Photo by Allison Tant Richard

Today I stood on the steps of Florida’s Old State Capitol with fellow clergy and watched thousands — most of them young — restore my faith in democracy.  It’s hard to express how moving it was to see such determined, articulate young people speak the truth to power with zeal, determination and courage.

The children from Majory Stoneman Douglas High School were not dupes of the left or actors flown in to impersonate real life youngsters.  They were the flesh-and-blood human beings whose friends were slaughtered and whose lives have been scarred forever by a troubled contemporary yielding a weapon meant for the battlefield.

I would not like to be the legislator who has to look those grieving young people in the eye and tell them that he or she does not support curtailing the availability and proliferation of all guns – especially those designed for military use.
I am beyond anger at lawmakers who say, “We don’t ban cars when someone uses a car to kill people; why should we ban guns?” That analogy is not only specious, it’s insulting to the memory of the 17 who died last week. There’s a difference between a machine meant for transportation and a machine built for slaughter. In fact, we do regulate cars. We regulate who can drive them and where, and how fast. We license drivers who have to pass a test. We insist on safety standards and even recall vehicles that don’t meet the standards

Not so with guns. Guns are for killing.

Nor am I persuaded that “mental health” is the prime issue. It is the height of hypocrisy that a legislature that refuses to expand health coverage to its low income citizens would suddenly call for more money for “mental health.” Clearly, the shooter at Parkland was deeply disturbed, and “the system” failed to give him the care he needed. But in fact, the incidence of mental illness is no higher for the United States than other rich industrialized nations, and people who are mentally ill are seldom violent toward others on a mass scale. Nikolas Cruz was an “outlier” among those suffering from mental illness. “Mental health” is not the primary issue.

The primary issue is the easy availability and proliferation of guns – especially hand guns and guns designed to fire many rounds rapidly.

Speaking of mental illness, it is beyond insane that a 18-year-old can walk into a store, fill out some papers, wait a few minutes, and walk out with an AR-15 rifle. In five of the six deadliest mass shootings of the past six years in the United States, the gunman had an AR- 15-style semiautomatic rifle. You have to be 21 to buy a handgun nationwide, but in many Florida counties you can buy an AR-15 at age 18 without a 3-day waiting period.

That’s my definition of madness.

The writers of the second amendment could not have dreamed that there would come a time in America when a person, barely an adult himself, could slaughter children with a weapon sanctioned by law. In their wildest nightmares, they could not have imagined that the “right to bear arms” would come to this.

But today I witnessed what I pray will be a tipping point in the struggle for common sense gun control.  These young people won’t give up, nor are they likely to excuse us adults who have failed so miserably to protect them.

Shame on us and Bravo to them.

” . . . and a little child shall lead them.”

National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day takes place on December 22, the longest night of the year. Tonight some 200 communities will gather to read the names of their neighbors — neighbors who have experienced homelessness and who have died in the course of the year.

Tonight in Tallahassee, we will gather at the Kearney Center, a facility built to be both an emergency shelter and a one-stop center to assist folks who are either homeless or on the verge of homelessness.  My primary connection to the Kearney Center is through Operation I.D., a program which helps folks to acquire a state-issued identification care.  For many, getting an i.d. is the first step in the transition from homelessness to housing.

That Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day should come on the day Congress is poised to pass the largest tax cut in a generation is more that ironic.  Among those who will pay for this egregious legislation will be neighbors served by the Kearney Center.

I was asked to give the “eulogy” at tonight’s memorial.  Here is what I plan to say . . .

We have gathered to mark the passing of brothers and sisters in the human family, people who are often overlooked or even purposefully avoided in our everyday lives. 

Homelessness is a moral issue.  The fact that so many people are coping with homelessness in this land of plenty is evidence of a moral failure on the part of us who elect our officials, make our laws, and set our economic priorities. 

The elimination of homelessness should be toward the top of Congress’ priorities.  Instead, Congress has spent the past few months cutting deals for the wealthy and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the electorate.  Just a portion of those billions that Congress is about to hand over to folks who don’t need the money could be used to end homelessness pretty much overnight. 

Although homelessness is a moral issue, to be a person coping with homelessness implies neither virtue nor vice.  People become homeless for all sorts of reasons, and none of us has the right to judge. 

Tonight is the longest night of the year, and it is also very close to the holy day Christians call “Christmas.”  It is important to remember that the child born in Bethlehem was laid in a manger because there was no room for him, and that he grew up to be the Son of Man who had no place to lay his head.

If you want to find Jesus this Christmas Eve, don’t be so sure you will find him in church.  He is just as likely to be here at the Kearney Center or camped in the woods, or sleeping rough in a doorway. 

Tonight we read the names of fellow human beings who died in the past year.  On this list will be friends to some of you, or acquaintances, or clients.  Whether you know them personally or not, you can be sure that they are somebody’s child, or sister, or brother.  Somebody’s mother or daddy, perhaps. Somebody’s lover. 

