Responding to Orlando
Early Sunday morning, America experienced its worst mass-casualty shooting. If you’re anything like me, as more and more details about this tragedy unfolded in the media, you most likely experienced many different emotions: sadness, fear, anger, confusion, and frustration. It’s hard to know what to think or how to respond at these times. We may not feel like loving others in these moments, and we may even feel like God is absent.
But even when we’re in these dark moments, even when tragedies happen, God is still with us. We can see and feel His presence in the midst of tragedy. And God doesn’t call us to be passive members of our broken world. He calls us to respond.
So how do we in the church respond to Orlando?
We Respond with Prayer. There’s been a lot said lately about how “thoughts and prayers” are not enough of a response to tragedies such as this, but followers of Christ believe that this should always be our first act in a crisis, even if it’s a quick, one sentence “God-please-help-us” kind of prayer. True, it shouldn’t replace action or change, but it should be part of our response. We pray for the souls of the deceased victims of this devastating attack, and for the healing of those who were injured. We pray for the families of these victims. We pray that God would show mercy and comfort to all those affected by what happened.
We Respond with Forgiveness and Peace. Sin and brokenness is serious, and God takes it very seriously. He takes it so seriously He sent His holy and blameless Son to suffer and die and receive the wrath we deserved so that we could receive forgiveness. It’s okay to be angry about this shooting; I’m angry, for sure. But we’re instructed in scripture not to sin in our anger (Ephesians 4:26). When we respond to the shooter with hatred, we’re only perpetuating the sin and brokenness Jesus died for. When we respond with forgiveness, we aren’t excusing the sin that happened, but taking sin seriously by leaving judgment and justice in God’s hands, the only one who is truly holy and blameless. We were forgiven much, and so we forgive much.
And we follow Jesus’ call to be peacemakers, because we are sons and daughters of God (Matthew 5:9). Rather than knee-jerk reactions on facebook or rants in real life, we should prayerfully consider steps we can take personally and socially to sow seeds of peace, harmony, and betterment rather than anger, discord, and stubbornness.
We Respond with Love. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” There are a lot of people in the LGBT community and in the Latino community that could use the love found in this passage right now: love that mourns with them and is angry with this injustice against them, love that is full of hope, faith, and perseverance. Let your words and your actions reflect this love to them, especially now.