What If It’s Not the Guns

Sermon for September 15th 2024

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord my strength and my Redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

(Preaching from Mark 8:27-38)

Being a teacher is hard. I always knew this, especially coming from a family that’s filled with doctors, lawyers, and educators- I never really wanted to be a teacher except for one brief period of time. I don’t even remember wanting to be one while in high school but apparently at some point I did because I found this old Who’s Who Among High School Students book that I was listed in as a senior and I put my academic goals as getting a PhD in Education. I do not remember this at all. But all this to say, I always thought I’d be a lawyer. Imagine my surprise when I end up becoming, among other things, an adjunct lecturer. 

There are a lot of benefits to teaching. The money can be decent. The benefits are, at least here in Georgia, some of the best I’ve seen. And if you watch teacher TikTok there are at least some educators out there who appear to be having a lot of fun at their jobs. 

Of course, you never know when somehow you’ll become the target of a student’s ire. I can’t tell you how many angry emails I’ve gotten from a student which frankly could have been solved had they- surprise- read the syllabus. I know, could you imagine?! Shocker!

You also never know when you might be the teacher who a student confides an assault to. When you’ll be the one that gets the phone call when a student can’t be reached by their parents. When you’re the one who was the last person a student spoke to- praying a silent prayer until you’re told they were found. 

And you don’t know if you might be the one confronted by a student with a gun. Every time there’s a school shooting I run it over in my head. Even when I was pregnant and working in a school… ok, if I’m here- I’ll go there. If I’m in the kindergarten building, would I use my own pregnant body to protect someone else’s babies. I don’t think it’s fair to keep expecting teachers and students to sacrifice themselves to an ideal that doesn’t put them first.

Now with that said, you may find my next statement to be – incongruent: I don’t think that guns are the problem. Not really at least. I don’t think mental health is the only issue. I don’t think the solution is giving teachers more guns. I think…. It’s just we’ve lost our way. So long ago.

The statistics bear it up that this is uniquely an American problem. I made a post on my Instagram about this because a friend of mine from high school is a teacher at Apalachee and she was asking for prayers. Because in these moments of confusion and loss sometimes all we know to do it turn our hands up to God and cry out. And in my post, repeating her words, someone from another country came into my comments to say this is an American problem and we need less guns. 

Again, the statistics show this is a unique problem for us but I would venture to say… it’s more embedded than just a gun issue. Bishop Wright said in a sermon recently that we can do both.

We can respect the Second Amendment- and we can also do more for our teachers and students. We don’t have to depend on these politicians of ours to do something- they’re too worried about getting re-elected. I’m not sure if he said that part, I’ll admit I just watched it on Instagram… so it could be I added that. But truly. We don’t have to have politicians to do this.

Jesus here is saying for us to take up our cross. It sounds simple but if we can put ourselves back in that moment… taking up the cross and walking with it was humiliating. It was a brutal and public death which took time to march towards. And it’s not as if you were being cheered on in the process. 

Walter Brueggemann said, “The Gospel is a very dangerous idea. Jesus did not get crucified because he was a nice man.”

Jesus is foretelling what it means to follow him- his death will be an excruciating one. But to join in him in this, it’s not something to be done alone. It’s a discipleship to be done in community. 

Building community these days can seem impossible- like there are so many barriers. 

My friend who works at Apalachee- she posted this thing to her Facebook saying “you were not one of us- you were only here a few days”.

And on one hand I read that and go- he hadn’t been there long enough to even hate these people…. So clearly it wasn’t about them.

But also… did he feel like he belonged to anyone? I wonder if he had felt that he was part of a community if maybe that might have changed things? 

What happens to a young man of only 14 that this is what he decides to do?

It’s not really about the guns.

It’s about what leads us to want the guns. To want to cause harm to one another.

I am realist enough to understand that there are times when we need to protect ourselves- but that’s not what this was.

Jesus says, take up the cross with him. Join him and this community. It will be hard. It will be ugly and messy but… we are meant to do this in community. Something about American Evangelical Christianity is that it’s wrapped up in this idea of Manifest Destiny, and exceptionalism, taking what is yours and yours alone. Others be damned. 

I think that is the heart of this issue if I’m being honest. And it’s not an easy problem, nor does it have an easy solution. And I think that’s why we can’t count on politicians or laws to make a real change. It’s going to take each of us, one by one, deciding to walk each other home. It’s going to take seeing the kid who is left out at lunch. It’s going to take not making someone who votes differently the enemy. It’s going to take wanting just as much for my neighbor as myself. 

And frankly? That might be the cross. Wanting the best for my siblings in Christ might be the hardest thing to do. 

“He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.””

Denying oneself- I can’t think of anything more like denying oneself to let go of this idea that we as individuals are more important than the whole. 

Taking up the cross and following Jesus – to me, this sounds more and more like pulling others who are left out into the fold. Those who we naturally want to leave out- for whatever reason.

What if it’s really about the loss of community?

It feels like there’s so much anger out there in the world right now- and that so many people are finding their solutions by causing harm and pain.

What if these people had community? What if evangelism was extending it to them?

What if they truly felt welcomed by the church?

What if we really opened up the table?

All are welcome at God’s table. That is the cross.