A little over a year ago, starting on Ash Wednesday; with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida; I reflected on prayer's purpose and power in life. Tonight, with last Friday's attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, which happened during Jumu'ah prayers at their masjid, I returned to these same reflections.
There are different expressions of mourning and tribute that bring up different reactions to this attack. Not surprisingly the ones uppermost in our minds tonight are from New Zealand and some from the Muslim traditions of honoring the dead. There are students in New Zealand performing a Māori haka war dance (follow the link), a celebration of strength and community in tribute to their classmates. The Māori - Kia kaha (be strong) support is clear.In 1989, the people of New Zealand came together to create what is called the New Zealand Prayer Book. Creator occasionally recites the Lord's Prayer from this He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa which addresses not only a world that is full of wonder and joy, but also is full of sorrow and pain.
There is another prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book that has illuminated a path for me during these last few days:
God of hope, we come to you in shock and grief and confusion of heart. Help us to find peace in the knowledge of your loving mercy to all your children and give us light to guide us out of our darkness into the assurance of your love. Amen.
While that prayer was written in New Zealand 30 years ago, the shock and grief and confusion of heart describes the horrific terrorist attack in New Zealand last Friday.
God gives us the innate psychological need to mourn tragedies and this probably played a part in how odd I felt at worship three days ago. There was simply not enough time to grasp the tragedy in the time it took to speak the words of the prayer. The magnitude of 50 people killed in worship felt diminished by so few words.
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| Prime Minister Ardern |
Yes, let's acknowledge the tribalism of certain Christians and Muslims both. Muslims are the subjects of massive generalizations among a few Americans I know. These generalizations appear to come out of fear and a lack of understanding.
Acts of violence committed by Muslims are easily attributed to Islam as a religion, while acts of violence committed by Christian perpetrators are just as easily attributed only to a few individuals who are mentally unbalanced. It is hard for us to acknowledge that some people believe in a radical, white nationalist, ideology that they deem to be Christian.
Our gathering prayed to be guided away from those generalizations tonight.
There is also a devolving national dialog around “thoughts and prayers” after so many mass shootings. Being in our “thoughts and prayers” has moved from having a mixed reputation to a decidedly negative one in public discourse. The phrase has come to symbolize inaction, passivity, and callousness, Sunday's disconnection between my heart and the congregational prayer could not be ignored and played into that discourse. This is also the second Lent where a tragedy has happened and the public prayer I was engaged in did not seem to be a prayer appropriate for the occasion
There is obviously both a personal / public component to this. If others didn't feel a lack in Sunday's Prayers of the People or do not need that particular time to be eliciting a deep connection in worship, then my complaint is personal and likely needs a personal resolution.
Last year I composed and sang a variant of a Sacred Harp hymn called Columbus about a man's unique spiritual journey towards his true faith. I am still on the journey that prompted me to write it.
Columbus 2017 Tune: Columbia
Oh once I knew a glorious view
Of my redeeming LordWho 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 strayMy 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.
Last year Creator held a Service of Prayer and Lament in Times of Violence in support of the Parkland victims and survivors where this song was played. Memories of that service were embedded for me in this prayer vigil and, this time, the words of Psalm 40 came to me "I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure." I wondered how long we will sing this song.
A couple of days ago the ELCA's own Bishop Eaton co-authored an article with a number of faith leaders, 'They are us': How people of faith are responding to New Zealand massacre. I quote:
As the Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Our Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions call each of us to strive for a greater understanding, relationship and cooperation that will lead to justice, peace and life abundant, which God intends for us all.
Too often we have been sickened that sacred places of worship have become sites of mass violence. This tragedy occurred on Friday afternoon when the mosque was filled for Friday prayers, just as the Pittsburgh killer attacked Jews at their synagogue, the Oak Creek killer targeted a Sikh Gurdwara, and the Charleston killer attacked a historic black church.
None of us can truly worship God freely until we all can worship God freely.
Creator's Contemplative Worship and Christchurch Prayer Vigil gave those gathered time and prayer that was different from Sunday's worship. Before our Prayer Around the Cross Pastor Ray delivered a litany where, after each petition, a Māori call and an English response was used - E to Ariki, kia aroha mai (Lord have Mercy) E te Karaiti, kia aroha mai (Christ have mercy). A prayer bowl was then rung 50 times, once for each victim who died. After that we lit our candles where we had gathered. This all was what I yearned for - to publicly share and carry our hearts as a first step to that 'worshiping God freely' we long to reach.
The first funerals of the victims from Friday's shooting, Khaled and Hamza Mustafa, a Syrian father and his 15-year-old son, happened today. Zaed Mustafa, 13, the brother of Hamza and son of Khaled, was also wounded in the shooting and attended the funeral in a wheelchair.
Today was also the day that the Māori (the first New Zealanders) and some of the most recent New Zealanders walked back, for the first time since last Friday, to the Dean Ave Mosque where 43 people were killed. Participants reported the gathering was beautiful. Albeit out of a tragic, very sad event but it had the opposite effect of what the shooter intended. Everywhere expressions of love were on display, hundreds gathering to pay their respects at the Linwood Mosque.
Father El-Baramoussy from the Coptic Church met with Imam Ibrahim Abdul Halim, the two faiths coming together as one.
"We need continuously, to live and love," Father El-Baramoussy said.
Amen.
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