3rd Sunday of Easter – Va. Tech Shooting, April 22, 2007
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Almighty God, in raising our Lord Jesus from the dead, you defeated the powers of evil, and triumphed over the results of our sin. In all that we do or say, in the way that we live our lives, let each of us testify to the reality of your glorious victory. And through the power of your Holy Spirit, help us to live each day in the light of your Easter triumph, firm in our conviction of your final victory on the last day. Amen.
When I first heard the news of the murderous rampage at Virginia Tech, I mentioned to a few friends that I just couldn’t understand what would motivate a person to do such a thing. Although I wouldn’t condone it, I could understand what might motivate someone to shoot the person who had molested your child, or abused or killed your spouse. But why someone would go on a rampage and randomly kill so many innocent people. Such an act is simply beyond my understanding.
I then found myself in the midst of a disturbing conversation with a person who had overheard my comment. He said to me, with a rather assertive voice, “You of all people, should understand it. After all, you are a pastor of the Christian Church.”
“Yes, I’m a pastor,” I replied. “But what makes you think that I am able to understand what would motivate someone to shoot and kill so many innocent people?”
This person then responded, in all seriousness, “Do you mean to tell me that you don’t believe that everything that happens in the world, happens according to God’s plan? I think God is in control of this world, and has a purpose for everything that we experience.”
“What?!” I said. “Are you telling me that you believe that God was responsible for this person taking a gun and shooting all these innocent students?”
“Yes,” he responded, adding, “And I can’t believe that you don’t believe that God has a purpose for everything that takes place. Our lives are all predetermined by God.”
Looking him straight in the eyes, I said, “I don’t believe that. I believe that we participate in making our own destiny. Every choice we make affects the options and choices we have open to us in the future. The fact that I chose to go to seminary, instead of law school or medical school, for example, has opened some career choices, but closed others.
In addition,” I added, “I certainly do not believe that God was responsible for this tragedy. What ever happened to sin and evil. Do you not believe that people can be sinful, not live according to the will of God for their lives? What happened at this school was sinful if not downright evil.” And with that comment, this person just shook his head and left.
That conversation has haunted me since the day of the shootings. I surely do not believe that anyone here this morning, would think that God had somehow predestined, according to his purpose for life here on earth, that this horrific event to take place.
But what did happen to our understanding of sin and evil in our world? For the person with whom I had that conversation, the reality of sin and evil was dismissed with the thought that God predetermines everything that happens. But on the other hand, I might also ask if individualism has become so pervasive in our society, that we no longer recognize that our words and actions may well be sinful and adversely affect the lives of others. Have we become so “politically correct” in our thinking, that we believe sin and evil do not exist.
According to an Associated Press article published in The Herald this past Friday, it was reported that psychologists called Cho, the young man who went on this rampage, a classic case. In this article, Northeastern University criminal justice professor, James Alan Fox, co-author of 16 books on crime, stated, and I quote, “In virtually every regard, Cho is prototypical of mass killers that I’ve studied in the past 25 years.” But then he adds, “That doesn’t mean, however, that one could have predicted his rampage.” End quote.
Although Cho exhibited all the signs of a mass killer, was even diagnosed in a psychiatric hospital, and I quote, “an imminent danger to himself and others,” he was released. Even though his violent-filled writings were so disturbing he was removed from one class and professors begged him to get counseling, no one seemed to follow through, to see that he got the help he needed.
Could it be that no one wanted to step on his individual rights, which would not have been “politically correct,” to insist that he got the help he needed to save his life, and the lives of others. With the increasing frequency of school shootings, this is a question that truly needs to be asked.
Or could it be that Dr. Fox, in his final analysis is correct, when he stated, that regardless of the signs that Cho exhibited, “it doesn’t mean that one could have predicted his rampage.” The truth is, when one looks at the all the experiences that Cho had growing up, which fit the mold of a mass killer, many others have also had those experiences, without going on a murderous rampage.
Perhaps none of us can determine how an individual might process what they experience throughout their lives. Even though there may be a lot of similar childhood experiences that form a pattern for those who commit certain acts of violence against society, and when those patterns are recognized, we should do what we can to insure that these individuals get the help the need. But we can not insure that even with the best help we can offer, one would not choose to strike out in violence. Sin and evil still exist in our world, and perhaps that is the only answer that makes any sense.
In the religious section of Friday’s paper there was also this article – Massacre ministry – Trying to Explain the Unexplainable at Virginia Tech. In this article, Rev. William King, the Lutheran campus minister at Virginia Tech since 1984, said the following, and I quote, “Sometimes the answers to tough questions just don’t come. And when they do, they don’t come easily, or often they come up short.
There is an incredible temptation to explain, to domesticate, and to tie up all the loose ends of something so horrible. Sometimes one just has to be quiet…and listen to the pain and suffering of those who have been affected by the [sinful] act of violence.” End quote.
Well, I sure don’t have all the answers. I certainly do not want to lay the responsibility for the death and injury to all these innocent people on God. That is a denial of sin and evil which pervades our world. And I also believe that sin and evil is denied by our society’s overwhelming endorsement of individualism, which embraces a persons right to do what they want, often in disregard for the rights and feeling of others, not to mention the will of God.
Neil Elliott, in his commentary on our lessons for this morning, [New Proclamation, Fortress Press, 2004] made the following comment, and I quote, “Running through many of today’s readings is a tension between the promise of God’s lordship over human life and the evident absence of that lordship in the world in which we live… What difference has the resurrection made after all? Haven’t life – and death – gone on pretty much as usual?”
Yes, it has! And yet the message of our lessons for this morning, the message of Easter, is that our crucified and risen Lord continues to break into our lives and call us back to the task of proclaiming his victory over sin and death. It is not enough for us to realize that through Christ’s death and resurrection, that we have been assured of a life beyond our grave, we are also called to, in our Lord’s words to Peter, “Feed his sheep.”
Isn’t it interesting, that after our Lord’s first two appearances to his disciples, that John’s Gospel records some to the disciples, including Peter, and the disciple whom he loved, going fishing! It is almost as if they wanted to go on with life as usual, return to the life that they lived before they ever met Jesus. But according to John’s Gospel, on our Lord’s third appearance to his disciples, he made his point rather clearly.
After they again recognized the spiritual body our risen Lord, and had breakfast with him, he asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” And three times Peter answered “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Many
scholars suggest that this question, posed three time to Peter, was to remind him of his three denials of Jesus on the night he was betrayed. But I believe it also could have been that this was the third time that he appeared to Peter following his resurrection, and for the third time, asked Peter if he would “feed his sheep,” or seriously take up his commission to proclaim the Gospel.
Easter is not just about our Lord’s rising from the tomb. Easter is not just about how our baptism, belief, and faith in our Lord’s resurrection assures us of eternal life in God’s kingdom.
It is also a call to ministry in a world in which sin and evil still prevail. It is a call to allow God’s Spirit to move us to proclaim that although the world is still filled with senseless death and violence, God has acted in Christ to give us hope for the future.
And we, as his present day disciples, have been called, and will continue to receive our Lord’s call, through the power of God’s Spirit present at worship and intervening in our lives, to proclaim in the midst of this senseless violence, that although sin and evil still exist, to God belongs the victory.
Amen.
