By Father Casey

All summer we've been hearing from the Hebrew prophets in our weekend worship. They aren't the easiest voices in the Bible to listen to, I know, for they crackle with a current of holy electricity. For those who are new to reading the Bible, they can feel aggressive and even angry, but I hope after the last few months of careful listening that you've begun to hear the word of the Lord in them. They may be raw, but they remain oh so relevant.

The prophets lived in tumultuous times, when cruelty was becoming commonplace and being great was far more important than being good; when the lives of the rich mattered more than the lives of the poor; when those in charge could no longer tell the difference between right and wrong; when religion had become a prop for the powerful and God little more than a mascot. Not at all like today, right?

Prophets are sometimes confusingly thought to be predictors of the future, but it would be truer to say that the prophets are raw truthtellers about the present. What could seem like a supernatural ability to predict what's going to happen to us is more about naming the consequences of our actions unless we change our ways. If we neglect the needs of the poor, society will crumble. If we fixate on gaining wealth but have no integrity, our gains will not endure. And if we put our trust in weapons, the only future we can rightly expect is one filled with violence and tragedy. 

This last prophetic warning is one our society seems unable to heed. We yearn for peace, yet arm ourselves for battle. We long for safety, yet refuse to set down our guns. We cry out in shock and pain every time a mass shooting occurs – "how long, O Lord, how long?" – yet what are these events if not the demonstration of our priorities as a society?

We can turn churches and schools into fortresses, but we will not know peace until we choose lives over firearms. We have somehow come to embrace a false truth, that to be safe we must have weapons, but if our Lord is right, then the safety and peace we desperately desire will only come when we change our priorities.

I realize that many in our society who are the most devoted to the way of weapons are our fellow Christians. It is a hard thing to share obedience to the prince of peace, yet disagree so fundamentally on what following him looks like. Truth is, I'm not sure what to make of those who proclaim Christ as Lord, yet oppose both his teachings and example on peacemaking. I don't know what to do other than pray, and keep on living out the way of Jesus as authentically and obediently and humbly as we can. 

So we must keep on praying, no matter what the cynics say. It is becoming popular to heap contempt on the hollowness of "thoughts and prayers" after terrible tragedies, but we mustn't stop praying. Prayer is the heart of relationship with God. Prayer does matter. So pray for the victims, and pray for our leaders, and pray for our sin-sick society and its addiction to weapons. And pray for yourself, while you're at it, that love may reign in your heart, and hate may never gain a foothold.

And then do all you can to live like Jesus. His way is our way, his truth is our truth, and his life is our model for living. At Transfiguration, we're going to follow his peaceful lead and bring the words of the prophets off the pages of the Bible on Sunday, September 7. That day, we will provide a way for owners of unwanted guns to safely dismantle them, and then we'll turn those guns into garden gools. It will admittedly be a small act of faithfulness in a big world, but God is good at amplifying small acts of faith into big works of healing and redemption.

If the prophets are right, and I think they are, how we choose to live now, who we choose to follow, and what we choose to prioritize, shapes the future we will know. So let's choose the way of peace. Let's choose to follow Christ. Let's prioritize his kingdom. And the future will be in God's hands.