Roseburg, Oregon Aftermath -- What Is Our Response?

Another day, another random shooting in the American heartland.  Today at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, another disenchanted young man took his own life, killed at least 10 others, and wounded at least 20 others.  When will enough be enough?  

 

I am not talking about the debate on gun control that will no doubt have all of the talking heads screaming at each other passionately.  We have seen that the real issue isn’t guns.  

 

While we have seen a number mass murders where guns were the instrument used, we have learned that to a killer, anything is an instrument to kill.  We learned that in 1995 when a young man named Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  We saw it with the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, who murdered three people and injured 23 others between 1978 and 1995, using simply made pipe bombs mailed to his intended victims.  We saw it on September 11, 2001 when three groups of terrorists killed over 3,000 people by crashing high-jacked airliners into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.  We saw it when the Tsarnaev brothers detonated two crockpot bombs during the Boston Marathon killing 3 people and wounding over 200 others.  We see it in Israel where automobiles have become the murder weapon of the day.  

 

We can argue about gun control all we want, but I want to look past that.  Doing so is like two doctors staring at a patient having a heart attack, and arguing on whether we should give him an Aspirin or a Tylenol to treat the left arm pain.  Sure, we can treat the symptom, but we are ignoring the root cause diagnosis at our peril.  

 

This isn’t a gun problem.  Statistics show that fatalities due to guns are zero percent.  Guns wielded by a person with the intent to kill or harm another person, well that’s another matter…  It’s the person behind the gun we have to address.  

 

Legislation can’t fix this.  Congress and the various State Legislatures can’t pass laws to change people’s hearts.  This is a spiritual problem.  Until we start to address the spiritual issues at the heart of America, we are only putting a band-aid on a mortal wound.  

 

I can’t begin to understand why this man did this.  Maybe he was mentally ill.  It is clear that many of the incidents in the recent past have been perpetrated by those who are mentally ill.  But that doesn’t address the multitude of other murders that happen every day that aren’t claiming the lead news spot on CNN or Fox News.  

 

This may not even ultimately be attributable to the actual murderer in this case, but the following quote was taken from CNN just moments ago.  It discusses a thread from a social network site thought to have been posted by the killer:

 

“According to the source close to the investigation, authorities are looking at social media posts between a person they believe may have been the shooter, and others.

 

In it, the writer talks about planning to carry out a shooting. Others egg him on, giving him suggestions on how to do it, and the type of weapons to use.

 

The responses are mixed -- with some users characterizing the would-be gunman as a pathetic loser. Others called him a twisted hero.

 

In the posts, there is a reference to the UC Santa Barbara shooter, who wrote a manifesto and videoed himself before opening fire a year ago.

 

‘This is the only time I'll ever be in the news. I'm so insignificant,’ reads an apparent post by the would-be Oregon gunman.”

 

I don’t know what is sadder, the statement that the person feels so insignificant that this is the only time he can ever be noticed, or the reaction of those who are reading his cries for help.  How could our hearts possibly be so calloused? 

 

I have to think that this person didn’t get this way overnight.  This is a person who over the course of years has lost all hope.  This is a person who people like you and I have walked past every day not noticing the hurt this person is experiencing, or worse yet, purposely ignoring it because it is uncomfortable.  In some cases people have obviously gone out of their way to inflict greater harm.  We have failed.  

 

One time as I was talking to my pastor, he pointed me to a Bible verse that I think is appropriate here.  “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”  - 1 Peter 3:15.  

 

I understand this may be preachy.  But that doesn’t change the fact that this needs to be said.  Here is the hope that I have:

 

I believe in God.  I believe in an almighty God who out of love spoke the world into existence.  This God created a universe of incalculable beauty and grandeur.  This same God spoke and life was created in all of its forms:  plants, and birds, and fish, and animals.  This same God then made man, and gave him meaningful labor and a partner to labor with.  

 

He formed us in the womb and knows each of us by name.  He has numbered the hairs on our heads, and knows all of the days of our lives even before one of them comes to be.  

