A Place to Start

I’ve decided to take up blogging again. This time I’m thinking of it as a discipline of sorts, a way of liberating some of the random thoughts that sometimes rattle around inside my head. I have no illusions that they are particularly profound or important. I have no inherent stake in whether anyone reads them, or how they might respond. Not that I’m not open to challenging conversation, not that I’m not willing to hear a different point of view. But if you’re interested in a “winner-take-all” debate, well, you’ll probably have better luck elsewhere.

That being said, it’s ironic that my blog today is on guns – a topic on my mind due to a recent tragedy in which a 9-year old was failed by the adults around her and handed a gun that caused the death of one of those adults.

It all started me thinking about guns, about the almost magical powers we confer upon them. We call them “protection”, some go so far as to contend that they are the ultimate source of political freedom. Others have an equal but reaction – as though guns are at the root of humanities violence and evil. The power of these emotions go so deep that any rational conversation is over before it even starts.

It started a thought process in me – what IS a gun? I don’t need a picture (I’m firearms expert, but I’ve fired a few), but if we were going to write a basic definition, what would it say?

Take for example, this definition of a hammer from Wikipedia: “A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object” It’s a nice, concise, definition. It doesn’t quibble about the constructive or destructive purpose of the “impact” involved. It’s just states a basic truth – a hammer is for hitting things. That’s what it’s designed to do.

In that same vein, I would offer a similar definition of a gun: “A gun is a tool meant to deliver a projectiles at sufficient velocity to damage or destroy living or non-living objects in its line of fire.” That is what a gun is – that is what it is designed to do. Any other good or bad it may do is a side-product of this, the ability to damage and destroy.

What would happen, do you think, if we began all our conversations about guns with that basic reality? Not with pontification about the Second Amendment or laws about gun control, not with carefully proof-texted verses about peace and/or swords, but that simple acknowledgment?

What if when we purchased a firearm or ammunition we had to sign a simple statement: I acknowledge that I am purchasing a tool designed to damage or destroy any living or non-living object in its line of fire and am fully legally and morally responsibility for the way it is used or misused.

Would the world change overnight? Of course not! But I hope, over time at least, it might change the tone of the debate a little. I hope it might, at least for those willing to reflect a bit at least, cause a shift in thinking.

I hope it might cause them to recognize that when someone says “Children can have fun at a gun range!” what they are really saying is “Children can have fun learning to use tools designed to damage or destroy living and non-living things.” When they say “I just don’t feel safe without my gun” what they are saying is “I don’t feel safe unless I possess a tool to damage and destroy living or non-living thing in my sight.” When they say “But our freedom depends on the right to bear arms” they are saying “We are only free if we all have tools to damage and destroy the living and non-living things around us.”

By the same token, acting as if getting rid of guns will somehow “solve” the problems an unjust and violent culture – well- read any history book. One of our “strengths” as a species seems to be the ability to find new and more efficient ways to kill one another.

But for people of faith, particularly people of Christian faith – well – I hope it might cause us to question whether our “need” for tools designed to cause damage and destruction is really so compatible with the teaching of the one we claim to be following. To whom do we entrust our safety in the world – the Lord of Life, or our tools of damage and destruction? What says more about our faith – our platitudes, or where we seek our protection?

I’m sure that by this point I’ve managed to annoy and/or offend most of the people who have bothered to read this (if, indeed, anyone has). That was not my intent. Just trying to get some things out of my head that have rattled around in there too long. So be it.

Epworth-Roanoke UMC - Well Done, Good and Faithful Servants

Bittersweet day. I got an email today from a member of the first church I served as a student pastor, Epworth-Roanoke UMC, in midtown, Kansas City, announcing that the church was closing, and would hold its last worship service this Sunday.

Epworth-Roanoke was a small neighborhood church, the kind of place that has largely gone by the wayside in urban America. It had a rich history of ministry to its area, first as two seperate churches a few blocks apart, Epworth Methodist and Roanoke Methodist, and later as a merged entity, worshipping in the Roanoke Church building (the Epworth building was an antique shop when last I left the area 6 years ago).

By 2001, when I first came to KC, it was a mosty elderly congregation, struggling to pay its bills and its part-time, student pastor, but it was still a vital place of ministry. Near a minor commercial district, a major medical center, and the home of a then new (what we now would probably call "emergent") church start, Jacob's Well, it continued to quietly and warmly welcome whoever came through its doors, even offering a home-cooked meal and free childcare to those who attended the AA meetings it housed on Thursday nights. That sense of welcome also led it to become one of two "reconciling" congregations (churches open to the full inclusion of GBLT individuals, for those who don't speak Methodese)in the Kansas City area, and made it a safe place to explore faith for all.

Now Epworth-Roanoke is no more. Not a surpise really - it's aging building had almost no parking and few other amenities that make it an attractive place for modern worship. The congregation had never been particularly large, so the funding needed to support a pastor and the other elements that are expected in the modern, program-driven church was not likely to ever develop. The church just didn't fit into any of the church-growth models that currently dominate our thinking.

So The few members remaining will gather for their last service this coming Sunday, and go their seperate ways, and another neighborhood church passes quietly into history.

But I will always remember Epworth-Roanoke. I will remember the faithful ones who came each week, and graciously put up with my fumbling, droning, early sermons. I'll remember watching people more than twice my age get down on the floor and patiently, joyfully, play with children while their parents got the support they needed to overcome their addictions. I'll remember their faithfulness to one another, and to God, in the face of a neighborhood and, frankly, a denomination that was slowly and steadily leaving them behind.

I'll remember, and when I remember, I will smile and give thanks, because their grace and devotion formed my spirit and my ministry, and helped me to know God's love more truly and deeply than ever before.

Well done, good and faithful servants. Bittersweet day.