It’s Time for the End to our Prayers: on Gun Violence

   The human mind can’t process all this news.  We feel dazed.  A knot in the stomach.  A kind of dark cloud has settled over the country.  Orlando.  Alton Sterling.  Dallas.  Philando Castile.  Who’s next? and Where?

     I wish I had a nickel for every time somebody has said about these horrors, “Our thoughts and prayers go out…”  I’m a pastor; obviously I’m an advocate of praying.  But I’ve tried to get inside God’s head and heart, and I wonder what God makes of our “thoughts and prayers.”  God is grieving, to be sure.  But I wonder if God wonders what we are looking for.

     Back in Bible times, the people were praying during national calamities.  God’s response?  “These people draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13).  The people gathered for special worship services and sang hymns – prompting God to say “I hate your festivals and take no delight in your assemblies. Take away from me the noise of your songs” (Amos 5:20).  And why?  If God didn’t want songs and prayers what did God want?  The very next verse in Amos explains it all: “But let justice roll down like waters, righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”