{"id":67,"date":"2013-07-06T16:06:56","date_gmt":"2013-07-06T16:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/?p=67"},"modified":"2013-07-06T16:34:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-06T16:34:28","slug":"telling-a-better-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/?p=67","title":{"rendered":"Telling a Better Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sandy-Hook-Elementary-School-elite-daily\"<\/a>I\u2019ve been working on this one for some time and now seems like a good time to put it out there.\u00a0 It\u2019s been over six months \u2013 more than half a year \u2013 since the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.\u00a0 Remember how so many vowed in the aftermath \u201cThis time is different; this time things will change!\u201d?\u00a0 Well, legislative sessions across the country are concluding have concluded.\u00a0 How much action has there been at the state level?\u00a0 And there\u2019s been nothing at the national level despite intensive involvement by the President and Vice President.<\/p>\n

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\"untitled\"<\/a>The Church has not been entirely silent (even if its many expressions have not been as vocal as they could be.)\u00a0 In my own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church\u00a0in America (ELCA<\/a>\u00a0, the bishops wrote a letter on the subject of gun violence<\/a> at their March conference.\u00a0 Their letter has been widely shared since that time.\u00a0The season of synod assemblies throughout the ELCA \u00a0has concluded.\u00a0 How many assemblies took any action regarding this letter?\u00a0 How many even had any discussion of this subject at all?\u00a0\u00a0Our Churchwide Assembly will convene next month, \u00a0so perhaps this letter\u00a0will receive some more attention in discussions and possible resolutions at that time.\u00a0 It should be discussed and considered.\u00a0 The letter is still timely; it is sensitive and well-written \u2013 especially if (as might have been the case) the bishops selected a few of their number to draft it then in March and there in Chicago, using whatever they might happen to have brought with them or have been able to access on this issue.\u00a0 The letter raises a number of good points.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fine piece of writing \u2026 as far as it goes.<\/p>\n

But that is the letter\u2019s biggest problem; it doesn\u2019t go far enough.\u00a0 For example, it calls on congregations to help with the task of lamenting the victims of violence.\u00a0 Lamenting is something we, as faith communities, know how to do and we do it well.\u00a0 We know how to weep with Rachel who is weeping for her children because they are no more.\u00a0 But we can do more than lament and weep with those who are weeping and mourning.<\/p>\n

We are also prophets, like Jeremiah (who spoke those words about Rachel weeping for her children) and the others, messengers who are called to point to the idols and would-be powers and false stories of the time and say \u201cThis is not what God wills \u2026 this is not what God calls for \u2026 this will not stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"img1\"<\/a>One of the most creative \u2013 and provocative \u2013 ideas that I\u2019ve heard as a faith-formed response to gun violence in the aftermath of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School came from R Don Wright, an ELCA pastor whom I know only through Facebook.\u00a0 He wanted to have a processional cross made from guns welded together to use much like Moses used the snake on the pole in Numbers \u2013 for much the same reason.\u00a0 \u201cLook at this.\u00a0 See what is killing you.\u00a0 Then turn and live.\u201d\u00a0 Our cultural idolatry of guns is killing us \u2013 literally.<\/p>\n

The story we are being sold \u2013 and it is about selling, not telling \u2013 is that only guns can keep us safe.\u00a0 Since \u201cbad guys\u201d have guns and will have them no matter what we do, the \u201cgood guys\u201d (that\u2019s us, right?) must have guns so they can stop the bad guys.\u00a0 Good people who generally care about their own personal safety, about the safety and well-being of those near and dear to them, who want to do the right thing must have as free and easy access to guns as the bad people do.\u00a0 It\u2019s their sacred duty to be prepared at all times to protect their lives \u2013 and the lives of others \u2013 by being equipped at all times to stop a bad guy with lethal force before the bad guy can do harm.<\/p>\n

This is the story we see played out time and time again in our entertainment. The saga of redemptive violence is the sacred story of our culture.\u00a0 By punishing the wrong doers, paying them back blow for blow and life for life, justice is done; only the hero willing to use violent means in the proper way can set the world back to right.\u00a0 How many of the hit summer movies and popular television programs play out according to this same story line of might making things right again through redemptive acts of violence?<\/p>\n

