To the Editor:
 
A voice is heard in Ramah,

   lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children;

   she refuses to be comforted for her children,

   because they are no more. (Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:18)
 

On Wednesday, May 25, I woke up in Fribourg, Switzerland, where I had been for a conference, to prepare to journey home. When I awoke, I saw messages from home that there had been another slaughter of children, at an elementary school in Texas. And as expected, lawmakers are tweeting “thoughts and prayers.” As a society, we seem to have accepted the regular murder of our children as a reality to tolerate.

This provides a clear glimpse into the state of the soul of our nation. This is not an isolated event by any means, but rather, it speaks very clearly to a deep sickness within us.

Let me say this: Thoughts and prayers are not enough. I am very much in favor of thinking, and I am very much in favor of praying, but to stop there is not sufficient.

As I am a pastor, I engage this from a Christian framework. As such, the biblical witness is filled with Divine condemnation of the offering of prayers and the performance of rituals by the same people who commit, perpetuate, or passively permit injustice to others.

Mass shooting as a regular part of life is not normal throughout the world. In many parts of the world, people do not live with the constant fear that someone will walk into a crowded place and open fire; parents do not send their children to school with the fear, even in the back of their mind, that they may never come back.

In many parts of the world, children do not have active-shooter drills as part of their school experience. In fact, in my lifetime, there have been no fewer than 21 school shootings in the United States with at least four casualties. We do not have to live this way. We should not see this as normal or acceptable.

I expect that, like all others, we will talk about this for a little bit, blame mental illness (despite the fact that other places without mass shootings have mental illness as well) but then also certainly not do anything about the health-care system, and then move on to the next one, never actually meaningfully addressing this to ensure that this does not continue. I’m concerned that we will never actually take courageous and concrete steps to save lives.

We are accustomed to putting blame on a “bad apple.” But we don’t finish the idiom, “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.” Fear of gun violence is not freedom. And it surely is not the Divine desire for humanity or the world. 
 

 Your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;

   remove the evil of your doings

   from before my eyes;

cease to do evil,

   learn to do good;

seek justice,

   rescue the oppressed,

defend the orphan,

   plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:15c-17)
 

It does not have to be this way, it should not be this way, we must not allow it to remain this way. 

The Rev. Matthew J. van Maastricht

Altamont

Editor’s note: The Rev. Matthew J. van Maastricht is pastor of the Altamont Reformed Church.