North Riverdale Lutheran Church ― February 18, 2018
Pastor Monte Stevens ― Gospel Lesson: Mark 1:9-15
The Wilderness Wandering of School Violence
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved;a]with you I am well pleased.”
12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good newsb] of God,c] 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
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The Wilderness
A few years ago, after one of the mass school shootings, I began my sermon by reminding us that this was another school shooting that was horrific and tragic but would follow the same pattern as the mass shootings that had come before.
We would express our sadness share our grief, hold a candlelight vigil, pray for the families, lay flowers at the site of the horror, talk about how something needed to change. Then a few days would pass; the news cycle would change; the law makers would talk; nothing would happen; and then we would wait, till the next mass shooting, and start the cycle again.
That same cycle has started again. This morning, I want and need to be more specific about what we might do, what we can do, to get out of the wilderness wandering of gun violence.
On this first Sunday of Lent, we have entered into the season of introspection and reflection. On this first Sunday of Lent, we hear Mark tell his story of how Jesus begins his ministry…full of God’s Spirit. The Spirit then drives Jesus out into the wilderness. Mark says Jesus was there for 40 days, a symbolic number meaning “a long time.“
The wilderness was a symbol of not only an outward place where one is tested by the harsh realities of life, but an inward journey where you see just what type of person you are and where you find your true self.
Deep down this is a hero story. And any and every hero needs to be tested to prove themselves worthy. In the testing, one encounters emotions ranging from self-doubt to self-aggrandizement.
Mark gives us no information on how Jesus was tempted or what psychological forces he had to combat to discover his mission or realize his purpose. But Jesus emerges from his wilderness experience being God’s preacher and prophet, a hero, a messiah, one who would lead and save his people The one who would live the good news of God’s reign.
Jesus had to go through this time of testing, this wilderness experience, to be able to know who he was and who God needed him to be. Jesus had to go through this time of testing, this wilderness experience, so when new tests came along the way he would know how to meet those challenges. Jesus was tested then. And today we are being tested.
In light of the newest mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, we find ourselves in the wilderness. The wilderness of violence, destruction and death.
Like Jesus, we will need God’s Spirit to lead us, and walk alongside us as we travel through this wilderness. I know we are in the wilderness because the statistics are overwhelming.
Gun Deaths:
More than 33,000 people are killed by firearms each year in this country
More than 30 people are shot and murdered each day
1/2 of them are between the ages of 18 and 35
1/3 of them are under the age of 20
Homicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds; and the primary cause of death among African Americans of that age group.
Number of Gun Homicides (average annually) in other countries:
Japan: less than 50
Germany, Italy, France, etc.: less than 150 each
Canada: less than 200
USA: more than 11,000.
In under two years there are more gun related deaths (homicides and suicides) in the U.S. than all of the deaths during the ten years of the Vietnam War.
Our children are getting slaughtered in their schools. Women are getting killed by guns by their husbands or boy-friends. Gangs are killing each other on the streets. Gun violence is filling our towns and schools and churches with rivers of blood.
Nothing can be done!
The temptation while in this wilderness is that there is nothing we can do. You hear it from politicians you hear it from co-workers. You might have been tempted to say it yourself.
There are many variations to this temptation, but they all go back to the premise of … there is nothing you can really do. We just have to live with this, so we resign ourselves to believe this.
But the Spirit of God who is walking beside me in the wilderness says, “This is not true!” Before there is great change anywhere, there is always the temptation spoken, “There’s nothing you can do.” And it comes in many variations, to keep the status quo.
Since this is black history month I have been immersing myself in civil rights history. The temptation offered by those in power through the years of slavery was: there’s nothing you can do to change that system. There’s nothing you can do to get out of the wilderness of Jim Crow segregation. There’s nothing you can do to get your voting rights. You’re only 3/5ths of a person, you can’t be a whole person.
For several hundred years, for the majority of our time as a nation, our black brothers and sisters have been in the wilderness where those in power said there was nothing you could do.
Dr. Martin Luther King did not believe that. The Spirit who walked beside him, told him, that was a lie and that Spirit took him, like Jesus, to the mountain top to get a view of the promise land.
From the wilderness of fire hoses and beatings with billy-clubs and lynchings and murders, the civil right movement emerged because of people power, inspired by Jesus power. There was something they could do. They marched non-violently and peacefully boycotted. They prayed and persisted and positioned themselves until the wilderness transitioned into the promise land.
