I well remember a vivid debate about nonviolence around my
dining room table some years ago. It
was robust and engaged and at one point, as coffee was being served at the end
of the meal, my friend blurted out that “being a pacifist between wars is like
being a vegetarian between meals!”
There were giggles all ‘round as the pie was cut and served, but there
is a deep reality revealed by my Jesuit friend and frequent dinner guest.
In the wake
of the mass murders in Orlando and the accompanying drumbeat of terrorism and
death on the anniversary of the killings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal
Church in South Carolina, it is possible to lose our grip on hope. The list of locations and murdered ones blurs the mind and numbs the heart, and if we are not attentive, our Christian hope
could also be a victim.
Hope is
easy when times are good. We are buoyed
by its promise and pampered in its possibilities. But friends, the times are not good. Our
sisters and brothers in the GLBTQ community were targeted and gunned down with
cold, malignant efficiency. What
can possibly be said? The leading cause of death for young African
American men under age forty is gun shot wounds. In California alone last year there were ten
million applications for hand gun purchases.
More than 62% of our federal
budget is committed to what has now become a state of permanent warfare for
us. The litany of horrors is painful and hard to hear. Yet hear it, we must.
The time
for numbness and denial is past. The
time for an assertive and powerful hope has come. The time for inaction and futile shaking of
the head is past. The day of a new hope has dawned. As we reach for this hope, we cannot slip into a naïve
fantasy of flowers and peace signs. This is not the flimsy hope of unthinking
optimism. It is, rather, the hope of
God; the hope that came to us from the
agony of the cross. This hope is wedded
to the certain knowledge of the coming Resurrection. This hope will sustain and propel us
forward. This hope is the unshakable
conviction that life and love will prevail.
So, in the
throes of unspeakable grief and mounting anger let us not lose our grip on
hope. Let’s come together and reach
for the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus.
And let our hope and faith spur us to powerful action for justice,
healing and new life.
I am
reminded of the old hymn by Edward Mote.
It has long been a favorite of mine and I offer some pieces of it here.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
His
oath, His covenant, and blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When every earthly prop gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
So let us live into this hope with our lives, our
communities, our faith.
SR