 

This God gave man freedom.  He gave him freedom to choose to follow him and choose life; or to disobey God and set himself up in God’s place and choose death.  Man chose wrong and since we have struggled with sin and death, each of us.  

 

Each of us, through our own sin, have added to the terrible price we all owe.  We have all done things we should not have done, and failed to do things that we should have done.  We have said things to hurt and destroy, and failed to say things to build one another up.  We have harbored evil thoughts in our hearts that burst out in our words and actions, or prevent us from using those words and actions to help others.  The result is the world we see now.  

 

But God, in his love, didn’t leave it that way.  He sent his Son to teach us, guide us, and set an example of selfless love.  And then, when it was said and done, he paid the full price of our sin for every single one of us.  Then after paying that price he rose from the dead declaring that we have been redeemed, bought, rescued from the power of sin and death in our lives.  

 

This same God promised to send us the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us, to shape us, teach us to follow him, and share that hope with others.  We have been blessed to be agents of redemption in this world.  

 

That is the hope that I bear.  

 

The God who formed the universe, who knows all of our days, who sees and knows all of our sin, was willing to bear the price for that sin, and then dwell within us.  If we know this, if we truly know this, then how can any person be insignificant?  

 

How can we, if we know this, truly know this, walk by the people in our lives and let them believe that they are insignificant?  

 

Maybe it’s time we take a few moments from the legislative debate that is no doubt to be raised and start weighing in on the spiritual work that we have in front of us.  Maybe it’s time we follow the only two laws that ever brought life into this world:

 

1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  

 

2. Love your neighbor as yourself.  

 

 

But it all starts with knowing God and practicing the first.  Because if we can’t get that right, then we won’t truly recognize the others around us as significant.  

The Hike: A Parable of Faith

Yesterday I took the kids to Sedona to go for a picnic lunch and a hike.  I love heading up there.  The natural beauty of the place, the peace and quiet, and the time outdoors with the kids is kind of a spiritual recharge for me.  

We must have timed it badly though because as soon as we got there and set up to have lunch, a squall line of thunderstorms started passing through the area.  

We weren't discouraged though.  We had our picnic in the car and waited for the lead edge of the storm to blow through.  When the weather calmed we decided to take our hike.  

The kids were eager to hike, but they were nervous.  Storms were still moving through the area around us, but they were headed north of us.  I took stock of the weather and decided we had already seen the worst of it, so we started our hike. 

The hike was gorgeous.  We followed a trail that runs along Oak Creek and skirts around Cathedral Rock.  

The kids and I had the best time criss-crossing the creek, hiking through the woods and meadows up to a ridge overlooking the whole valley around cathedral rock.  

But periodically the kids would alternate between delight and wonder, and fear and doubt.  

"Daddy, I think we should head back, the clouds are scary," Katie would say.  "Daddy there's thunder."  

"Dad, we should turn around, we are going to get lost," Patrick would say.  

And periodically, I would reassure them.  "Those storms are headed away from us, the thunder is getting farther apart.  Daddy knows the way, the creek and the trail we followed are right down there.  Trust daddy, I know what I'm doing, I won't let anything bad happen to you.  Come with me, I've got something cool to show you."  

As we were progressing through our hike I couldn't help but think of all the storms I have been through in my life the last several years.  Seeing my marriage crumble, fearing the loss of my kids, the loss of my job.  Sometimes I cried out to God, why is this happening and when will it stop?

But just as I held my children's hands yesterday and led them along the path, God guided me through those trials.  

You see, my kids haven't spent years navigating through the woods or reading the conditions to figure out what the weather will do, so they were scared.  But I have.  I told them to trust me and see the beautiful things I wanted to show them. 

And now, I have seen God rebuild my life and shape me into a new person.  I guess I don't always need to know where the path is leading.  I just need to know that the guide loves me and knows what he's doing.  "Follow me son, I want to show you something beautiful."

"[1] The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. [2] He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, [3] he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake. 

[4] Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 

[5] You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. [6] 6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."  Psalm 23

 

Watered Down Gospel

I am troubled by Christianity in America today.  I am troubled by a faith that has been reduced to a self-help movement.  I am troubled by the fact that we have reduced the God who created the Universe to a subservient fairy godmother whose role seems to be to grant wishes for success or improve someone's self image. 

