It has been so hard to have words to speak about the Orlando massacre. Sunday morning I did not see the news. I got up, got ready and did my Sunday morning routine. I didn't know what had happened until after the worship service when people were already leaving.
My daughter came and said "mommy, you didn't see this this morning?" Questioning my lack of acknowledgement and showing me her news feed...My immediate response was heartbreak and tears. All I had seen in that moment were brief facts - 50 dead, Orlando gay bar, largest mass shooting in US history. I grabbed a microphone. (It took a bit to get it back on, as our sound people were already shutting down.) I was shaking and in tears, but I called my people back to the center, gathered in a circle and I led my church to pray...feeling helpless and absolutely crushed. Prayers of repentance for the hatred humanity harbors for one another, for the horrible things that we do to one another. A prayer of lament. A prayer for people we never met and will never be able to. A prayer for families and friends of those in Orlando. Prayer that seemed to be completely inadequate.
In Matthew 22, Jesus the Messiah delivers the great commandment to his followers, which echoes the commandments given to the Jewish people in Deuteronomy in Leviticus: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."
Speaking not just to Christians, but to all of humanity, hear me when I say: if we get no other commandment right, we will have done well just to complete these two. If we fail at everything else in life, but we love one another, we have succeeded.
The LGBTQ Community is made up of our neighbors. They are our brothers, our sisters, our cousins, our aunts, uncles, mothers and/or fathers. They are human beings created in the very image of God and worthy of dignity and respect.
How we, as followers of Christ respond in tragedies... How we respond as followers of Christ in every moment of every day must be in love. I struggle to find words to adequately communicate what is going on inside my heart. My heart has been crying since I heard. It has been hard to fight back tears every single moment. I have had the urge to just hug random strangers (I haven't). I have been more kind. I have been slower to speak, acknowledging God in every face I have seen, pausing to see the unseen, and seeking ways to love others, because prayer, although powerful and needed, doesn't seem enough.
We are called to break the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free. These things inherently make us uncomfortable because they make us lay down our own expectations, our own rights, our own freedom, our own lives, so that others might have freedom. I believe that in times like this we must find a faithful path in the words of Paul in Romans 9 when he says, "I would wish myself cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people." Basically, I would go to hell if it means that one person might know the love of my God through me.
No comments:
Post a Comment