After yet another school shooting at Sparks Middle School in Nevada, if it hasn’t become painfully clear to us by now, it should: We have an epidemic of gun violence in this country that’s worse than in all other democratic nations combined. Seven children die every day in this country from gun violence. Meanwhile, we haven’t taken any direct action to stop this epidemic. If seven children were dying each day from a deadly virus, we’d be pouring all our energy and effort into finding a cure. But yet somehow we’ve resigned ourselves and passively accepted these dead children as how our common life is supposed to be. News flash: This isn’t how God intends for us to live!
Life is supposed to be different than this and we’ve all contributed to making our common life incongruent with God’s desire. It matters not how small or great our part has been. Let me list some examples of what I mean: People aren’t supposed to throw trash out of car windows. Middle schoolers aren’t supposed to hand out birthday party invitations in a way designed to let the uninvited know they’ve not been invited. Sewanee students aren’t supposed to resent Southwestern North Dakota State A & M students for becoming Phi Beta Kappas when they didn’t. Married persons aren’t supposed to cheat on their spouses regardless of their current level of self-esteem. Politicians aren’t supposed to lie to us just because they know that’s what we want to hear. Industrial waste isn’t supposed to be dumped into the Savannah River. And children aren’t supposed to be killed by gun violence.
Life is supposed to be different than it is. But do we really believe that? I just offered a list of how life is supposed to be different than it is, but upon reading the items listed, I imagine some folks just said: “well, that’s just the way it is. Besides some things you listed aren’t really all that bad.” I agree that some items I listed are worse than others, but that’s not the point. The point is this: We’ve become desensitized to the reality that every one of these things I listed is a real sin against God, because each in its own way demeans, vandalizes, perverts, pollutes, or corrupts God’s desire for God’s creatures.
Jesus on the Cross is The Word from God that we humans have blown it; that we’ve messed up our lives and this earth sufficiently enough that we need a Savior to bail us out. Before the cross we humans could pretend that things weren’t all that bad. A few nips here, a few tucks there, and presto, just like with plastic surgery, everything would look good as new. The cross, however, lets us know that from God’s perspective we sinners just can’t fix ourselves. And, of course, to accept what I’ve written up until now, one has to first accept that there’s a God who knows how life is supposed to be.
If anyone is surprised or alarmed by my writing so particularly about sin and how life is supposed to be, then it’s only because we live in a time when so many people have forgotten that God can actually be outraged by our sin. But even so, we shouldn’t lose heart for I’ve written nothing but good news: Jesus shows us that how our lives are now isn’t how God desires us to live. God help us if we think that seven children dying every day from gun violence is actually what God desires. Now let’s do something about it.
+Scott
The Rt. Rev. Scott Anson Benhase was the tenth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia from 2010-2020. This website serves as an online archives for the weekly email reflections, the eCrozier, he wrote during his episcopacy.