Pastor Ray called for an impromptu evening prayer vigil for the fallen in Las Vegas and Lawrence, Kansas. There was Lament, Word, Prayer, Prayers of Intercession where the names of the fallen were read and a bell rang after each name. There was also Meditation and Song while those gathered lit candles and prayed at the cross.The dimly lit sanctuary enveloped the small group. I didn't have a strong feeling of a need or desire to gather with others at church until I was invited. The service changed my heart or, more precisely, my heart remembered the past, and other gatherings, particularly one I only read about in Nadia Bolz-Weber's book Accidental Saints - Finding God in All the Wrong People.
It was the Sunday after Christmas, December 2012. The year that Adam Lanza decided to get up kill his mother, go to Sandy Hook Elementary School and kill 26 students and teachers and then commit suicide. Nadia Bolz-Weber knew she had to preach to give people hope and light in the midst of their hopelessness and darkness.
As she planned with her staff for worship, she decided during the prayers of the people that she would read the names of Adam’s victims and their ages. And after each reading, there would be a bell that rang out. They all agreed that would be a great idea.
But, it was her intern who spoke up, “Shouldn’t Adam’s name be added to the list?” She said, “Oh NO!” There was no way she was going to include him. This young man continued to press. She knew he was right but she couldn’t make herself go there. But she kept hearing him ask, “Nadia, wouldn’t God want this?” She finally gave-in shouting, “Fine! But, I want it to be known that I am in opposition to God’s grace!” His response, “I am sure God is hurt!”.
There it was! She had almost forgotten the most important part of the message. God not only sent his Son into the violent and faithless world to live in it but also to save it! God comes into the world and shines a brilliant star for all people…the wise men and the ordinary people like you and me. But here is the extremely hard part, God also comes into the world for the Herods, the Adam Lanzas, the terrorists, for ISIS! Every single one of us, God comes to shine a light that no darkness will overcome. It is how we accept that light that matters. And as Christians, we share that light.
So, on that Sunday, Nadia read the names. As she came to the last one, she reached down into the very core of her being and with all her strength said, “And in obedience to God’s command to love the enemy and pray for those who persecute us” and then she uttered “Adam Lanza”. The final bell rang. (Accidental Saints – Finding God in All the Wrong People; by Nadia Bolz-Weber; Convergent Books; 2015; p. 74).
So, in my heart, after the last bell ring I tried to reach down to that same core of being. I felt a very physical reaction when I whispered under my breath, audible only to me, "Stephen Paddock". I was immediately filled with both deep confusion and a determination I didn't predict I could have together. I also felt a rather painful regret I needed to surpress and the beginning of some kind of healing of an inner state I wasn't aware was in need of healing.
A memory I will carry from this evening is how appropriate a song I recently wrote fit into the fabric of the service. I had finished the song Columbus 2017 last Saturday and performed it for Pastor Ray last Tuesday because his sermon focused on God's authority which was something I struggled with in the song Pastor Ray immediately felt the song would be appropriate for this Thursday service.
In tonight's context something was evoked that was not on this author's mind as it was written. The service left me in a very different state than when I walked into the church today.
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Columbus 2017
Tune: Columbia
Oh once I knew a glorious view
Of my redeeming Lord
Who said "I'll be a God to you"
And I believed those words.
But now this child, a prodigal
Forsaken and forlorn
A pilgrim lost in foreign lands
Must look for my prodigal Lord.
Bedazzled only to close my eyes
Why should I keep looking away?
From that burning bush which is never consumed
Why no hunger to notice or stay?
Then famines come deep from within
Yes, you give us both food and the pangs.
What have I done, what will I do
To find my Lord near me again.
My brother follows in duty's way
I don't see our father there.
When backward on the road I stray
My father's not found anywhere.
While yearnings from abandoned love
Still linger in this soul.
In God's silence I learn to live
Past orders or worldly control.
So am I alone or in company
Of good people lost in prayer?
Perhaps our wandering, extravagant God
Gives out glorious visions to share
Where each of us helps rhapsodize
On some wider, more meaningful view
As deep desires, God, and God's grace
May always build, bind, and renew.
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