I would like to speak to the tragedies which have recently taken place in our nation - the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. We can never speak with total certainty about what goes through the mind of a person. More details will be known over time. Neither can we ever say we completely understand what those directly involved are going through. The family members, friends, classmates, relatives, neighbors, first responders and others involved have had an impossible weight placed on them that they will carry for the rest of their lives.
One reflection I have when thinking of these tragedies involves the hatred Payton Gendron, the Buffalo shooter, appears to have for another racial group simply because they were Black and he is white. Stated simply, this sin must stop. It is always wrong, it is never right, and it doesn’t matter who says otherwise. Parents must raise their children better than this, schools must make it more clear, and churches must proclaim it more loudly. It is never OK to think less or differently of another person because of race, age, culture, language, political position and yes, sexual preference or gender identity. I certainly have my disagreements with those who say there are many choices of sexual preference (there’s not) and gender identity (there’s two). But with any group or individual who is different from me, my attitude must be one of love because that person or group of persons was created by the God I serve and is loved by Him just as much as He loves me.
When I was a student at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky in the early 1990s, a friend and fellow student of mine was named Emile. He came from a country in Africa called Rwanda, a small, poor nation. Emile graduated a year or two before I did and returned home with his family. Imagine my distress when the genocide erupted in Rwanda in early 1994. This was largely a move by the dominant Hutu group to wipe out the minority Tutsi tribe. Around 600,000 people died in this conflict. Emile and his family were Tutsi, and for months, I was not able to get word of their safety. I was so relieved when I finally heard from him; they had fled the country to Australia.
But how that must have scarred the soul of the nation! How long will it take to heal? Will they ever completely heal? And here’s another question. Is that what we want America to become? Is that how we want to live and die? Is that how we want our children to grow up? Is that the kind of character we want America and Americans to possess? God help us if we do. These kinds of things do not happen overnight. They are the product of a thousand thoughts, words and actions over years, decades, generations. Nor will they be corrected in a moment. It will take a thousand thoughts, words and actions. But those steps need to start now and they need to start with us.
