The First Sunday in Lent

In the name of God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
This story is so heartbreaking, it is so familiar, I don’t know where to begin. Fear seems to have left me, perhaps because my children are too young, but my anger only grows. The frustration, the feeling of helplessness, the feeling of our collective failure as a nation strangles me. I am a pastor, your pastor. I am meant to provide a comforting word in the face of adversity, in the face of tragedy and death. But I can find no words of comfort. So if that is what you seek today, your pastor will fail you.
This year our nation has seen horrifying statistics surrounding guns in schools, and we are just a month and a half into 2018. 8 counts of unharmed discharges, 2 suicides, and a total of 8 school shooting where 20 lives have been lost, 30 injured, and countless young souls changed forever as they have witnessed the worst in humanity. And yet in the face of such perpetual horror for our children in schools, nothing has changed. In fact, guns have become more and more prevalent. The Mississippi Legislature is currently looking at ways in which we can introduce more guns into our schools, universities, and courthouses. Guns have become our savior, while at the same time they are being used for our demise.
There is a reference in the books of Leviticus, Second Kings, and Jeremiah about the Canaanite civilization and one of their Gods, Moloch. Tradition holds that Moloch was represented as a large bronze statue with a roaring fire to which the civilization would sacrifice their children. They referred to it as “passing through the fire.” Living children would be thrown into this flame, because it was the sacrifice which Moloch demanded, and Moloch was a God, so his appetite must be satiated at all cost, even if the cost was their children. Thankfully, in the Old Testament, few crimes were more harshly forbidden than the sacrifice of Moloch.
Just over 5 years ago, in the aftermath of the deaths of 20 children and 8 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Garry Wills wrote an article entitled, “Our Moloch.” He writes, “That horror cannot be blamed just on one unhinged person. It was the sacrifice we as a culture made, and continually make, to our demonic god. We guarantee that crazed man after crazed man will have a flood of killing power readily supplied him. We have to make that offering, out of devotion to our Moloch, our god. The gun is our Moloch. We sacrifice children to him daily—sometimes, as at Sandy Hook, by directly throwing them into the fire-hose of bullets from our protected private killing machines, sometimes by blighting our children’s lives by the death of a parent, a schoolmate, a teacher, a protector. Sometimes this is done by mass killings (eight this year), sometimes by private offerings to the god (thousands this year).;
“The gun is not a mere tool, a bit of technology, a political issue, a point of debate. It is an object of reverence. Devotion to it precludes interruption with the sacrifices it entails. Like most gods, it does what it will, and cannot be questioned. Its acolytes think it is capable only of good things. It guarantees life and safety and freedom. It even guarantees law. Law grows from it. Then how can law question it?
“Its power to do good is matched by its incapacity to do anything wrong. It cannot kill. Thwarting the god is what kills. If it seems to kill, that is only because the god’s bottomless appetite for death has not been adequately fed. The answer to problems caused by guns is more guns, millions of guns, guns everywhere, carried openly, carried secretly, in bars, in churches, in offices, in government buildings. Only the lack of guns can be a curse, not their beneficent omnipresence.
“Adoration of Moloch permeates the country, imposing a hushed silence as he works his will. One cannot question his rites, even as the blood is gushing through the idol’s teeth. The White House spokesman invokes the silence of traditional in religious ceremony. “It is not the time” to question Moloch. No time is right for showing disrespect for Moloch.”
This morning we heard the story of our Lord’s baptism. Perhaps one of the most pivotal events in Jesus’ life. No doubt a turning point for all Christians comes at baptism. It is the entry right into our discipleship. And I think it’s telling that that same spirit that descended upon him like a dove, immediately drives him out into the wilderness. The wilderness is scary, it is dark, it is wild, it is unknown. For Jesus it is the place where he encounters both the divine and temptation. It is in the wilderness Jesus had to decide just who he wants to be. In other gospels Jesus is asked by the devil, “if you are the son of God…” Jesus had to decide, is he going to be the devil’s puppet, or will he be the savior that humanity has been waiting for. And when it was all said and done, when the 40 days were over, Jesus made his decision known. And he went out to the streets, to Galilee, and began his ministry of transforming the world.
My friends, like Jesus we have had a pivotal event happen in our life. We have had it happen time and time again, and at some point we need to acknowledge its significance and be driven into the wilderness. We need to have the difficult conversations with God and with one another. We need to be tempted, and by God, we need to prevail. We need to discover just who we are, who we want to be, what world we want our children and grandchildren to live in. And then, when our 40 days are over, when we are famished, but we know just who we are, we must reemerge from the wilderness and begin the hard work of transforming this world.
My friends I know this wont be easy. I know this issue is complex. I grew up hunting, too. I have a shotgun and a pistol in my closet, too. But we’re not talking about hunting, are we? We’re not talking about when you are deep in the solitude of those woods. We’re talking about our churches, our movie theaters, our schools, our nightclubs, our concerts, our freedom to feel safe in this world.
I can not be more clear to you, than to say this is a matter of life and death. And brother s and sisters, we do not worship Moloch. Our God is the God of life, not death. Our God fights for us to live. Our God has been known to say, “Let the little children come to me… for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” And then he would lay his hands on them and he would bless them. Isn’t it about time for us to bless them as well?