I might come out. But the words of Martin Luther King are my great reminder: “For evil to succeed, all it needs is for good people to do nothing.”
I invite you to join me.
Last Wednesday (Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day) changed my thinking about Lent. On Wednesday we again experienced a horrific mass shooting in our country. This time it was in Parkland, Fla.: 14 high schoolers and three teachers dead. The gunman, a 19-year-old former student, took an AR-15, a semiautomatic weapon, and gunned down his classmates.
Horrible, tragic, and senseless. It is every parent’s nightmare. It is every grandparent’s nightmare. And now, of course, kids across this country are anxious and fearful that next week or one day in the not-so-distant future their school will be the target.
Who can blame them after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown, and 10 other school shootings in this century where at least five students have been shot and killed? I am just talking about school shootings, not Orlando, Charleston, Las Vegas, or the Texas church shooting last fall where 26 worshipers were killed.
Since Wednesday, several people have expressed to me not only their sadness but also their mounting frustration that we in this country cannot or will not do the necessary things to stop this madness. They want to know what they can do. So do I.
I have lots of questions about why we can buy semiautomatic weapons in this country, or where mental health comes into the discussion or where the line is drawn between our individual rights and what is best and right for our country’s health and well-being.
So during Lent, my pilgrimage will include praying about gun violence in our country. I will pray for these latest families who have lost their beloved children and for the families of the three teachers who lost their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons.
I will pray for the people who are trying to make a difference, who are seeking solutions that will find a way around people, institutions and organizations who, for whatever reason, are not helping us solve this heinous, destructive problem.
I will pray that good people can find a way and that a way will become obvious to those of us who believe this must stop.
My pilgrimage will include learning. During Lent I will be reading position papers, studies, and statements from churches and theologians on guns and gun violence; and I will seek biblical studies that focus on this issue. Because for me, as a Christian, and as a pastor, your pastor, I don’t really care about opinions or about the politics. What I care about is what it means to be a Christian in this debate and what my faith, our faith, would lead us to think and do. What would Jesus do?
I don’t know where this will lead or where I might come out. But the words of Martin Luther King are my great reminder: “For evil to succeed, all it needs is for good people to do nothing.”
I invite you to join me.
