Two children, ages eight and ten, were killed this morning in Minneapolis as they prayed at the start of their school year. Seventeen others were injured, most of them children. It happened during Mass at a Catholic school, which was a place where parents assumed their kids were safe to sing and pray, until gunfire drowned them out.
This is what idolatry looks like. America has built an altar to the gun, and the blood of our children keeps it fed. We pretend that America’s love affair with guns is about freedom, or safety, or rights, but it’s really about worship. If an idol is what you trust most in your moment of fear, then the truth is plain: we trust our guns more than we trust God. We cling to them for protection and for power over others.
And like all idols, they demand sacrifices.
This morning, those sacrifices had names, faces, and backpacks. And sadly, based on America’s ongoing love affair with guns, they won’t be the last.
We’ll shake our heads. We’ll send out our “thoughts and prayers” and lower the flag. But our nation obstinately refuses to confront the idol. We refuse to topple the false god that promises us security while delivering only grief.
So the cycle of violence repeats: 1) bullets, 2) thoughts and prayers, 3) funerals, and 4) silence… until the next tragedy.
The way of Jesus could not be more different. Jesus never maimed or killed anyone and taught His disciples to follow His example. He told Peter to put away his sword. (Matthew 26:52) He refused to take up the carnal weapons of the empire, even as it killed Him. The Kingdom of God isn’t built on fear or violent force, but on nonviolent self-giving love. If we claim to follow Him, how can we keep bowing to the god of the gun?
This isn’t about politics. It’s about repentance. It’s about asking who (or what) we really trust. Because every idol comes with a cost. And in America, that cost is too often being paid by the innocent, by children in churches and in classrooms.
Until we choose to lay this idol down, the blood will keep flowing. More “thoughts and prayers” will be offered. More candles will burn to remember the innocent victims. More tiny coffins will be lowered into the ground. And yet, the god we’ve made in the image of our fear will keep demanding more.
The question is whether the people who claim to follow the God revealed by Jesus will have the courage to stop worshiping at that altar and start following the nonviolent love of friends and enemies as displayed by Jesus. Because until that happens, this will not stop.
After all, the world will never take His commands seriously if His own people refuse to obey them.
Grace and peace,
Related Resources
- (Article) The Gospel According To… Smith & Wesson?
- (Podcast) Who Would Jesus Shoot?
