Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I don’t believe in a red-horned devil, waiting in the wings with a pitchfork and maniacal cackle.

But I wonder: As the decibels of rhetoric rise above the chimes of church bells, is this the insidious work of Satan?

To be sure, great tragedy requires deep examination. Like so many across the country and world, I weep every time I think about the shootings in Connecticut. My children walk to elementary school. They sit in classrooms, cross-legged listening to stories, painting refrigerator-worthy scenes, completing math facts in a flash and spelling word tests. My children, my heart, are 8 and 11, and they could have been as easily slain as those students at Sandy Hook. I can scarcely bear it. I can’t fathom how the parents can summon the strength to wake up, much less the courage to testify to the world about the depth of their loss, the character of their children, and their prayers for the family of the killer. 

And yet despite the horror in Connecticut, I fear the insidiousness of evil, wisps of finger-smoke winding the way through communities and families, Facebook, and talk TV. Many times we are not so much having a serious debate about gun control and treatment of the mentally ill as we are shouting at each other, firmly entrenched in our own position, unwilling to yield or share or compromise. 

A colleague likes a Facebook post: A safer America is an armed America. And my gut response is to unfriend them. Another writes: “It saddens and disgusts me that there are people I know that place more importance on assault weapons than humanity. If you're one of those people, you are not my friend and I do not want you in my life. I'm not joking.” 

The Prince of Peace did not come for this. 

We moved so quickly from mourning to judgment, from weeping to ranting. We are more intent on trumpeting what divides us than remembering the birth of Christ that unites us. 

Evil rises unbidden. But we give it wings. 

I want substantive change in our gun laws. I hope we will find better ways to help people who are mentally ill. But I also want to seek those changes in a way that honors the lives of 26 children and teachers. That we can resist the urge to unfriend and choose sides and instead find ways to engage in dialogue, even and especially with those whom we disagree. 

As we gather in our churches and homes to celebrate the birth of Christ, I pray we will embrace a peace that passes understanding, a peace that only the Christ child can bring that leads to good will toward all.