On Wednesday September 4, 2024, a 14-year-old student at Apalachee High in Winder, Ga, entered his school with a rifle. Around 10am he began firing at fellow students and teachers. Minutes later four people were dead, nine were injured.

Some students during the shooting huddled quietly in their classrooms for more than an hour. Many left their phones behind when they eventually evacuated. This made it difficult to connect with anxious family members.

Traffic snarled around the school as parents scrambled to find their kids.

Back home, my wife and I received emails and texts from our children’s schools naming the incident. Naming what each school is doing to try and keep our kids safe.

Just as they do every time a mass school shooting happens in the US.

Here we go again.

This latest US mass school shooting joins many others before it in recent history, including:

• Uvalde Texas Elementary in 2022 (22 killed, 18 injured)
• Parkland Florida High School in 2018 (17 killed, 17 injured)
• Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 (28 killed, 2 injured)
• Virginia Tech in 2007 (33 killed, 17 injured)
• Columbine Colorado High School in 1999 (15 killed, 21 injured)

The shooting on January 4 of this year, at Perry High School, a mere 40 minutes from downtown Des Moines, is still fresh on our minds. That day a seventeen-year-old killed two people, including a 6th grader and the principal, injured another six, and then turned the gun on himself.

The student accused of this latest mass shooting in Georgia, Colt Gray, used a black AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle. As best we know, the gun was purchased legally by his father. According to three different law enforcement officials the weapon used was given by the father, to the son, as a Christmas gift, in December of 2023.

Think about that. Christmas.

The day we Christians celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace. Is the day this gift, of a semiautomatic rifle, to a minor, was given and received.

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Today I’d like to reflect on the text from James 2.

Consider two people who walk in the same room, James says.

One is blinged out with gold and fine threads.
The other is poor. What they wear is worthless.

If you treat those two people differently, saying “have a seat here please,” to the person with, and “stand over there,” to the person without, you have placed –

higher value on the wealthy, and
lower value on the poor.

It is this two class system Rosa Parks rebelled against when she boarded a public bus in Montgomery Alabama in 1955, refusing to move from her seat.

Consider two people who walk on the same bus.

One is white.
The other black.

If you treat those two people differently, saying “have a seat up front,” to one while saying “your place is in the back” to the other, you have done something.

You have placed –
higher value on light skin, and
lower value on dark skin.

It took boycotts, marches, and ultimately new laws borne of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to correct this injustice. It took changes to US law for this discriminatory practice to go away.

James chapter 2 uses slightly different language.

When you treat two people differently, based on anything, scripture says:

It is favoritism.
It is partiality.
It is, in a word, sin.

When you do this, verse 4 says, we become judges with evil thoughts.

Ouch.

The reason showing favoritism runs counter to what we are called to as Christ followers is simple. Showing favoritism makes it difficult to live into the Greatest Commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.

For when we care for some of our neighbors, at the expense of others, it separates us from each other. And it separates us from our God.

Next
Consider two other people who walk on the same bus.

One owns a semiautomatic rifle.
The other is one of our children, just trying to get to school.

If you treat those two people differently, saying “have a seat up front,” to the semiautomatic rifle owner, and “your place is in the back” to the child, you have done something.

You have prioritized a hobby over the safety of our kids.

Our shared Christian faith is clear: this mindset is not of God.

And it’s been this way for 2,000 years.

That’s great Pastor, you might find yourself thinking, but what can I do?

Beloved, I’ve got good news:

• 68% of Americans self-identify as Christians
• 66% of US adults favor banning high-capacity ammo magazines
• 64% of US adults favor banning assault style weapons entirely

Said differently, two out of three, on each of these, represents the possibility of very real change.

To date we have let our politicians be co-opted by gun lobbyists for their own financial gain.

But we don’t have to.

We can support common sense gun reforms consistent with the tenants of our shared Christian faith.

Just like we did to secure Civil Rights –

We too can boycott.
We too can march.
We too can vote.

November 6 is less than two months away.

Forget about thoughts and prayers.
For faith without works is dead.

This is the time to speak out.
This is the time to act.

It will take change, to US law, to address the tragedy of mass school shootings.
For all children of God, who are also our children, deserve more.  Amen.

To you I lift up my eyes,
    O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
As the eyes of servants
    look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
    to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
    until he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
    for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than its fill
    of the scorn of those who are at ease,
    of the contempt of the proud.

So goes Psalm 123.

The prayer is –
Simple,
Direct,
Trusting,
Confident.

It is a Song of Ascents. Said differently: it looks up. Originally voiced while on pilgrimage, the people traveled, from lands near and far, to Jerusalem for a religious festival. They sang their hoped-for fortunes as they went. It is a prayer in motion.

It is sung in community, on a journey to the divine.
It is sung outdoors, under the sun, the moon, the stars.

The song begins.

I lift my eyes to you,
Who are enthroned above.

Servants rely on those they serve.
Maids rely on who owns what they clean.
So too their eyes look to the Lord their God.

The people pray for care.

Have mercy upon us, they petition,
Have mercy upon us, O Lord.
Have mercy upon us!

They request mercy –
Not once,
Or twice,
But thrice.

Mercy is to –
Show unconditional regard;
Offer love that is complete;
Give oneself to the wellbeing of another soul.

It is to do so without prerequisite.

Mercy is needed because the community the Psalmist speaks for is being treated with contempt.

Contempt is to –
Despise;
Mock;
Scorn.

It is to treat someone as less than you.

When it comes to the contempt they have suffered, the Psalmist says they have had enough. Enough of what? The Psalmist continues: these pilgrimage people are being scorned by those who are at ease.

