A Call to Weep

A Call to Weep--March 15, 2019

"...weep with those who weep." [Romans 12:15]

I have been fumbling, grasping, for words today.

I cannot pretend that I will have "the right words" for the news of this day. Job's friends were wise simply to keep silent and sit with their bereaved friend in his grief on the ash heap, and I know there are many ways to go wrong in trying to speak in the aftermath of terrible acts of violence. And I know, too, that others have already begun to speak in response to the horrific act of cowardice, hatred, and terrorism perpetrated by a gunman at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 49 of our Muslim neighbors were killed while they were at prayer.  

But I also know that not to speak up is to send a message as well.  And it is too easy for us, half a world away in the United States, to pause only for long enough to read the headline as a chyron on a screen and then to move on with our days.  It is too easy for Christians, of which I am one, to feel indifferent because the violence was directed at people of a different faith.  And it is too easy for pastors, a group of which I am also a member, to limit how we address such atrocities to a momentary mention in corporate prayer for one Sunday and then to keep our heads down, attending to sermons that are already prepared and hymns that are already chosen.  And it may well be that the best way to sit on the ash heap today with those whose lives have been shattered by the mosque attack in Christchurch from half a world away is to speak our grief and outrage so that our Muslim neighbors (as well as my fellow Christian sisters and brothers) will know and hear and see.  But saying nothing is too convenient and too complacent a response.

So even if these words are clumsy or inadequate on their own, they need to be spoken.  Forgive me where I fall short of what is necessary.

I have been grasping for words over the attack in Christchurch because the news has provoked in me both deep sorrow and deep outrage. At one level, that outrage is directed at the gunman and his accomplices who planned and carried out this despicable act.  I am appalled at the disregard for human life, at the callous cruelty of the violence, at the profanity of seeking targets at their time and place of prayer, and for the wicked use of social media to spread the video of the attack and the manifesto of the perpetrators.  Every piece of this evil act sickens me.

The attack also deeply saddens me.  And it needs to be said that my grief is for Muslim neighbors as Muslim neighbors--that is to say, not pretending that my faith is the same as theirs, not because it means that violence could break out at my place of worship, too, and not because I am directly affected by today's events.  I need to say that these people, these lives that were precious and of infinite worth to the living God, these faces and stories must be mourned on their own terms, and not merely because their deaths mean "it could happen here, too, in my community or congregation." 

And I need to say, too, that it is precisely because of my Christian faith that I--and I believe all followers of Jesus of Nazareth--am called to grieve both with and for my Muslim neighbors, both in New Zealand and in our own communities.  Ours is a faith which teaches us to "weep with those who weep," and there are no boundaries set over whose weeping "counts."  Ours is a Lord who teaches us that love of neighbor expressly includes those whose faith, nationality, and culture are different from our own.  And ours is a gospel which centers on the claim that God has entered into our human suffering completely, from weeping with the friends of Lazarus at his grave, to a shameful and violent death on a cross.  It is not, therefore, merely out of vaguely religious sentimentality that I am called to grieve with my Muslim neighbors, near and far, today--although, to be sure, our common humanity is reason by itself to share this sorrow together.  But at the very core of my faith as a Christian is the calling to love my neighbor and to weep with those who weep, regardless of the faith my neighbor practices.  The man left by the roadside between Jerusalem and Jericho will testify to that as well.

All of these things, I hope, are obvious.  There was once a time when I believed that things that were so obvious could go without saying--that we all simply knew to be outraged by violence and terror like this, and that, of course, Christians would be moved to share grief and stand in solidarity with those who were victims of this attack.  But I fear that we may have left "things that go without saying" unsaid for so long that Christians where I live may think we do not have a particular position on how to respond to an attack like this, or that it is a matter of personal preference or multiple interpretations.  Let me, then, at the risk of saying what should have been self-evident, remove any confusion: followers of Jesus are unequivocally called to stand with those who were the targets of this attack in New Zealand, and to mourn with those around the world whose hearts are broken by the violence, as well as those who now live in renewed fear for their own lives and safety because of their faith, regardless of whether we share that faith or not.  This is simply what it looks like in this moment to weep with those who weep and to love our neighbors.  Today, our calling is to love our Muslim neighbor, much as it was our calling last fall to love our Jewish neighbors after the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, and much as it is our calling when violence breaks out against fellow Christians, people of no faith, people of many faiths, people in schools, people in movie theatres, and people in war zones seeking refuge and food.  

So to my Muslim neighbors, in my own community, in New Zealand, and around the world--I am heartbroken with you, and I am moved by the stories of courage and self-sacrifice that have emerged already from Christchurch of those who tried to protect others, those who offered their bodies as shields, and those who tried to help others escape the danger.  And I condemn both the violence and the worldview which kindled that violence against you and your faith.  As a Christian, because I am a Christian, I condemn the violence, the terror, and the ideology of white nationalism that gave rise to the attacks in New Zealand today.  I know that one person saying so cannot bring back the lives that have been lost or assuage the fear of further violence, but I grieve with you, and I will speak and act against the wicked mindset that fueled the terrorism in New Zealand today, the same way I am called to speak and act against violence and hatred against any neighbor.  We share a common humanity, and I grieve today for fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, whose lives were taken because of fear and hatred.