I know at least one person on this list. We had become friends through the years, and he would drop by the church occasionally to let me know how he was doing.  I was surprised to see his name on the list.  I didn’t even know he had died.

It is a privilege to read his name.  I believe that God knows every name on this list, and that is pleasing to God that we should remember these, God’s precious children.

Carl Alcorn
Joseph Burelli
Marva Chester
Rick “Dirty” Daniel
Steven Davis
Walter Dupree
Thomas Hodge
Brian Farley Jones
John Kennedy (aka Dan/Casper)
James Arthur Lewis
Deatrice Louis
Stanley Rall
Harold Reimer
Mark Reimer
Joey Tran
Shawn Whipple
Kaylyn Van De Wostine

In one of his sermons the great preacher Fred Craddock talked about going to a funeral for a word that had died.  I don’t remember the word in question, but just now I’m mourning the death of the wonderful old word “evangelical.”

Well, the word hasn’t exactly died.  Instead it has been appropriated by Christians who seem to have lost touch with the word’s original meaning.

The English words “evangel,” “evangelist,” and “evangelical” are derived from the Greek word euangelion, which means “good tidings” or “good news.”  That same Greek word euangelion passed through Latin and Old English to emerge as the word “gospel.”

The lectionary texts for the season of Advent are peppered with “good news.”  We hear it on lips of the ancient prophet Isaiah, in the preaching of John the Baptist, in the message of the angels to the shepherds, and, of course, on the lips of Jesus himself.

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is baptized by John and spends 40 days in the wilderness.  When he emerges from the wilderness, he takes up John’s message, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the good news (euangelion).

The “good news” of the gospel is Jesus himself – the one who sets captives free, who heals the sick, who restores sight to the blind, who forgives, who touches lepers, who reaches out to women, who welcomes children, and who brings euangelion to the poor.  The message of Jesus is itself the “good news,” and whoever bears witness to Jesus is, quite literally, an evangelist.

I believe that the message about Jesus is still “good news.”  In my mind at least, that makes me an evangelical Christian.

Alas, I fear the word “evangelical” has come to mean something else altogether.  Now it refers to a subset of Christians who believe, among other things, that President Trump is God’s agent to hasten the End Times.  For this reason, many “evangelicals” are jubilant over Mr. Trump’s declaration that he will move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, signaling that Jerusalem is the true capital of the modern State of Israel.

According to this strain of thinking, known as “Millenialism,” the stage is now set for a worldwide conflagration.  When the dust finally settles, Jesus will return to earth to gather up true believers and dispatch the rest of humanity to hell.

If you don’t find much euangelion in that way of thinking, I don’t blame you.

I interpret Biblical texts differently.  I don’t see this End Times formula in the Bible, and I don’t think it is consistent with the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.  While I respect sisters and brothers in Christ who adhere to this line of interpretation, I don’t agree with them.  And, frankly, I don’t think there’s very much good news in their version of the Good News.

To them, I’m not a “real” Christian.  I’m certainly not an “evangelical” Christian.  In my heart, however, I know otherwise.

I’d call myself a “classical evangelical” if it would help, but it won’t.  Let’s just say that I agree with other evangelicals, that, in the end, all of this is up to the Triune God.

The best way to ease our conscience regarding deportations of immigrants is for us tell ourselves that the government is targeting “criminal aliens.” No one will lose sleep if “bad hombres” are the only people being spirited away by ICE agents.

Then comes the news that the manager of the local Piggly Wiggly, the fellow who has lived as your neighbor for 20 years, has been arrested and imprisoned. That’s what happened to residents of Apalachicola, Florida. Jose Francisco “Pancho” Grijalva Monroy was a familiar face – a neighbor, a friend. Surely he’s not a “criminal alien.”

It turns out that Mr. Monroy did have a run-in with the law a few years ago. The charges were dropped, but it appears his name remained on a list. Somehow I doubt the residents of Apalachicola will sleep more soundly now that that their friend and neighbor resides in the ICE retention center in Wakulla County.

Juan Carlos Hernandez Pacheco – just Carlos to the people of West Frankfort, Illinois — has managed the La Fiesta Mexican restaurant in the heart of town for a decade. He’s the kind of neighbor who knows your kids by name, who brought food for local firefighters during a big fire, and who drove 2 hours to the hospital to visit someone he had heard about – not a relative – just someone who needed a visit.

Carlos was picked up by ICE agents on February 9. It turns out he was arrested for DWI years ago. And, yes, he’s an immigrant from Mexico without papers.

Residents of West Frankfort call Carols a “stand-up guy,” a “role model for life,” a “pillar of the community.” Although the town of 8,000 voted solidly for Mr. Trump, nobody seems to have imagined that the “bad hombres” Mr. Trump promised to expel would include Carlos. Now they’re writing letters of support to ICE – everybody from the mayor to the high school coach to the local prosecutor.

When immigrants acquire faces and names, when your kids go to school with their kids, when they show up with free food to feed the local fire brigade – you see them not as “criminal aliens” but as neighbors.

And we all know what Jesus says about neighbors.