Addressing Uvalde

Family,

I want to share a few words from my heart and the scriptures that came to me today that is forming the way I am thinking about another mass shooting.  I was hearing about how all the families came to the school and so many of them just had to wait, not knowing if their child was a victim or not.  Those hours of waiting followed by the horror of so many losing a young person… there really aren’t words for this.  

I have found it disheartening to follow the news coverage about this. Like Job’s friends, everyone wants to “fix it,” and are unable to grieve it.  It is clear that 80-90% of Americans want better gun laws. The gun people say this is about mental health; and the mental health people that this is not a mental health problem, but rather hate.  But what does Jesus say? We can get caught up in the finger pointing, but the believer knows that we have a deeply spiritual problem, and that political solutions can only manage around.  This was dark and it was evil.

I want to share with you a passage that I believe gets at what Jesus thinks, and as Christians, that is what should really matter to us. This is a passage about how Jesus responds when he hears about a mass murder event.  I am reading from Luke 13:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate murdered while they were sacrificing at the temple. 2Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Note here that Jesus didn’t tell his disciples that they needed a government solution, or better public policy, because Jesus knew that the problem of darkness, of evil, isn’t political - it is spiritual.

Friends, we kid ourselves if we think that there are political solutions to the problems in our society.  This event exposes that there are problems much darker.  Jesus didn’t say that they should repent or outsiders should repent—but that his listeners and by extension, his church, when we hear of these tragedies, should repent.  Let’s listen further to what Jesus says, and I believe that Luke, including these next words of Jesus, are spoken for the church to listen to.

6Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ 8 “ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

When the church hears of tragedies, it is not time for us to call the world to repent, it is time for us to look inside of us and ask the question.  We have been the spiritual compass for this nation, but how many young people are struggling and dying under the shadow of churches that do not care about them? 

Twenty years ago, average church attendance was 138 each week.  Today it is 65. The church has never had more fertilizer and better resources, yet thousands of churches will be closing - some say 80% of the churches we drive by will be closing. Why? I believe unrepentant Christians who demand all of the resources be used for themselves and not the next generation.  So, a church hits a certain age and young people can’t come, the half-life kicks in and eventually the denomination takes the building or it gets turned into cool office space for tech startups.

I ask you, as your pastor, to do two things.  First, don’t fall into the trap of believing there are political solutions to spiritual problems.  Rather, ask yourself: what is my plan to not leave the next generation in the dark? How will my life bear fruit for the next generation coming up in the church or coming into the church?

Secondly, reach out to someone grieving a loss.  We weep with those who weep and when there is such tremendous loss, remind yourself that we as a church choose to identify with the brokenhearted.

Jesus has one and only one tool to bring the order of love of the Kingdom of God in this world—the church. The next two Sundays I will be sharing specific principals about how God has called us, 938 Church, to bear fruit, keeping with our repentance, and to be a part of His spiritual solutions to these deeply spiritual problems. 

-Marc