I am convinced that this, too, needs to be said, loudly and clearly: what happened in New Zealand today was not a random occurrence, and it was not merely a matter of mental illness.  It was sparked by a sin which is bigger than one person or group of conspirators, and it was fueled by an ideology which is in some ways so present and so familiar we can forget it is all around us.  The attack in New Zealand, by all accounts was the product of the ideology of white nationalism and white supremacy: the notion that people of particular European ancestry need to be afraid of--and fight back against--being outnumbered, pushed out of power, or replaced by other groups of people.  It is a mindset rooted in fear of "the other," rather than in love of neighbor, and on that count alone, Christian theology should call it out as a heresy.  The heresy of white supremacy and white nationalism knows no geographical boundaries--it was revealed in New Zealand today, but it is present in the United States, and it is being seen across Europe as well.  Precisely because I am a Christian, whose faith is founded on the hope of a God who will gather all nations in a renewed creation, I can do no other but condemn the mindset that begins with fear of those who are different and then assumes that "the other" must be stopped, killed, or destroyed, rather than loved as a neighbor.  I know that there have been times when people, bearing the title of "Christian," have invoked that name to justify hatred or violence against people of other faiths, not only Muslims, but also including those of the Jewish faith, and many others as well.  And it needs to be said loud and clear that these are distortions and deformations of the way of Jesus of Nazareth, even when they have been said by respected teachers, reformers, and theologians over the centuries.

It is our calling in this moment of history, precisely as Christians following the way of Jesus, to renounce the mindset of white supremacy that is used to justify violence against "the other," and to call it out for what it is--the product of fear that has fermented into hatred, rather than anything having to do with the real and authentic Jesus of Nazareth.

I read somewhere recently the insight that people do not fear change so much as they fear loss.  That may well be true, although I suspect that nearly every change in life also means a loss of something, even if only the loss of the familiar.  The mindset that gave rise to the attack in New Zealand (and the shooting at Mother Emanuel in Charleston, and the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and so many others) is fueled by the fear of losing perceived "control" and being pushed out by newcomers--whether of a different nationality, skin color, language, or religion.  And when that fear is allowed to drive our actions, we retreat into looking out after "Me and My Group First" rather than seeking the good of the neighbor before our own.  It builds from resentment toward those who are perceived as "invading" to outright hostility toward those groups, and then when it has metastasized, it erupts in violence like the world saw today in Christchurch.  But even in kernel form--even when it is simply the fear that leads me to view someone different as someone dangerous--this mindset is wholly opposed to the way of Christ.  And it is precisely as Christians that we must condemn it.  

That will mean we are called to do the even more difficult work of taking an ongoing, honest look at ourselves, to weed out all the places where this kind of hatred and fear have taken root in our own hearts. The attack in Christchurch, and other attacks like it, do not occur in a vacuum.  They have been fed and fueled by either our outright support of this mindset that insists on forcefully "reclaiming" what its proponents feel they have lost, or by our silence and complacency in the church and our failure to name this sin for what it is.  It is easy, in a day when many churches feel like they are in decline, to lament the loss of influence, or numbers, or prominence we remember once having.  And from there it is easy to let that lament sour into bitterness and resentment, and then to find an easy target for blame in the presence of others of different faiths.  And because it is easy to do, we give ourselves permission to hate others, to blame them for what we perceive as decline, and from there it is terribly tempting to cast ourselves as persecuted victims who are justified in "fighting back" against those who we see as "the enemy." That is precisely the kind of mindset that sparked the terror attack in New Zealand.  When the church is silent about this mindset, we become complicit with it, even if we have never taken up arms against another religious group ourselves.

This is a moment, then, for fellow followers of Jesus, to be clear.  It is not only the attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, that we condemn, but the mindset of white supremacy--especially when it uses the trappings of Christianity for support.  It is not only act of violence on one day that we grieve, but the ways this act will reverberate around the world to make others live in fear, or to try to inspire other similarly motivated attacks.  And we condemn the whole mindset of "Me and My Group First" precisely because we are followers of Jesus, whom we confess to be the Christ, who taught us to love our neighbors without regard for our neighbor's identity, who did not respond with fear or hatred even to those who killed him, who entered into our common humanity by suffering death as one of us, and whose resurrection makes possible a new humanity in which all nations are drawn to dwell in God's presence.

This is a moment, finally, for us to condemn both the event in New Zealand and the worldview that spawned it, because we dare to take seriously the Scripture's calling for us to "weep with those who weep."

God give us the grace, the strength, and courage, to love our neighbors today and always.