PEACE IN A TIME OF VIOLENCE

Whether it is Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Canada, the Middle East or Middle America, violence dominants the world today, and good people of power in many places throughout the world seem to have no answers as to how to stop the killing and destroying. Caring people speak wonderful words after violent events, tears are shed at funerals around the globe, and innocent men, women, and children are left grieving the loss of loved ones and fellow countrymen, even as they wonder how in the world man's inhumanity to man will ever cease.

Sadly, I turn again to counsel I wish were unnecessary, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it" (Jeremiah 17:9).  Jesus took it a sobering step further when He said,

That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit,  sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.  All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man (Mark 7:20-23).

It seems that the human being has a heart sickness that desperately needs to be healed.  

I'm not sure our biggest threat in the United States, at least, is Islamic terrorists.  Sure they want to take us down, and we need to be on guard every day, but it seems we really don't need them to help us be taken down.  Give us enough time and we'll take ourselves down.   We're pretty good at that all ready.  Death and destruction are all around us.  It might come from an unprincipled police officer, a violent sniper hiding behind "Black Lives Matter."   It might come from an angry man who in his rage kills a four-year-old girl in Altadena, California.  Pick your poison.  It is everywhere to be found. 

I speak as a middle class white male, which immediately calls my credentials into question.  However, I am close enough to many black males in our culture to get a sense of the stress under which they live.  In fact, I am privy to many people in the black community, male and female. I've heard their stories and tried to process the questions they carry and the uneasiness they feel.  I'm not sure I am capable of feeling their pain, but I have looked into their eyes and have had no doubt whatsoever that they live under a dark shadow in a culture in which all people are said to be created equal. 

I don't know how to stop the violence exploding from within the human heart.  I do know that there are enough issues of brokenness in my own life that I ought not to judge people too harshly.  I also know that in the "land of the free and the home of the brave" there is a lot of dying and death at our own hands. 

This planet has issues that need to be dealt with, and I am seeing no evidence of progress out of violence into peace.  I only know that when someone dies, be it here or abroad, it involves all of us because, as John Donne wrote back in 1624, "Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind."  Truly, none of us escapes the ripple effect of violence, dying, and death.  Like it or not, we are in this thing called life, together. 

My heart ached a few days ago when a former teaching colleague of my wife's wrote a Face Book post.  She is an African American young woman responding to contemporary conditions of our culture.  Hear her words,

I just want to cuddle my baby and not worry about how I will have to explain to him someday that he must be careful when riding through La Canada or walking in the affluent neighborhoods of Pasadena because he's Black, and a police officer may think he's suspicious.  Of course he will know to not commit crimes and to obey authority, but he must also know that people will find him threatening (especially if he has his dad's size).  I hope he does not have my feisty spirit because talking back could get him killed.  I just want to hold my baby and pray for a future that is better than today.  I have dedicated my life to making the world a better place. I wish the same could be said for more of us. May God have mercy on us all.

Can you feel her anguish?  I'm not going to use her name because her comments might ignite existing anger in someone's heart and put her life in danger.  Let me just say that her story is our story, too.  At least it ought to be.  Donne wrote, "No man is an island entire of itself.  Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."  Ladies and gentlemen, we are in this thing together, and we had better look deep within our very souls and take hold of something greater than ourselves, something that includes us all. 

When the founding fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence they included these words,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I'm not convinced at all that the founding fathers meant Black people when they wrote the words "All men are created equal."  Slaves simply were not equal.  Don't even go there.  Over the years our culture, moving slowly like a turtle, through many tears and sorrows, have sought to change the trajectory of the nation, but here we are 240 years into the experiment, baffled at the anger and hostility that still exists, stunned that rage reigns so supreme that it raises its ugly head in just about every facet of society.

I live in my culture as a Christian, a man seeking to be a Christ-like man.  I believe Jesus is God's response and initiative to the deepest needs of the human heart.  Many people disagree with me, and that's fine.  Everywhere we turn, though, there are people of the Jewish faith, the Muslim faith, as well as Buddhist and Hindus, and people of a hundred other faiths and beliefs, even people of no faith at all.  We live together on this planet.  At this point in history it is the only planet we have on which to live.  We had better solve this violence issue, and soon, or the planet is going to faith and belief and ideology and cause itself out of existence.

I thank God for the local church of which I am a part.  We are seeking to be Christian through and through, and our worship lifts up the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  In this atmosphere our pastor believes that church must be a safe place for people to come, find a place of healing, a place to connect, a place comprised of people who are living out the implications of hospitality.  If I've heard him once I've heard him say a thousand times that we are not here to judge people.  That's God's job.  We must leave that kind of insight and knowledge to One who is sovereign and all knowing.  Our role is to be shaped and formed into the image of Jesus and to live out the implications of the Sermon on the Mount. 

We are certainly not perfect, and would never knowingly leave the impression with others that we are so.  Yet, we are real and we are honestly seeking how to live out the meaning of a cruciformed life.  Our Savior is the Prince of Peace, and our intention and commitment is to be like Him by the way we live and move and have our being in the world.

Whatever you believe or not believe join me in an effort to make for peace in the neighborhood in which you live.  I don't have much sway beyond the small sphere of influence in which I live, and even then I'm pretty sure I don't have that much sway.  Still, I do live in a house that sits on a street in a town that deals every day with anger and violence.  Hardly a week goes by that we don't read in the paper about a senseless death or a senseless act of violence, a gang shooting, road rage, racial confrontations, ethnic unrest, and simple acts of tribalism and ego hurting.  The truth is I live in a city I love.  It is beautiful city of many cultures and languages.  I love living here.  Yet, we all know that on any given day, one little act or misdeed could light the fuse and this town could be a war zone in a heartbeat.

Is this the way we want to live?  Is this what the future will look like?  Is there a way to give peace a chance, to give hope a chance, to holster our weapons and smoke a peace pipe?  God help us, I hope so. 

I surely hope so.

Let me close with John Donne's complete statement.  Please take it to heart because we all are only one unfortunate event away from a tragedy that could take us to the hospital, waiting anxiously for a doctor's report or to a cemetery in which we weep over the body of a loved one.

No man is an island, entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were; as well as if a manor of thine own, or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.