In the midst of the noise of our day, listening is a deeply spiritual practice. Listening to another person is a spiritual act. Listening to sighs too deep for words is a spiritual act. Listening to the wind blow through the trees is a spiritual act. All this is to assist us as we listen with open hearts for the voice of God.
Saturdays are a day of spiritual listening for me. After reading scripture in the morning, I strain the ears of my heart to hear God’s whisper. Today, I heard bird calls, a child laugh, waves lapping the shore. But where was God’s voice?
This evening, as I looked at my phone to catch up on the day’s news, I heard it: God was weeping. El Paso became the latest community to experience a mass shooting, with 20 shot dead in a Walmart, many buying school supplies. As of today, there have been 248 mass shootings in the United States in 2019. 246 people have been killed, 979 wounded, thousands have experienced trauma.
Tonight, I hear God weeping.
“Thoughts and prayers” ring hollow in the face of these numbers and mock the fact that the life to which Jesus calls us is one of engaged faith. The apostle Paul said, “Faith without works is dead.” John Wesley said, “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness. Faith working by love, is the length and breath and depth and height of Christian perfection.”
When we bow our heads and pray for those whose lives have been irrevocably impacted by the El Paso shooting, what will we do when we rise from our pews? How will the holy practice we engaged in during worship be embodied social holiness in our daily living?
God weeps tonight. What will you do tomorrow, so that your “faith is working by love”?
We can stop the killings. We can ease the deep pain of those who weep. We can create beloved communities that draw the outcast in. We can work for better mental health access in our communities. We can let our elected officials know that it is past time that this nation passed sensible gun control laws.
We can do all this through Christ, who expects nothing less of us.
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