Tragedy at Tree of Life
Synagogue
(there is no specific
biblical reference)
Full disclosure: I’m a mess this morning. I had written a sermon based on today’s
reading from Mark and the idea that the blind man in the story of Mark was
known by name and that each of us are also known by God, by name. But I was up most of the night rewriting
today’s sermon.
Yesterday morning, I was making the last minute
preparations for a wedding that I would be celebrating for Caird McHolme,
former member of Bethesda United Presbyterian Church and his bride, Katie
Dolan, when I heard the news that a shooting had occurred in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, we are so accustomed to that
kind of news anymore that my attention was only slightly swayed from what I’d
been doing. The really scary and
horrifying fact is that the news of a shooting in one place or another is no
longer the shock and surprise that it used to be. Afterall, this week alone, as many as 14 pipe
bombs were mailed to prominent political figures in the US.
But then I heard that the shooting was in Squirrel
Hill at the Tree of Life Synagogue during the celebration of Shabbat also known
as the day of Sabbath for the Jewish people.
And that a bris was being performed and celebrated on the same day. A bris is when an 8 day old infant boy is to be
circumcised and given his Hebrew name as part of the sign of the covenant
between Abraham and God.
Having heard that it was in a synagogue, it got
my full attention. When a shooting
occurs in Charleston, SC or in Sutherland Springs, Texas we are saddened and
feel empathy for those who were present during such a horrific event. But it is far away and doesn’t normally
affect us. But yesterday’s event was
right here at home in Pittsburgh. In the
past 6 years, since May of 2012, there have been 15 mass shootings in places of
worship here in the United States. And
over 700 separate incidences in US.
When I began my doctoral program, I was intent
on studying the affects of traumatic events on communities. For three years I was immersed in tragedy,
motivations of such events, people’s reactions, community efforts to rebound
after such events and, faith communities’ response to tragedy. After all that studying, you’d think I’d know
what to say. I don’t. In fact, I had to stop doing my dissertation
and I took a year off. There were some
other factors, but one of them was that it was too difficult for me to face
that kind of evil on a regular basis - just reading about it and studying it
every day became too much for me. And I
don’t know that I will get back to it.
How do you address such hatred that turns into
killing another human being?
How do you face the grief of those whose lives
are forever affected by the actions of these kinds of crimes against our fellow
human beings?
“Today we all stand in solidarity with our
brothers and sisters from the Tree of Life Jewish Synagogue in Squirrel Hill,
as we did with those from First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, as
we did with our brothers and sisters from Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston,
South Carolina, as we also did with members of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin …”
For today’s message, I turn to the pastors and
other faith leaders whom I have studied, who have been through this in their
own communities, who know tragedy and have seen tragedy firsthand and I offer
some of their words.
After the church shooting in Charleston, Rev.
John Foster, Senior Pastor, Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta said that, we live
in a world where tragedies happen. These
events demonstrate that we have not met the mark of where God wants us to be. Martin Luther King stated, “We have got to
learn how to disagree with each other without being violently disagreeable.”
The real sin of what occurred in Charleston at Emanuel AME Church (and I’ll add
at nearly all of the 700 mass shootings) is that we still live in a society
where violence is chosen as the preferred choice of action. I believe God’s
word is still true: “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its
place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).
God is challenging us to transform our minds by throwing away our legacy
addictions to violence.
In response to the shooting at the AME Church
in Charleston, Satpal Singh, Founding Trustee of the Sikh Council for
Interfaith Relations said this, “When the shooting at Sikh Gurdwara in Oak
Creek, Wisconsin, occurred, the entire nation and the entire world stood by the
Sikhs. Within hours, Sikh organizations received messages of support and solidarity
from hundreds of religious, political and social organizations from all around
the world. Today we all stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters from
the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which has become the target of
the same hatred and venom that keeps engulfing us again and again in the name
of religion, race and a myriad of other divisions. We pray for the peace of those who have left
us, and for their families. We pray for
the peace of mind of the perpetrator of such a hateful act, and for the peace
of mind for all those who suffer from hate and prejudice.”
Rev. Natalie Mitchem said, “We will
not operate in fear, but with power and love…It is time for all of us to
reinvigorate our efforts to banish hatred from our society and to bring harmony
among all the sections of our society, irrespective of the divisions that have
been created among us. Let this act of hatred strengthen our resolve to spread
the message of love and harmony that all our faiths profess. We must all remind
ourselves, and our congregations, that blood has no religion. It has no race,
no caste, no nationality and no political ideology. And it has no skin color.
Today we are reminded that God in Heaven, our
Heavenly Father, provides the peace through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit
that surpasses our understanding. God is love, and the Bible urges us to
overcome evil with love.”
Rev. Jonathan Malone, says that he, “…calls on
us all to do the hard work of self-examination. Ask yourself what stories, what narratives
have you accepted as true that may have racist undertones. (and I’ll add – any
kind of hatred against another undertones to it) When you see someone who does not look like
you, does not dress like you, does not talk like you, (does not believe like
you, does not have the same lifestyle that you have) what assumptions do you
bring up about that person? We all are
shaped and informed by our context, and we need to again and again challenge
the narrative that we have assumed to be true.
I ask you to speak out against those small, subtle overtures of racism
(hatred) that you may encounter on a daily basis. The joke that is said in the
hall, the comment made only for your ears, the statement about “those people”
all are sprouts from the seeds of racism (hatred against another) and need to
be cut down where and when they happen.
Edmund Burke wrote that “Evil triumphs because
of the silence of good men” — and I’ll add men and women. Martin Luther King Jr. indicated that there
comes a time when our silence cooperates with our enemies.
Now is the time for a prayerful, thoughtful
response, not thoughtless reaction. All
of these acts of violence against one another rise out of our sin of
hatred. Examine your heart. Each person is made in the image of God. Each person is given the life sustaining
breath of our Father in Heaven. Each
person is guarded by the influence of the Holy Spirit. And each person is loved with the powerful
love of a redeeming Savior.
Allow us to stop looking at other people as if
they are not part of that equation. It
is not reserved for us alone. It’s time
to turn away from any thoughts of hatred that harbors evil in hearts turning
those thoughts into ideologies about others, which turns our ideologies into
behavior and our behaviors into action.
Allow us to find common ground. Let’s
raise our communities and country as models of service and sacrifice, virtue
and victory; ever deepening our responsibility to our neighbor. And finally, never let us forget that it
starts with us; we must intercede with our words and our deeds of grace and
mercy.
AMEN.
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