Much as Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association <\/a>has endeavored to blame violent entertainment (along with \u201cunregistered\u201d \u2013 actually, untreated<\/em> would be a better descriptor \u2013 mental illness) for the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, the story he uses to sell his agenda is that same myth of redemptive violence.\u00a0 Guns are celebrated in our culture as a source of power \u2013 the power to harm, sure \u2026 but also the power to avenge, make right, and protect (only if you, the aspiring hero, can do it to them, the evil doers, before they do it to you).<\/p>\n

\"imagesCAFXM5L9\"<\/a>\"imagesCANIKG5G\"<\/a>This is the myth, the sacred story, that George Zimmerman told himself on an April night last year when he accosted a teenager named Trayvon Martin.\u00a0 For whatever reason, Zimmerman perceived Martin to be a threat to the peace and well-being (and maybe the lives) of his neighbors and himself.\u00a0 So he acted to prevent the threat from becoming an actuality.\u00a0 It\u2019s the story he continues to tell himself and the rest of us \u2026 as his attorney attempts to show that, since Martin was less than a perfect angel of a kid, he therefore was a real and obvious threat to the community that night \u2026 because, if Martin wasn\u2019t some sort of threat, then Zimmerman initiated an altercation with a teenager who had nothing more on him than iced tea and Skittles and had\u00a0no other intentions than getting back home with his snacks.\u00a0 Although Trayvon Martin may have very little in common with the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, he is no less a victim of gun violence than they are \u2026 as are the many, many other young people just like him who are being killed with guns in cities all over our country.\u00a0 But will the jury recognize this or will they affirm the myth of redemptive violence by acquitting Zimmerman?<\/p>\n

The only way the \u201cgood guy with the gun\u201d stops the \u201cbad guy with the gun\u201d from doing any harm is to shoot first and ask questions later; otherwise, the \u201cbad guy\u201d always has the element of surprise \u2026 always gets the first move \u2026 always is more ready to act because he knows what he intends to do.\u00a0 In the aftermath of Sandy Hook, the NRA-shaped fantasy imagined if the principal had been armed with a gun, she could have shot Adam Lanza before he shot a single person in the school.\u00a0 Maybe \u2026 if she\u2019d been able to get her weapon ready (since it\u2019s unimaginable a school principal would always have a weapon in hand, ready to fire) \u2026 and if she could have gotten into a position to have a good shot (since I\u2019ve yet to see a school entrance in which the principal would have a clear shot at any intruders from his or her office) \u2026 and if she could accomplish these two actions before the intruder saw her or recognized what she was intending to do \u2026 if \u2026 if …\u00a0 All of this adds up to one humongous IF that is highly improbable.<\/p>\n

But yet, that is the myth \u2013 the sacred story \u2013 of the idol we call guns.\u00a0 Only guns can keep us safe.\u00a0 In our guns we must trust.\u00a0 Any gun is a good gun so long as it is in the right hands.\u00a0 You can\u2019t trust the police to be there for you; they take too long.\u00a0 You can\u2019t trust your neighbor; he (or she) might be one of the bad guys.\u00a0 It\u2019s a scary world out there full of bad guys who want to hurt you.\u00a0 Only you can save yourself and your loved ones from all this danger.\u00a0 Since insensate evil may very well be armed, you need to be armed as well.<\/p>\n

