A Note, Proposal, Prayer & Hymn for This Week's Horrors

On May 24, 2022, a young man opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX killing 19 students and 2 teachers.

When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide My eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of My sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed and correct the oppressor. "Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." + Isaiah 1:15-18

Today on the 2nd anniversary of George Floyd's murder, we are grieving again as we tremble at the loss of 21 human beings, 19 of them children, due to the terrorist's massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas yesterday.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. King Jesus, please come and be with the Uvalde community and us in the loud cries of lament, anger, desperation, fear, and determination to hope in the face of evil. Come reveal that Your victory over hell is still real and at work in the destruction in this world we have broken.

As I was reminded by a good friend this morning, in the horror of this moment, Immanuel has not forsaken us. Jesus, our Deliverer, meets us in this darkness to help us see that even this death and violence will be swallowed up in His resurrection and ascension victory. "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us. We want to see. We need to see."

As we long to see, and as we wait to experience the completion of Jesus' victory, we can also pray that all those who were murdered are now experiencing the presence of Christ in paradise as we seek to do justice and love mercy on earth, as it is in heaven, in honor of those lost while lamenting a world without them.

Tomorrow, on Ascension Day, I will be praying through how we can continue to live well in light of such a reality with groans, tears, questions, and the will to hope against hope. As you continue to process these horrors, and seek to help others in processing them, too, here are a few resources that you may find beneficial:

+ ACA: Coping in the Aftermath of a Shooting 

+ NASP: Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Parents and Teachers 

+ CFSTS: Helping Children Understand Frightening Events  

+ EMH: A Liturgy for Grieving a National Tragedy  

+ FYI: Processing the Tragedy of School Shootings

In relation to turning prayer and research into action, after a brief look at Taylor S. Schumann's When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence, I also read this thoughtful proposal as a way to lean into this moment with focused imagination:

1. Every lawmaker at every level of government should be put on immediate administrative leave.

2. Lawmakers have 2 weeks to interview friends and families and produce a 50-page biography of one of the victims. Lawmakers must work alone on the project.

3. The paper will be graded by school teachers, who are compensated for their work. Inadequate work will be revised until it passes muster.

4. All legislators will present a 20-min biographical speech to their constituents about the victim in whose story they immersed themselves.

5. Afterward, they shall be sequestered in a school building where there’s been a shooting in the past (summer break FTW) with their colleagues until such a time as they can emerge with robust policies that experts agree will radically reduce the number and severity of violent incidents.

+ Rev. Dr. Andrew Stager, St. Patrick's Church

What is needed and what will be done are very important to invest ourselves in considering throughout the days to come. While many will say nothing will change, I don't want to settle for such cynicism. May our grief and our questions keep us embodied in this limbo to keep listening, keep collaborating, and keep seeking first the Kingdom of righteousness and justice that is near and will fully come.

Words to sit in as we seek solace from our Savior and look to continue to be conformed to Him as the peacemakers who are children of God. I close this post with a prayer from another minister that has been helping me piece together words to pray today. Perhaps these words will help you pray, too:

Loving and gracious God, we pray now even while we still grieve and lament the recent gun violence in the Korean salon in Dallas, the streets of our cities, at a church in Laguna Hills, and a racist motivated massacre in Buffalo. Again and again, we come in disbelief, lament, and mourning. We pray for the students, teachers, and community of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. We especially pray for the family members and loved ones who are left with an unfathomable heartache of loss. Be near to the brokenhearted. While we clearly condemn the evil act of the shooter, we pray for his family as they process and mourn this unconscionable crime. As we pray and mourn, give us the moral courage to also discern how we can act. We pray for hearts to change and we also pray for laws and policies that would make such gun violence rare and not a regular part of our society. Lord, we also pray for our respective lawmakers. Move and stir their hearts to lead with deep empathy. Rather than partisan politics, convict our leaders to prioritize the mental, emotional, and physical well being of those they serve—including and especially our children and youth. In a culture that sometimes feels as if we've normalized violence, may our hearts remain tender, broken, and resolute over such senseless violence. Convict us to know that even in a broken world, it doesn't have to be this way. Lord, in your mercy. Amen. 

+ Rev. Eugene Cho

Hold each other close. Your lives are precious and treasured.

P.S. A couple days after posting these words, Amanda Gorman, a poet and the author of “The Hill We Climb,” “Call Us What We Carry” and “Change Sings,” wrote a new poem, "Hymn for the Hurting," to help us process the grief, tension, and longing in this moment:

Everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed and strange,
Minds made muddied and mute.
We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.
And yet none of it is new;
We knew it as home,
As horror,
As heritage.
Even our children
Cannot be children,
Cannot be.

