Magnification

Sermon by Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist 

Luke 1:39-55

Hebrews 10:5-10

 

It was, by all accounts, the President’s best speech to-date.

Even though he was flanked by local clergy caring for their own community in crisis, it was the President who was our pastor-in-chief .

It was a memorial service. And so he quoted the Scriptures. Then he called forth, with clarity and compassion, the names of those who had died. He spoke of overwhelming promise and potential cut short. He spoke of unparalleled heroism in the face of terror.

And he called us to do better. He said we must do better. And together in that moment anyone who has half a heart determined that we would do better, as one nation under God, to keep this terror toward the children of God from ever happening again.

As the stunned silence in response to the President’s speech shifted to emphatic applause, those of us who were sitting high up in the bleachers of the University of Arizona basketball arena—we who had gathered with the rest of Tucson for a word of comfort and hope in our time of trauma—turned our heads to the ushers who had begun walking up and down the aisles. They were passing out these navy blue t-shirts:

Tucson and America the t-shirt says. Together We Thrive.

I shared the shirt with the children in our congregation the next Sunday. Some of them went to school with the girl who was gunned down January 8, 2011. A day that none of us will ever forget. They were scared. We were scared, too. But I told them we were not alone. I told them the whole world was with us. I told them the adults of the world would do everything we could to keep them safe.

And we honestly believed this time would be different. That a sitting U.S. Congresswoman and a federal judge and a nine-year old girl—born on September 11^th—would make this time different. Yes, Arizona has a gun culture. But so do Australia and Canada. And they had responded to the massacre of children with common sense gun legislation. We thought we would, too. We thought this time was different.

But here we are. One year, eleven months, fifteen days, and one hour later. One Colorado movie theater later. One Wisconsin Sikh Temple later. One Sandy Hook Elementary School later. And those are just the ones we remember. And this navy blue t-shirt that once brought comfort and hope to a community in crisis now carries what to me is a lie.

We are not together.

We are not thriving.

We are dying.

American Christians have a choice to make in the face of such death. Will we, from here on out, become Pontius Pilate? Washing our hands of what we condemn but claim we cannot control? Or will we finally hear the voice of our God on this Fourth Sunday of Advent crying out through the cross that looms over the birth Mary sings of today and screams without ceasing, stop sacrificing my children!

Stop sacrificing my children. That was never what I wanted!

It’s what the preacher of the Homily to the Hebrews in our Scripture this morning is saying to her own first century congregation: let there be no more sacrifice. That is not what God wants. That was never what God wanted. Let it be done. Let this time be different. We can’t do this anymore . . .

In the past twenty years the Presbyterian Church as a national denomination has joined with everyone from the Methodists to the Lutherans to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to compel our country to stop sacrificing the children of God to the violence of guns. Year after year we have urged elected officials to regulate guns and ammunition as effectively as we do cars. Now is time to say enough is enough!

We do not say this as a condemnation of responsible gun owners. We say this because we follow in the footsteps of an early Christian movement that knows all too well what it is to live in a culture of violence.

Jesus, himself, grew up with armed guards on the streets, in the schools, at the temple, as some are calling for now. Jesus, himself, knew the presence of these armed guards in the midst of the people stoked even more resentment and rage than before, as their land of promise and plenty became a bitter police state. Jesus knew it was destroying them.

Even his disciples want to reach for the sword.

But Jesus calls us to another way. If you live by the sword, he says, you will die by the sword. If you live by the gun, you will die by the gun. If you hate in response to the hatred with which you are hated, you will become the very thing that you hate. The only way to end the cycle of violence is through non-violent radical love. The only way to end the cycle of violence is to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you.

That is why I have insisted on including the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook shooting in our prayers and our candles and our bells this past week. Because in praying for the one who would do such a terrible thing, as Jesus taught us to do, we must face the rage that also dwells within us. In praying for the one who would do such a terrible thing, as Jesus taught us to do, we must see the senseless violence that raged in him as a mirror of our own. And mourn the death of yet another child of God, whose promise and potential was cut short too soon. And we must act for him, as well. 

30 children of God die in America every day on the other side of a gun. We live through one gun massacre as a country every single day.

For every gun that is used in self defense, eleven are used to attempt suicide, seven are used to attempt a crime, and four injure or kill their victim on accident. A security system with this kind of track record would be taken off the market.

It’s time to do better. We really must do better. This time really must be different.

In the Magnificat, which is our Gospel Lesson for the day, a righteous young mother sings for an end to the violent world into which her baby will be born so that a new world of justice and peace might begin. Scholars tell us this hymn was actually composed by a community that lived after the resurrection. Who saw in the resurrection of Christ the commitment of God to overcome violence forever with the radical love of Jesus.

Luke’s Gospel takes this resurrection hymn and puts it in Mary’s mouth, as the child within her leaps in her womb. As she sings with her cousin, Elizabeth of this new life in their midst. As they look at the violent world as it is and say, enough! Because the new world of justice and peace begins right here, right now, with the birth of the one she bears for us. The one for whom we have been waiting all this time.

It is time to end the violence, Mary sings.

My child is worth it, Mary sings.

And so are ours.

So let’s get to work . . .

Amen.