Healing our Culture

            How do we begin to heal this culture of ours?  The horrible tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina can’t leave my mind.  The callousness of it stuns me.  A young white man walks into a historic black church, sits down for an hour next to the pastor of the church listening to the people as they speak in their bible study meeting.  After an hour, he says simply, “I have to kill some black people,” takes out his gun and shoots nine people dead, including several of the clergy who were present including the revered pastor of the church.  Immediately, there were voices of lament not only from the church involved, but from the community of Charleston and indeed from the whole nation.  The president said several times what a tragedy this has been and pointed to the constant presence of guns in our midst as one of the prime causes.

            It didn’t take long for other voices to come forth and to subtly suggest that the presence of the confederate flag on the pole in front of the state capitol was also a primary problem.  The focus shifted toward that direction with many people calling for the banning of the flying of the confederate flag in this country.  It is amazing to me how the gun manufacturing industry and their intense lobbyists are so adept at pointing fingers in other directions than their own as the cause of such brutality.  This week, the governor of South Carolina said that steps would be taken to remove the confederate flag from the pole in front of the capitol. The result of all of this is easily predictable.  We will lament the deaths of those dear people in Charleston for a time and then forget about it, just as we have forgotten about the kids at Sandy Hook and the people in the theater in Colorado and the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford in Arizona.  In each of those instances, the over-supply of guns in our culture was pointed at as the main reason that these tragedies occurred, but that got shoved aside as time went on and we all got on with our lives.

            It is quite apparent that we have no power to change much of anything.  I would call for the repeal of the Second Amendment, but that would only bring the wrath of the National Rifle Association down on my head.  Their minions would tear me apart and prove that I had no right to speak in any regard about this subject.  Congress is certainly in no position to do anything at all to solve this crisis.  They can’t agree on much of anything these days.

            I was impressed by the gospel last week that told us about Jesus being asleep in the stern of the boat with his disciples while they were being battered by the winds and the waves in the middle of the lake.  They woke him and asked him if he didn’t care if they were perishing.  He asked them, “Where is your faith?”  He then quieted the winds and they were all saved. The apostles were amazed.

            This week, the gospel is about Jesus healing the daughter of Jairus and the woman who had had a lifetime of hemorrhages.  Both of these healings are portrayed as miracles.  I like to look at them as God’s constant presence in the middle of our turmoil.  Whether it is the storm of illness or the battering of the gun culture, God is present with us to do what we ourselves have no power to get done.  What Jesus does with Jairus’ daughter is to give her back her life when everyone around her said that she was dead.  He simply told her to get up, and to prove the point, he told her parents to give her something to eat.

            That is what we would like to do with what is happening in our culture.  We can’t bring back the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, or any of the other eight precious people who were killed with him by Dylann Roof, but we can begin to address the reality of what is going on around us.  The critical issue is that we are the only nation on earth where tragedies like this are occurring.  Yes, there are occasional stories of killings in other countries, but not on the scale of what is happening in the United States. 

            It is essential that we not soon forget what has happened.  We need to radically pressure our congress and our representatives to take seriously the over presence of guns in this culture and do something about it.  Nobody wants to limit legitimate hunting.  Nobody wants to take guns away from people who need them for legal recreational activity; but we certainly need to put limits on how guns are bought and sold on our streets and how they fall so easily into the hands of people who want to use them for crime.  Gos is with us in this struggle.  healing a sick culture is as necessary as raising Jairus' daughter.  If we really want to follow our Lord Jesus, we need to get on with the cure and make sure that our politicians understand what is really going on.  God will bless whatever we do.