Everything hurts.
It’s a hard time to be alive,
And even harder to stay that way.
We’re burdened to live out these days,
While at the same time, blessed to outlive them.

This alarm is how we know
We must be altered —
That we must differ or die,
That we must triumph or try.
Thus while hate cannot be terminated,
It can be transformed
Into a love that lets us live.

May we not just grieve, but give:
May we not just ache, but act;
May our signed right to bear arms
Never blind our sight from shared harm;
May we choose our children over chaos.
May another innocent never be lost.

Maybe everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed & strange.
But only when everything hurts
May everything change. 

+ Amanda Gorman, "Hymn for the Hurting"

The Lord bless you and keep you always,

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Story of God CN | Beautiful Faith at Work in a Sanitation Truck

 

If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper
... Sweep streets so well
that all the hosts of heaven and earth
will have to pause and say:

"Here lived a great sweeper
who swept his job well."

+ MLK

For this Special City Notes (CN), in honor of the work we get to do in the city of Worcester across all our vocations that serve our communities and neighbors, and to complement the "Faith at Work" interviews I have had the joy to do with people throughout Emmaus City Church that are similar to what we get to explore in Surge School, I want to provide you with an overview of how God's story in the Bible shapes how we approach our jobs. And what better job to highlight than our sanitation workers who fight biological warfare for us to help keep our city healthy and clean.

The Story of God in 6 Symbols: Creation, Crisis, Covenant Community, Christ, Church, (New) Creation

The Symphony and the Sanitation Truck 

Adapted excerpts from Bruce's story
in The Symphony of Mission:

Playing Your Part in God's Work in the World 
by Michael W. Goheen and Jim Mullins

Creation
Each morning, Bruce steps into his truck, prays for God's blessing, fires up the engine, and begins his route. While most other drivers find little meaning in their work, Bruce knows that he's embarking on a mission. The hands that grip the steering wheel were created to display the glory of God. One of the first cards he reads each morning displays this quote from Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.:

If it falls to your lot

to be a street sweeper, 

sweep streets like Michelangelo 

painted pictures, 

or Beethoven composed music, 

sweep streets like Leontyne Price 

sings before the Metropolitan Opera. 

Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. 

Sweep streets so well 

that all the hosts of heaven and earth 

will have to pause and say: 

"Here lived a great sweeper 

who swept his job well."

Another index card bears the words of Genesis 2:15: "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." As he reads these words, Bruce is reminded that just as God placed Adam in the garden of Eden, so he has placed Bruce in that truck. Bruce's particular plot in God's garden happens to be the back alleys of his city. He cultivates that space for the glory of God. The broken glass, old furniture, weeds, and cinder-block walls are the materials of his sanctuary, a sacred space that belongs to God ... Every plastic bag or dirty diaper that Bruce keeps off the streets is an offering to honor his King. He sees himself as beautifying God's good earth and protecting the masterpiece of God's creation.

Creation Core Questions

Who am I?

How is my identity formed and defined?

Crisis

The reason I find so much joy in my work is that I believe every inch of this world belongs to God and that by keeping the city clean, I'm serving him. He made us to flourish, but everything got messed up a long time ago. All the proof you need is in the back of this garbage truck. When you look back here, you see a lot of formerly good things that are now broken, rotting, and decaying. What used to be a nourishing meal is now rotting meat; what was a good chair is now splintered wood. You and I both know that what's happening in the back of this truck isn't limited to the garbage bin. It's happening in countries at war, in the cancer growing in Dave's liver, in the corruption of politics, in the strain of our marriages, and in the pain we feel in our knees. Sin isn't just a list of bad things you shouldn't do but a disease that infects all of creation, starting with every human heart. It would make sense for God to crush this whole world and all that's broken. However, he doesn't intend to throw the world in the garbage heap but plans to recycle, renew, and restore all things."

Crisis Core Questions
What problems do I see?
Who's to blame?

Covenant Community

Bruce's working before the face of God, lifting up each trash bin with that robotic arm as if his own hands were raised in worship. His coworkers may give him a hard time for his strange love of sanitation, but behind their banter there's a deep level of respect. Several of them treat Bruce as a mentor and a man of integrity who can speak into many aspects of life. His coworkers often show up at his house during the weekends to eat pancakes with the rest of his family. Bruce and his wife have three of their own children, but there are eight seats at their kitchen table. Each week they ask God to fill those seats with people who need a sense of family. Often the seats are filled by Bruce's coworkers, especially the younger ones who have become estranged from their own families. Bruce and his wife know they've been adopted by the Father through Christ, so they take a posture of adoption toward all who need a family.

