During one of the recent forecasts for strong storms to move through our area, I downloaded the app of an Atlanta news channel to my phone. I was afraid the power would go out at our home or the satellite tv would be disrupted due to the weather. At least with the app running, I could better keep up with the storm’s path to make sure my family was safe. Notifications have been left in the “on” position for this particular app, unlike most on my phone. Initially, I did not realize this would mean every headline news story would vibrate my phone causing me to look down. My hope was to simply keep up with the weather. Instead, I have been made aware of every mass shooting that has made the news this year.
This morning (March 28, 2023), by the time I had poured my first cup of coffee in my church office, already, another shooting had occurred in our country. This, on the heels of yesterday’s mass shooting in Nashville, TN, at the Covenant School, a private elementary school, which killed 6 people, 3 of which were children under the age of 10.
Research this morning told me that as a country we have long surpassed the century mark of mass shootings in 2023. In fact, we reached this mark two weeks faster than we did last year. We are not even through the month of March and already there have been 130 mass shootings according to Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group which tracks gun violence. Though there is much debate about what exactly constitutes a mass shooting, the nonprofit defines it as one where at least 4 people were killed or injured (www.gunviolencearchive.org).
Where is this abundance amid mass shootings and why are we who proclaim Christ so complicit in allowing these mass shootings to continue to happen?
I write this morning as a pastor, but maybe more so as a concerned father who dropped two of my daughters off at school wondering if/when our community would be next on the list. Would today be the day I join the countless number of grieving parents in our nation who never expected the worst to happen to them?
The pastor in me leans into the scriptures, particularly looking at the person of Jesus who we proclaim boldly as the Prince of Peace. The gospel writer John declared Christ to be the light of the world, the light that was the life of all people. The light that shines into the darkness. Later, John would quote Christ who said he came to give life and give it in abundance. Where is this abundance amid mass shootings and why are we who proclaim Christ so complicit in allowing these mass shootings to continue to happen?
Scripture also paints a vision for God’s people of God’s intentions for humankind. The prophet of Isaiah, maybe most notably, writes:
“for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth” (Is. 65:18-20).
Again, God’s desire for God’s people is life. What is the value, then, that we have come to give life; life that has been created, not by us, but by God, life that has been promised abundance through Christ, and even life that is offered peace by Christ’s reconciliatory act of dying on the cross.
Our propensity towards violence as a nation point to the much larger issue of our propensity to devalue and dehumanize life. Sin has led us to despise and even hate that which is different from us. As people of faith, might it be time we reclaim the value of life and especially the abundant life of Christ and begin living into the more heavenly vision of peace? Might it be time we as Christians live into our calling to help usher in God’s Kingdom through our actions of daily living.
Paul reminds us in his letter to the Philippians that we are to “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than [ourselves].” He continues by command us to look not at our own interests, but “to the interests of others.” Paul drives his point across by very directly saying, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (2:3-5). Nowhere does Paul or Jesus or anyone in scripture call us to devalue or dehumanize another life–regardless of their political views, ideologies, race, ethnicity, preferred gender, religion, etc. Certainly, nowhere in scripture are we called to take that life. Our faith calls us to proclaim life and with it, abundance.
I know God must be grieving the loss of more innocent lives this morning. I know I sure am.
My prayer today is that my phone will become silent. My prayer is that our community will not be the next on the ever-growing list of mass shootings of 2023 (or ever). Finally, my prayer is that our community will value all life and that we will continually seek abundance for each other. May it be so.
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The Rev. Andy Chambers is the pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Cornelia. He is married to Neile Bruce Chambers, a native Cornelian, and they are the proud parents of 4 daughters. His interests include baseball, college football, woodworking, and anything that has to do with the beach. Currently, he is a Doctor of Educational Ministries (DEdMin) student at Columbia Theological Seminary where he hopes to graduate at the end of this year.
