Note: I have been trying to process Wednesday night's shooting all weekend, and have much to say about it, but this sermon (which was rewritten three times) is a fairly accurate picture of where I am. I may end up reflecting more later, but for now, this will have to do.
Pentecost 4B
Pentecost 4B
June 21, 2015
Mark 4:35-41
Like many of
you, I found myself on Thursday morning devastated and angry as I read about
the horrific shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, at Emanuel African
Methodist Episcopal Church. The church was founded by African Americans in 1816
– well before the Civil War – and has been an icon and center for the rights of
African Americans over its 200 years of existence. On Wednesday
evening, as you
probably know by now, a young white man walked into the historic church during
a Bible study and prayer meeting, and, after about an hour observing the
gathering, he opened fire, killing nine people, including the pastor, who also
happened to be a State Senator, a graduate of one of our Lutheran seminaries,
and an ardent fighter for racial justice. The shooter informed his victims that
he was motivated by hatred and prejudice toward African Americans, who were
allegedly taking from him and his country what is rightfully his. In other
words, it was a racist act. In fact, many are calling it an act of terrorism,
which, by any meaningful definition of the word, it was.
 |
| "Mother Emanuel" AME Church, Friday evening vigil |
Whether
racism, or terrorism, or both, or just a hateful act, his motivation boils
down, at its core, to fear. It was fear that comes from a lack of understanding
and a lack of willingness to gain understanding about someone who seems
different. It was fear that has been couched in a blindness to a need for
change. It was fear that was nurtured by a culture where some State Capitols – including
South Carolina’s – still wave the Confederate battle flag (itself a symbol of
division and war), and where people of color are repeatedly treated more
harshly by police (and without motivation to do so), and where the chance of a
young black man going to prison is greater than the chance of him going to
college.
People don’t
come up with perverse ideas and assumptions about other people all on their
own; such perversity and hatred come from living in and being formed by a
culture of fear of the other. It is a reality we need to face. Racism is a
reality that we need to acknowledge, a societal sin of which we need to repent.
But naming the fear that undergirds racism requires a vulnerability, humility, and self-awareness many of us are unable to take on - and I include myself in this. We would rather name the cause of
tragedies like this anything but
fear. We blame them on the failure of the mental health care system, on the
need to tighten gun laws, on the need to allow prayer in public schools, on Hollywood
and video games, on any number of scapegoats. These may all be true, but
perhaps they also serve as convenient masks to hide the darkness, storms, and
fears inherent in our culture, and those in our own hearts.
What would happen then, if, instead of
masking our fears, we named them, faced them, confessed them, and let the Holy
Spirit speak to them? Or even, what if we let the power of Christ cast them
out? I am drawn to this story about Jesus stilling the storm, and to the
disciples’ desperate
Of course it
is also a question we are all familiar with. All around us, our loved ones are
diagnosed with cancer, relationships are breaking and broken, families aren’t
speaking, good jobs are hard to come by, we experience losses we were not
prepared for. I know I have lifted this question to God before: “Do you not
care that we are perishing?” And it has always been a question arising from
humanity’s ills. I remember in one particularly difficult time in my life, a
pastor friend of mine directed me to Psalm 69, which begins with the plaintive
cry, “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck… I have come into
deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me… My eyes grow dim with waiting for my
God.” Why aren’t you helping, Lord? We are drowning! It has been humanity’s cry
for generation upon generation. It is a cry that sounds like yet another tragic
shooting. It is a cry that sounds like a devastating diagnosis. It feels like a
flood coming up to our neck. It feels like a boat being bombarded by wind and
waves.
In these
times, where do we put our trust? How easy it is to feel overcome by the waves
bombarding the boat, to lose hope like the disciples seem to have done in the
Gospel lesson. “Don’t you even care? We’re dying here!” Notice they don’t ask
for help. They don’t express their trust in the living God asleep on a cushion
in the boat with them. They merely exclaim in fear. I get that.
 |
| He Qi, "Calming the Storm," 2000. |
And yet in
the wake of the disciples’ desperate plea, Jesus awakes, comes to the deck of
the boat, and performs a sort of exorcism on the sea – and with it, on the
fears in our hearts that would overtake us, that would let us give in to
perishing, that would keep our hearts and minds from trusting in the God, the
only God, who can calm our fears. To those fears and doubts he says, “Peace! Be
still!” once again allowing us to see that our power and our destiny do not
come from fear. Rather, they come from a loving God, one who is with us in the
boat all along, who assures us that even if we do momentarily lose our trust
and our faith in Christ, he never leaves our side. It is not lost on me that
the name of the church in Charleston is Emanuel – God with us. And indeed, God
is, right with us in the boat: just as God was with each of those beautiful
people as they were shot, with us when we
Normally I
find the promise of Emanuel to be a comforting one. But in this case, I don’t
hear Jesus’ rebuke of the waves and exorcism of our stormy fears as a comfort.
You see, it is not a promise that waves won’t arise again. They will. It is not
an allowance that because God is there, we can sit back and do nothing. We can’t.
Rather, it tells us that God’s work through us on earth is not done. There is
still fear in this world. There is still racism, and prejudice, and
misunderstanding, and ill-informed conclusions. Jesus’ saving action on our
behalf – both in that boat during a storm, and ultimately, on the cross –
serves perhaps as a comfort, but also as a charge to us: a charge to remember from
whom we get our life, a charge to trust in that God instead of our fears, a
charge to keep ourselves from becoming tolerant of or even complicit in the
brokenness and hatred of this world, and a charge to continue to work for
justice and peace in whatever way we are able, just as we promised to do in our
baptism.
If we are called to follow Jesus,
then this is what it means. The gospel promise here is not that we are off the
hook for any of this – rather, the gospel promises that as we enter into the
often stormy life of working toward a world ruled by love instead of fear, and
compassion instead of apathy, that Jesus remains, always and forever, Emanuel,
God with us, in every storm we may face along the way.
In closing,
I’d like to offer this prayer that was shared with the world by the bishop of
the ELCA’s South Carolina Synod. Let
us pray:
God, our refuge and
strength, you have bound us together in a common life. In all our conflicts,
help us to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, to listen for
your voice amid competing claims, and to work together with mutual forbearance
and respect.
Where hearts are
fearful and constricted, grant courage and hope. Where anxiety is infectious
and widening, grant peace and reassurance. Where distrust twists our thinking,
grant healing and illumination. Where spirits are daunted and weakened, grant
soaring wings and strengthened dreams.
We lift to you all
those who suffer harm and especially the nine lost loved ones at Emanuel AME Church
in Charleston: Rev. Clementa Pinkney, Tywanza Sanders, Cynthia Hurd, Rev.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson, Ethel Lance, Rev. Daniel Simmons, Rev.
DePayne Middleton-Doctor, and Susie Jackson.
We ask this in the
name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Adapted from Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Additional Prayers
page 76.)
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