\"imagesCAD9YIH3\"<\/a>In the movie\u00a0A Christmas Story<\/i>, Ralphie\u2019s fantasy of saving his family from the evil of Black Bart and his gang with his trusty Red Rider BB Gun is hilarious because it is a fantasy \u2013 a childish fantasy that is appropriate for a child.\u00a0 But in adults, such childish fantastical thinking isn\u2019t funny.\u00a0 Oh, it can be aged-up \u2026 dressed up by pointing to some real, dangerous situations that happen on occasion and then presenting these events \u00a0as if they were commonplace, rather than\u00a0 the rare episodes they actually are.\u00a0 For example, one concealed-carry permit holder is convinced that he\u00a0avoided being carjacked simply by having a concealed hand gun on his person.\u00a0 While he was filling up his car at a gas station, another car pulled into the station and stopped at a nearby pump.\u00a0 The lights on the other car were off when it arrived at the gas station, and there were three people in it.\u00a0 From these signs, the gun holder realized that they were intending to take his car, so he stared at them for three full minutes until they drove off. (No one even tried to exit the car; no one approached him.)\u00a0 He had the courage to stare them down because he was carrying a gun.\u00a0 Even though he never had to touch it, the mere presence of the all-powerful gun prevented him from being a victim of a car-jacking.\u00a0 [I wish I could find where I read this story.\u00a0 If anyone knows the source, please let me know.<\/i>]\u00a0 That\u2019s his story; it\u2019s what he believes to be true.\u00a0 But is it any more realistic than Ralphie\u2019s fantasy?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not.\u00a0 However, when fed a diet of fear-inducing entertainment, we come to believe that the world is a scary, dangerous place in which we must be afraid \u2026 be very afraid.\u00a0 We are alone and powerless.\u00a0 To be safe we must get power and the ultimate power is a gun \u2013 a gun that will give us the power to take life (only when we must, of course).\u00a0 It\u2019s a sales pitch, really \u2026 a story spun to increase sales for gun manufacturers and related businesses.\u00a0 Like most of our advertising and sales pitches, it\u2019s built mostly on lies and half-truths.<\/p>\n

Part of our prophetic role as people of faith (and particularly leaders in faith communities) is to name the idols as such and expose the lies of the stories sacred to the idols, the myths.\u00a0 In this case, the idol is the gun and its sacred story is the myth of redemptive violence.<\/p>\n

\"untitled<\/a>Christians have a better story to tell.\u00a0 We are prophets \u2026 messengers \u2026 angels who say: \u201cFear not!\u00a0 I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be for a people.\u00a0 For unto you is born this day in the City of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord\u201d \u2026 \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid.\u00a0 You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.\u00a0 He is risen; he is not here!\u201d\u00a0 Do not be afraid; rejoice!\u00a0 God is here in your midst.\u00a0 God is not afraid to come among you \u2026 to embrace the outcast and broken, the struggling and failing.\u00a0 God does not fear the worst this world has to offer: rejection, torture, violence, condemnation and death.\u00a0 God is not afraid to enter into that \u2026 to go into even death itself \u2026 to overturn and undo it all.\u00a0 Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us, is not in that tomb.\u00a0 He is risen!\u00a0 Life and love and grace will have the final say \u2026 not death and hate and fear.<\/p>\n

\"imagesCAA3LWC6\"<\/a>It\u2019s a better story that leads to a better life.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have to be afraid of one another.\u00a0\u00a0 We are not left alone, helpless and defenseless in a scary cruel world.\u00a0 We have been called out of death into life \u2026 into life in a community in which we demonstrate love for one another, trust in one another, and the peace that comes from knowing we are all in the care of a gracious God.<\/p>\n

Yes, in our congregations, we can lament with those who weep for the victims of gun violence.\u00a0 But we are also prophets to name the idols, unmask the lies they tell as sacred story, and tell the true sacred story.\u00a0 We can be communities of moral deliberation where we weigh the ethics of gun ownership and use, our rights and responsibilities as people of God and citizens of this nation.\u00a0 But we are also called to be communities that model the new life birthed through cross and resurrection, to love God with all we have and show our love for God by loving our neighbors \u2026 a way of life that takes us out of fear and into trust.\u00a0 We are called to be safe places where the hurting and struggling \u2013 including the mentally ill \u2013 can find acceptance and help and healing.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve been working on this one for some time and now seems like a good time to put it out there.\u00a0 It\u2019s been over six months \u2013 more than half a year \u2013 since the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.\u00a0 Remember how so many vowed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events-topics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/maybegoosefeathers.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}