Covenant Community Core Questions
How do I find people to belong to, to trust?

Christ (Cradle + Cross + Crown)

When Jesus came into this world, he entered the garbage bin of this earth to make all things new. He didn't just snap his fingers to make things better. He stepped into the trash compactor in our place: 'He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed' (Isa. 53:5). Essentially, whenever you see that hydraulic trash compactor crushing the brokenness, you should be reminded of what Jesus did on the cross. He was crushed so that we, along with the world don't have to be. In his resurrection, he shows the power of God to deal with the brokenness of sin, Satan, and death – and to renew the world."

Christ Core Questions

What will save me, others, and the world?

Church

Not only does Bruce give of his time for the sake of his coworkers; he also intentionally chooses the hardest routes. By bearing the burden of a difficult route, he imitates the self-giving pattern of the cross. Driving his garbage truck isn't just a means of serving his coworkers; it's Bruce's way of washing the feet of the city. As he drives through each alley, he prays over the homes there, prays for the flourishing of the city. He imagines what would happen if nobody were to pick up the trash. Life would become miserable as God's good world would be covered in garbage, and the stench would offend the nostrils of the whole neighborhood. Disease would drive people from their homes. By removing trash from the streets, Bruce tangibly loves his neighbor. His coworkers often ask Bruce why his life is so different, why he loves his job so much, and why he goes the extra mile to serve others. It would be easy for Bruce to give them a stale, memorized gospel presentation. Instead, Bruce has reflected deeply on the redemptive analogies that are embedded in his context. So he often takes his coworkers to the back of the truck to look at the trash and says something like the Crisis and Christ sections above ... After one of these conversations with Bruce, some people roll their eyes or politely try to change the subject. But sometimes people want to learn more, and Bruce invites them to come be with some people with his church so that they can experience community and see the gospel lived out in the lives of many different people. And occasionally, Bruce has the privilege of baptizing one of his coworkers in the community pool at his apartment complex.

Church Core Questions

How do I approach my work, 

calling, and purpose? 

(And again, how do I find people 

to belong to, to trust?)

(New) Creation
What can we notice about Bruce's participation in God's mission? You probably noticed that his life displays the gospel from many angles. He displays God's character through his good work, his sacrificial service to his coworkers, and his gospel analogies from within his context to verbally proclaim the gospel. Rather than pitting these aspects of mission against one another –debating which one is most important – he embraces all three of them, knowing that work, service, and evangelism were intended to work together to bear witness to God and offer a glimpse into the shalom that is the goal of the true story of the world.

(New) Creation Core Questions

What is ultimately worth placing my hope in?

Now, after taking a deeper look at Bruce's work and as you think about your own work, I invite you to consider these four questions:

Creation | Identity

How does God reveal
what the work of the Creator,
Gardener, Builder, Healer, Champion, etc.,
is like through my work?

Crisis | Problem

Where do I experience brokenness 

with my job
(ex. how I relate to it,
how it does or
does not accomplish its goals, etc.)?
Where do I see brokenness
in how I and others
relate to the work I do?

Covenant Community + Christ

Promises, People, Redemption

When do I see reflections of
God's work of redemption
(i.e. bringing freedom, value, restoration)
in myself and in others I work with?

Church | Purpose

When do I sense that my work
is part of God's greater work in the world?

Asking these questions, along with observing how our work interacts within the Story of God, can help us understand how Jesus comes to rescue us and set us free not to diminish our work into idolatry or idleness.

Work Idolatry Examples

My job is my primary source
of value, identity, and satisfaction;
I know who I am and
my worth by what title I hold.

My job is the way 

I can perform the best 

in order to promote my success 

and make a name for myself 

to boost my reputation 

among those I most want to impress.

Work Idleness Examples

My job is just another means 

to make money, 

bide my time before the weekend, 

and get to vacation and eventually retirement.

My job is the most frustrating thing
in my life because I control it the least,
so I invest my worst self in it
and save my best for other things
(i.e. entertainment, hobbies, escape).

May we each receive Jesus' rescue
and find our identity in the God
who made us and welcomes us
into a greater story that helps us
see our work for what it truly is –
the garden God has placed us in
where we get to steward what God gives,
serve those around us,
and tell the story of renewal.

Lady K-Fever Sanitation Truck Artwork NYC

More Story of God posts:

+ Nature

+ The Human Body  

+ Consumerism

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us