Don't get me wrong.  I believe that God delights in answering the prayers of his people.  But I believe the prayers we need to pray, and the ones he grants, are the prayers where we ask his help to know and do his will.  

I believe in a God who offers grace to all who come to him, regardless of what we have done.  But that isn't a call to celebrate in sin and remain who we were before we were saved.  

I am troubled by a faith that preaches that Jesus is "Love" but ignores the presence of sin.  It is this sin that caused him to come and demonstrate his love by being crucified in my place.  

I've been going to church my whole life.  I have heard hundreds if not thousands of sermons over the years about Jesus and his love for us.  But I can probably count on one hand the number of sermons I have heard about sin in the last several years.  I have heard thousands of sermons on grace, but I can't remember the last time one of those called me to repent.  

I am troubled because all of these sermons about love and grace yet devoid of sin and repentance offer a watered down version of Jesus.  I am troubled because in a world riddled with people who need to know God we are offering less than half of the Gospel, and we are losing souls who might otherwise be saved.  

You see, I believe in a God who created us and loves us.  But he doesn't love us the Barney the Purple Dinosaur, "I love you, you love me," kind of way.  I believe in a God, who like a parent who is concerned for the future of a child, loves us enough to put down boundaries and rules for our good and disciplines us to protect us.  Anyone can give a child whatever they want just to shut them up. That's not love.  A true parent teaches and trains.  A true parent says no and isn't afraid to spank when it's called for, but then wipes away the tears and offers a hug.  And so it is with God and us. 

I believe in a God who told us that the wages of sin is death.  This isn't a punishment, but a warning.  He is grieved by sin.  

I believe in a God that was so grieved by sin and the death that sin brings that he came to us and faced it head on.  He was tempted by it, he suffered because of it.  He was crucified and bore the penalty and death that sin brings so that we wouldn't have to.  And then he was raised from death and declared his victory over sin and the death that it brings.  

He is the God who calls us to believe in him.  But believing isn't passive. Believing in Jesus is first and foremost a call to look in the mirror at the ugly truth, that I am a sinner.  That even my good works are but filthy rags because they are tainted by my sinful nature.  Believing in Jesus is a call to look at my life and repent.  

Neither am I saying that I am all of a sudden a new person who is righteous on my own. I'm not.  I'm the same sinner that I was.  But now I can stand before God, knowing who I truly am, and fall on my face before him and ask for his grace and mercy.  I understand that sin matters.  That what I do in this world matters and I need God's grace and mercy and love to pay the debt that I owe because of my sin.  

That's why Christianity in America today bothers me.  Ignoring the specter of sin makes God's grace cheap and worthless. It doesn't transform us the way a costly grace does.  

I said before that the call to believe isn't passive.  The call to believe is simultaneously a call to follow Jesus.  Jesus was a rabbi, when he called his disciples to "Come Follow Me" he was telling them to come, do what I do, and learn to be what I am.  

I know that I'm tainted by sin.  I know I can't be like Jesus.  But with the grace of God I will never stop trying to follow.  That too is a call to repent.  

It's time we stop trying to reduce the Gospel to the complexity of a bumper sticker or a slogan.  It's time we stop watering down the Gospel.  It's time we start looking at the whole Gospel.  

My prayer today is that we will each of us remember the reason Jesus came to us and the cost he paid for our sin.  

John 3:16-21 NIV

[16] For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. [18] Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. [19] This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. [20] Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. [21] 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. …

The Draft Pick

Like many Americans, I am a fan of collegiate and professional football.  So this time of year, I find myself drawn to follow the results of the NFL draft.  

 

As a fan, it is exciting.  We are all asking ourselves, “Will my team pick the right combination of talent that will propel them to the a championship or at least a playoff berth?  Will the college players I came to love get the chance to play on Sunday?” 

