Pastor Response to Texas School Shooting

No! No! No! This is not God’s dream for God’s children! I keep waiting for the world to fix itself, but we are just too hurt, too broken. And broken people do inexplicable things. But we cannot continue this way. It is not enough to know that 19 children and 2 adults are held in God’s tight embrace. It is not enough to trust that God aches beyond even our hurt for these children, for this world so far from anything resembling oneness.

Jesus’ deepest longing was that we might be one… completely one. Before our hurt turns to anger, before we decide what camp we are going align ourselves in our helplessness, hear Jesus pleading to God, having been through death, hands raised still bearing his mortal wounds, “that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one.” I have to believe Jesus prayed this prayer not just because (as we can so painfully see) it is desperately needed, and not just because it is the essence of God’s dream for us, but because in God, it is actually possible.

And it is not enough just to pray to the God whose prayer for us is so clear. We need to change! We need to refuse to accept this as our best effort at this thing called life. Yes, this is about mental health (especially amongst our young people). Yes, this is about the need for conversations (not fights) about gun control. Yes, this is about honest conversation about our role as parents, and our role as invested communities. Yes, this is about a world more drawn to contempt and polarization than understanding, grace, and reconciliation.

And yes, prayer is important, but I don’t think we can just ask God to take care of it. I believe we need to pray the same prayer that Jesus prayed for us. We need to pray for oneness, and we need to pray for the strength, the humility, the understanding, the conviction, and the love to take a step forward, and then another.

We place our hope in a God that brought healing on the other side of unthinkable suffering and death. We place our hope in a God that places hope in us.

God’s Peace,

Ben+

I know these weighs so heavily on already weighed down hearts. Please know I am available and the church is open to pray and to help us walk closer together.

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