In this wilderness of where guns are used and associated with 30,000 deaths a year … we have a new movement at hand. Our children have a right to go to school and not be slaughtered with bullets. All of us have a right to a culture free of military like weapons on our streets. All of us have a right to live in a culture that values life and the preservation of life.
We can do something!
And I think we all essentially agree on this; even those who support the second amendment. I will not give into the temptation of there is nothing we can do.
There is a lot we can do and other countries have led the way out of this wilderness. Did you know that there is currently a federal law that prevents the government from studying gun violence? A law was passed 22 years ago. Gun-control research in the United States essentially came to a standstill in 1996. Certain politicians say that they need more information on what would be an effective policy but there is no official research allowed.
In 1996, Congress threatened to strip funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unless it stopped funding research into firearm injuries and deaths. As a result, the CDC stopped funding gun-control research—which had a chilling effect far beyond the agency, drying up money for almost all public health studies of the issue nationwide.
This policy—known as the Dickey Amendment—should not exist. Even its former champion acknowledged as much. In 2015, two years before his death, Congressman Jay Dickey said he wished he had never put forward the policy. He said, “I wish we had started the proper research and kept it going all this time. I have regrets.”
There is something we can do: We can start funding meaningful research again. We can push massive amounts of money into the mental health system for intervention and counseling. Our war veterans need this desperately. We can once again ban military style semi-automatics which have been used in almost all of the recent mass shootings.
The Federal Assault Weapons Ban, banning semi-automatic firearms and large capacity magazines was passed in 1994. Politicians allowed the ban to expire in 2004. In the Heller decision, the Supreme Court and the most conservative justice, Anthony Scalia said that while a handgun in the home was part of the second amendment, “dangerous and unusual weapons” such as M-16 rifles and other firearms that are most useful in military service were not part of the second amendment. Go google and read the Heller decision for yourself.
There are things we can do and if the federal government would research the effectiveness of new laws. Other counties have enacted new laws and their research says their new laws and programs were effective.
After Australia’s worst mass shooting in 1996, where 35 people were shot to death … they studied the problem and enacted new laws. They haven’t had a mass murder since.
The temptation in the wilderness is that there is nothing we can do. The people of Australia would not agree. But this will take “people power” to be successful just like the civil rights success came from people power.
And Spirit power, Jesus power! If you are a follower of Jesus, you must take seriously his path of non-violence. He was called the Prince of Peace for a reason.
In the midst of this mass shooting wilderness, we need to keep our ears open to the Spirit, who can council us into the promise land.
Would Jesus want our kids to be afraid to go to school? Would Jesus want our kids to suffer from PTSD inside their churches and classrooms? Our kids are in the Wilderness of Crisis and we need to help them get to the promise land.
The time is now! We can’t let this cycle of indifference repeat until more innocent children are riddled with bullets and parents shed tears on television. We don’t need another candlelight vigil. We need to offer our country the Prince of Peace and the path of non-violence.
It starts with caring!
Let me end with one teacher’s brilliant strategy to stop future school shootings—And It’s Not About Guns. [Note: this story is shared from this website: https://www.rd.com/advice/parenting/stop-bullying-strategy/]
A mom shares this story of her child’s teacher. The child’s name is Chase.
Every Friday afternoon, the teacher asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student who they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week.
All ballots are privately submitted to her. And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, she takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her, and studies them. She looks for patterns. Who is not getting requested by anyone else? Who can’t think of anyone to request? Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated? Who had a million friends last week and none this week?
You see, Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down—right away—who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying.
Chase’s mom said, “I think this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. It’s like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold—the gold being those children who need a little help, who need adults to step in and teach them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts.
And it’s a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside her eyeshot and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But, as she said, the truth comes out; on those safe, private, little sheets of paper.
Chase’s Mother asked the teacher, “How long have you been using this system?” Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine.
This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection. All outward violence begins as inner loneliness. She watched that tragedy knowing that children who aren’t being noticed may eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary. And so she decided to start fighting violence early and often in the world within her reach.
What Chase’s teacher discovered is that everything—even love, even belonging—has a pattern to it. She finds the patterns, and through those lists, she breaks the codes of disconnection. Then she gets lonely kids the help they need.
What a way to spend a life: looking for patterns of love and loneliness. Stepping in, every single day, and altering the trajectory of our world.
There is a way out of the wilderness and we can do something!
We just need more heroes. This teacher, like Jesus, passed the test!
We must pass the test also.
Amen!