Gun culture

Megan and I were talking the other night about this story that came out where an 8 year-old boy was suspended for acting like his pencil was a gun and making shooting noises.  Google it if you haven't heard about it.  Megan said, “What if that’s our son one day?” To which I replied, “I’m not going to worry about it.”  In retrospect, my answer could have had a little more substance to it, especially when I received the, “I’m going to remind you of that when it happens.”

The truth is, I will go crazy and cause a ruckus with the school officials or board or whoever the authority is at the time.  I will certainly defend my son or daughter to the utmost of my ability.  But my callous response has more to do with the fact that if it happens, it happens.

Here’s what I know and what I have been able to control.  I do not own a gun, never have, never will. I do not fear for my safety, nor do I lose sleep at night worrying that some band a marauders are going to come ransack my house harming my wife and kids.  Could it happen? Sure. But so could a billion other things too, so whatever.  Like many, I watch violent movies, but far fewer than I used to, and even when I do there is always a little remorse that comes with celebrating and supporting an industry with so much invested in violence.  When we got married, violent videos games saw the same fate as my Goodwill green couch that I bought in college, given away. 

For the last 7 or 8 years I have basically become a pacifist.  Am I comfortable with that label? Sure, why not?  After all, I’m pretty sure Jesus was a pacifist and if I am trying to be a disciple of Christ, then maybe this is one way I can get it right.  Lord knows I fall short in many other areas, maybe this is one where I can take some pride. (Dang it, sinned again.) What I also know is that according to my reading of the Gospels, specifically Matthew’s version of the Jesus Story, the last command that Jesus gave his disciples before his crucifixion was, “Put your sword back in its place…” (I wish I was smart enough to take credit for this discovery, I actually saw it on the wall at Bethlehem Bible College a few years ago.)  So yeah, I don’t own guns and have never even fired one, partly because I wasn’t raised that way and partly because of my progression of faith. (And yes, I do wrestle and live in tension with the fact that I live in a country that is protected by men and women which afford me the right to have my beliefs about guns and violence.  Another topic for another day.)

I share all that with you because I still have a four year-old at home who runs around shooting the ‘bad guys’ with anything he can turn into a gun.  I think the most recent item to be brandished as a firearm is a play T-square from a set of play tools.  Sure, I ask him not to shoot his sister or me (he would never turn it on his momma). Sure I tell him to think about the superheroes he knows and how none of them have guns.  It doesn’t matter, he still does it.  So where did it come from?  It wasn’t something I taught him. It wasn’t something he learned watching PBS kids. Maybe some of the other cartoons, but even then we are pretty strict about what he can and cannot watch.  He had to pick it up from somewhere because I have yet to find a sane doctor tell me that kids come out of the womb with the knowledge of guns.

I think we have a problem in our society.  We are obsessed with guns and violence.  It has become so much of who we are as a collective group that even our very young begin to demonstrate it in actions and behavior, if only in the way they ‘play’.  So when I get a call from the office that my child has been suspended for acting like a pencil is a gun, I’m sure I’ll be furious.  But my rage and my angry will be directed not at my child, but rather at a collective society of which I am a part. Maybe by then I’ll know something more to do about it than just write.

Who is my enemy?

      Last Friday, my son and I drove to Columbia to see a baseball game between our Gamecocks versus the 2nd ranked team in the country, the Vanderbilt Commodores.  It was a big game, that’s why we drove up.  The atmosphere was electric with the home team having a definite advantage.  As I watched the game unfold, I really wanted to view Vandy as ‘the enemy’.  The problem was I could not do it.  And that is even with them being coached by a former Clemson Tiger assistant.  They were too good of a team to ‘hate on them’ as the kids say.  They played the game of baseball the right way.  They fouled off pitches.  They took the extra base.  They played some amazing defense.  And their pitchers were hard throwing and accurate.  As a baseball fanatic, I had to respect them. 

            

        After the game, my son and I went to talk to one of the student trainers so we lingered around as the players greeted their family and friends.  I saw several student athletes from Vandy come over and embrace the USC players and their families.  It occurred to me that even the athletes competing didn’t even view each other as enemies.

            

       So who are our enemies? Seriously, I am wondering.  Sports teams aren’t really enemies, at least not the kind of enemies that are referred to in the Bible.  Who are our tried and true ‘enemies’?  In the Gospel of Matthew we find Jesus’ teaching on the Mount when he says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You must love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.  but I say to you, love your enemies and prayer for those who harass you...(5:43-44, CEB)”  So is it people who harass us who are our enemies?  Is it people who abuse us?  Is it people who work in opposition to the things that I hold dear?  Maybe, but then again maybe not.

       

     I find it even more interesting that in Luke’s Gospel Jesus is asked, by what I would consider a very intelligent individual, “Who’s my neighbor?” in response to a command to love.  Who’s my neighbor?  Who should I love? How about anybody who has breath?  How about anybody else who is created in the image of God?  But the bigger question is why do we get a parable defining neighbor, but no one even raises the question about who this ‘enemy’ is that we are to love?

           

      I’m sure we have people who we look at as ‘enemies’.  Maybe the folks that plant bombs to maim and hurt innocent individuals are our ‘enemies’.  I’m pretty sure that the members of the Westboro Baptist Church (although I hesitate to call them a church) would fall into a list of ‘enemies’, at least in my mind.  I would even throw a couple of television and radio personalities on my list of ‘enemies’.  And I’ll be honest, I don’t want to love them in the least bit. And in reality, I will probably never really interact with any of them in a significant way.  So what does all this talk about ‘enemy’ really mean? 

            

      My hunch is this, and I’m still working on it a little bit, but deep down inside, we paint anyone who opposes us as enemies.  This means, anybody who threatens me and the way I like my life.  So really what we are being warned against when it comes to how we treat our enemies is selfishness.  We were created to exist in community.  And we will not always like the people who are in our community.  But the Gospel truth is whether we call them ‘neighbor’ or ‘enemy’, God’s call is to love.  In this day and time, this is a lesson we should all learn to embrace.