A voice says, “Cry out!”
God, we are stunned by violence. We hear echoes that something is very wrong and get that sadly familiar feeling in the pit of our stomach as we hear the news, thinking, “Not again.”
A voice says, “Cry out!”
And immediately the news tells us the political history of those affected, the voting records, their stance on controversial issues. And before we know it, the story of this violence is turned into a political debate, where those who struggle for life are made to take on partisan struggles for freedom in our different understandings of the meaning of that word. And the mother of a nine-year-old girl weeps. Where is her freedom?
A voice says, “Cry out!”
We cry out to you, O God, because there must be more to say in all this than “Maybe we've taken our partisan division too far.” We cry out to you because there must be more to say than “A mentally-ill young adult, rejected from the military, wracked by extremism, did the unthinkable.” There must be more to say than, “It happened again.” There must be more to do than change the channel, emotionally disengage and will ourselves into the uneasy complacence of forgetfulness.
A voice says, "Cry out!" And we said, "What shall we cry?"
Shall we cry out for young lives lost? Shall we cry out for the sickness that shooting is the answer? Shall we cry out for our inability to—even in tragedy—look beyond the political?
A voice says, “Cry out!”
We hear language of “guns don't kill people, people kill people” and miss the obvious shattering point that, regardless of rhetoric, people are dying. Nine-year-old girls, seventy-year-old retirees, passionate politicians and their aides, the hope of peace for our nation.
A voice says, “Cry out!”
We cry out to you, O God. Your people need a shepherd to speak words of comfort. In the wilderness of violence that has become familiar, we need a new way. A way in this desert of destruction that speaks of your glory seen together—as one people—a way where love is stronger than death, hope is stronger than fear and peace is stronger than hatred of the other. A way where we're not entitled to forget the events that trouble us, but where we're troubled into a holy transformation of this nation and world into a place of liberty and justice for all. A place where a mother doesn't have to fear for her daughter's safety at the grocery store. A place where college campuses don't become sites of bloodshed. A place where people in deep hurting are able to find words of comfort spoken to them before they see violence as the only solution.
A voice says, “Cry out!”
We cry out, to you, O God. Even if we don't have the words, we cry out anyway, because you are a God who listens, who compels us to action, who stirs in us the capacity to love in the face of devastation and fear, who makes a new way of peace and calls us to follow.
We cry out, to you, O God.
Amen.