 

From the player’s standpoint, it’s much more personal.  Each year several hundred college athletes from around the country go through a series of combines designed to allow scouts from professional football teams to evaluate their athletic ability and understanding of the game.  They may schedule private workouts with teams, attend interviews, and watch film with pro scouts.  Then those same players wait for a phone call, hoping against hope that one of those teams will select them to become a professional football player. 

 

For an elite few, a lifelong dream will come true.  

 

For many others though, there won’t be a call, just silence and then the realization that they were passed over.  I can only imagine the immense feeling of disappointment in those players.  

 

I think most of us can understand the feeling of disappointment to some extent or another.  We all know what it’s like to not be good enough, or to have just missed out on something.  We all know what loss is.  We know what it is to miss the call that could change our lives.  

 

The story of the call of the disciples, and particularly of Matthew reminds me of the draft.  

 

Peter and Andrew, James and John, were lowly fisherman.  Perhaps at one time they might have had the opportunity to apply to become the disciples of a Pharisaic rabbi, which at the time was kind of the equivalent of being a university professor, pastor, and lawyer all in one.  But that opportunity passed them by.  They weren’t smart enough, they didn’t have the talent , they didn’t have the right pedigree, or maybe they just weren’t very good guys.  For whatever reason, the call passed them by.  

 

Matthew’s life was perhaps even more disappointing.  Just like Peter and Andrew, James and John, the call had passed Matthew by.  But Matthew sank even further.  Matthew became a tax collector.  To the Jews in First Century Judea, tax collectors were the lowest of the low.  They were collaborators with a foreign occupier.  They took the hard earned money of their fellow Jews to send on to a Roman government that suppressed them.  On top of that, tax collectors didn’t draw a salary.  In order to make a living they were expected to fleece their fellow Jews in order to make a commission from the taxes owed to Caesar.  Tax collectors were considered inherently immoral, they were shunned and hated.  We have a word for guys like this today.  We call them Scum.  

 

So there sits Matthew in a booth in Capernaum, probably exacting taxes from guys like Peter, Andrew, James, and John.  Maybe he has grown accustomed to being shunned, the dirty looks from other Jews, perhaps even being spit on occasionally.   And all of a sudden, this man walks up to him, this rabbi named Jesus.  Jesus is a famous man, he’s a Holy man, he’s someone who is rumored to be close enough to God to heal the sick and dying.  This man walks up to Matthew ignoring the stares and says, “Follow me.”  

 

That evening, Matthew invites Jesus and people who are described as tax collectors and sinners to his home to have dinner with Jesus.  Bear in mind that this is a group that is so universally disliked that the Pharisees ask Jesus, “Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  It’s like Jesus, do you really want to be associated with people like this?  

 

To put things in perspective, the Pharisees were the guys who got the call.  They were the first round draft picks, the superstars.  

 

Jesus turns to these guys and says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. . . For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  

 

Jesus is building a championship team with the leftovers.  

 

Can you imagine that moment?  Can you imagine how Matthew must have felt?  Suddenly, he was no longer the guy who got left out of the party.  Matthew makes a decision then and there to answer the call.  He takes that second chance and runs with it.  

 

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all champagne and roses from there forward.  Matthew was there when  Jesus was arrested.  He tucked tail and ran.  He saw Jesus brutally beaten and crucified in public.  He knew what it was to be afraid that he would be next.  But he was also there in that upper room when Jesus appeared alive, risen from the grave.  And it changed his life.  

 

Matthew went on to preach the good news.  We aren’t sure exactly where.  Some say he traveled from Judea to Ethiopia, or perhaps to Parthia.  We know that it is from his testimony that we have the Gospel of Matthew, a letter that has continued to change lives the way his was changed for almost two thousand years.  This man who was shunned and left out became the player who would stand the test of time because of what he experienced of the grace of God.  

 

Maybe you’re feeling like one of the people who missed the call.  Maybe you are struggling with not being good enough, with not making the cut.  I know that struggle.  I am one of the “not good enoughs.”  I know the things I’ve done, the ways I have failed.  But no matter what I’ve done, or said, not done, or not said, there is someone who reaches out their hand when no one else will and says, “Follow me.”  

 

The phone is ringing.  Will you answer the call to hear the good news?