Esteemed theologian Walter Brueggemann notes this same phrase, those who are at ease, is also found in Amos 6:1. There the phrase is a reference to affluence, those with financial means. The affluent, says Amos, are often –

Arrogant,
Self-indulgent,
Indifferent to those with less.

Those who are at ease often struggle with how to treat people who depend on someone else’s thumbs up, or thumbs down, to simply survive.

Yet ours is a God who hears the cry of the desperate. This is the crux of Psalm 123.

Reflecting on this text, I can’t help but be reminded of our unhoused friends here in Des Moines.

They too travel from lands near and far.
They too voice hoped-for fortunes.
Theirs too is a prayer in motion.

All done under the sun, the moon, the stars.

Their Song of Ascents, from people with so little, in need of so much, might go something like this:

A Psalm of the unhoused.

To you I lift up my eyes,
    Creator of all that is.
As the eyes of an employee
    look to their manager,
as the eyes of a patient
    to their surgeon,
so the eyes of the unhoused
    look to the Lord our God,
    until you have mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us,
    the unhoused, Lord,
    have mercy upon us!
For we have had more
    than enough of contempt.
We are scorned by people of means.
    Swept from public lands,
    businesses, non-profits,
    communities of faith.
All on land you, O Lord, created,
    and claim as your own.

Our bodies deteriorate,
    our mental state is weak,
    our social connections few.
Our emotional and spiritual needs? Ha!
    We struggle to be seen as even human;
    often we struggle to even be seen.

Then, in the distance, a sign,
    on the building,
    at the corner,
    of Watson Powell and 6th.
    ALL ARE WELCOME it boldly states.
Then, on that same building,
    another, in letters many feet tall:
    IN THE CITY FOR GOOD.

What does this mean?
    Might it include we, the unhoused?
    Might this place show your mercy, O Lord?
    Might here be a source of nourishment,
    emotional, spiritual care?
Or will we be placed in contempt,
    as elsewhere we so often are?

To you, we lift up our eyes,
    Creator of all that is.

Two months ago, as final frost farewells bid adieu to Des Moines, making room for Spring, my wife dove into year two of a new-to-her hobby: gardening. She –

tilled ground,
leveled soil,
installed fabric,
added mulch,
planted seeds.

The seeds we hope will bear bumper crops of strawberries, watermelon, lettuce, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, herbs, zucchini, squash. We also planted multiple types of peppers that will, with some tlc, become our hot sauces for the year.

We water, but only when it doesn’t rain.
We weed, but the fabric works, so not much.

Mostly we go out, in the evening, to see how our garden grows. We then head back indoors for dinner, tv, video games, bed. In the morning, we rise and go outside once again. We gaze in wonder at every small change we perceive, noticing new sprouts, new flowers, new fruits, new vegetables, new growth, new life.

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Our gospel parables today read similarly. The kingdom of God is that scattered seed. We sleep and rise, night and day, watching seeds of the Spirit sprout and grow. We too gaze in wonder at every small change we perceive. How do those seeds do what they do? We leave that to our Creator.

Christ continues with another parable. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Common. Small. Yet, when planted in the right conditions so much becomes possible. The mustard bush can grow as big as a house. Birds flock to its branches. There they find rest, shade, food. They seem to love its little black seeds. Eating them, the birds fly away, spreading those seeds all around.

Some of those mustard seeds fall on fertile soil, and sprout up, full of life. They then too have the potential to grow tall, draw birds to their branches for shade, rest, food. The cycle repeats.

Christ explained the parables to his disciples. But they must not have understood it. Because later that day, when evening had come, the thirteen traveled by boat in the sea. The winds whipped up, tossing the ship around. Jesus kept sleeping. So worried were the twelve they awoke Christ, proclaiming we are perishing! Jesus then commanded the storm to calm. And it did. Turning to his shipmates he then asked two simple questions: Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?

Today
Here at St. John’s our garden continues to grow quite well. We celebrate:

• a 13% increase in dollars pledged for our budget this year. That is a bump of $75,000 annually compared to 2023. And, for the first time in many, many years we celebrate passing a balanced budget too.
• an expanded focus on LGBTQ+ inclusion. Last weekend we joined an ecumenical PRIDE worship service downtown, we marched in the parade, we interacted with hundreds at our Pride booth, handing out swag, sharing smiles. We made it clear God’s love is for all.
• an expanded focus on caring for the unhoused. Last Monday Kris Gregerson led the initial meeting of our newly formed Unhoused Ministry team. Sixteen people gathered, sharing their passion for this marginalized population. There were clergy, city planners, social workers, nurses, marketers, all making plans to do more. We make clear God cares for all.

The seeds of St. John’s for many years have included Christ-honoring commitments to –

• financial giving
• inclusion
• care of the unhoused

Each a part of who we are.
With each we continue to grow.

Not too long ago this congregation relied on interim pastors and had no called clergy. Then, in June of 2022, came one. Then, four months ago, a second. This month we add a pastoral intern who will be with us these next 18 months. And we are all very much excited about that.

Earlier this month we said farewell to a beloved worship director. Yet here too exists the potential for new growth. For the seeds of one full-time role have yielded two positions: a full- time Director of Worship, Organ and Choir, and a part-time Saturday Organist. A budget neutral change too, I might add 😉.

With God’s help, and perhaps some patience both roles will be filled soon.

Receive the wisdom of scripture, beloved.
Do not be anxious about anything.
For the kingdom of God grows all around.

With it we receive shelter, rest, care.

Sleep well. Dream in full color. Then, in the morning, rise and go out excitedly into God’s garden. Gaze in wonder at every small bit of growth you perceive. Notice new fruits, new energy, new life.

Celebrate this growth, for it is all around.

It continues what has been, is, and forevermore shall be. The cycle repeats.