Matthew 21:33-46
Lectionary 27 ~ 18th Sunday after Pentecost
Through knocked-out windows on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Stephen Paddock shot into a crowd of 22,000 concert goers. It was only a week ago, on a Sunday night, that Paddock committed the deadliest mass shootings in the United States. After putting what is known as a “bump fire stock” on his semi-automatic rifles so that they would shoot 9 rounds per second, 59 people were killed, and over 500 more were left injured. At least a dozen of the 23 firearms recovered were semiautomatic rifles legally modified to fire as automatic weapons.
While we count the number of dead, those who were shot are more than statistics. Steve, a 44-year-old financial advisor, husband, and father, was among those killed. He was in Las Vegas to celebrate his birthday. There was Michelle, who was the youngest of four siblings. She loved to cheer for the Golden State Warriors. Father and husband Christopher, a 28-year-old Navy veteran who handled dogs that searched for explosives, was the kind of person you could call in the middle of the night for help. He was also killed in the rampage.[2] Fifty-six more men and women, who had people who loved them, died.
Our minds draw back to the mass shootings at The Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. C. S. Lewis says that grief accumulates. May we not become so accustomed to acts of violence, be they shootings, domestic abuse, or violent crimes, that we fail to express our outrage and silence our lament.
You are not to kill, God tells us. This is the fifth commandment. Luther interprets this broadly. He explains in the Large Catechism:
We must not kill, either by hand, heart, or word, by signs or gestures, or by aiding and abetting….The occasion and need for this commandment is that, as God well knows, the world is evil and this life is full of misery. …We must live among many people who do us harm.[3]
There was a rich farmer who planted a vineyard. Leaving behind farmhands to care and nurture the soil, and the vines, and the grapes, the owner went on a trip. He sent someone to collect his profits, but the tenants beat him up. The owner sent someone else, and the workers murdered that person. Then they stoned the next. Again and again this happened until the farmer sent his very own son. “They will respect my son,” he thought, he hoped. But the tenants believed that they would get the inheritance that was due the son if the son were dead. So they killed him, too.
After Jesus told this story, the religious leaders wanted to arrest him right then and there, but they feared the crowds, so they waited. They ended up not only arresting Jesus. They killed him.
In Jesus’ parable, the landowner expects the best from the tenants, over and over again, giving second chances, third chances, even fourth chances to do what is right. Lord knows we need that many. As Luther expresses in his explanation of the fifth commandment, we kill “by hand, heart, or word, by signs or gestures, or by aiding and abetting.” After we murdered Jesus, God did something only God can do. God brought life out of death. Jesus’ grave was empty. On the third day, God raised him from the dead. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.[4]
God does not respond to violence with violence. God takes the consequences of violence in our world, and changes it. God responds to death with life. In the cross of Jesus, God does not respond to the worst we have to offer with vengeance. God does not respond to violence with more violence. God responds with light that overcomes darkness, love that overcomes hate, and life that overcomes death. Out of violence, Jesus brings peace.
Frederick Buechner writes:
The peace that Jesus offers…is a peace beyond the reach of the tragic and terrible. It is a profound and inward peace that sees with unflinching clarity the tragic and terrible things that are happening and yet is not shattered by them. It is a peace that looks out at the friends, whom he loves enough to be concerned for their troubled hearts than he is for his own, and yet his love for his friends is no more where his peace comes from than his impending torture and death are where his peace will be destroyed. The place that his peace comes from is not the world but something whole and holy within himself, which sees the world also as whole and holy because deep beneath all the broken and unholy things that are happening in it, even as he speaks, Jesus sees what he calls the kingdom of God….To be whole is to see the world like that, as Jesus saw it…Sometimes even in the midst of our confused and broken relationships with ourselves, with each other, with God, we catch glimpses of that holiness and wholeness that is not ours by a long shot and yet is part of who we are.[5]
How do we move and live in these days of all kinds of violence from all kinds of motives? Hold fast to each other, like sea otters. A mother sea otter holds hands with her baby so that while they are sleeping, they don’t drift away from each other into dangerous waters. Work for justice, and be instruments of peace. Remember Luther’s thoughts, expanding even more his explanation of the fifth commandment, You shall not kill:
It is God’s real intention that we should allow no one to suffer harm but show every kindness and love. And this kindness…is directed especially toward our enemies.[6]
Come together around the table, Christ’s body and blood, to experience again unity and hope, and catch glimpses of wholeness and holiness. Be open to God’s love that can transform.
We walk in the light of the God who creates our world and give us life. Carry the light of the one who lived and died and rose again into the darkness. Hold onto the one who reconciles and heals, so that, even in the midst of our anger and grief, we can go forward with God’s comfort and hope, praying to God, Your kingdom come.
~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin
[1] My title was taken from an article by Frederick Buechner. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057369304900402?journalCode=ttja.
[2] http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-shooting-victims/index.html
[3] Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy, eds. The Book of Concord. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. 410-413.
[4] Matthew 5:4.
[5] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057369304900402?journalCode=ttja.
[6] Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy, eds. The Book of Concord. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. 410-413.