Las Vegas

October 3, 2017

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

"Nation plunges into familiar nightmare" is the headline of USA Today that greets us thirty-six hours on from the mass shooting in Las Vegas. "Is it terrorism?" the pundits are asked as they scramble to find an underlying explanation. I suppose that would bring some kind of comfort, though there really isn't any to be found in this situation. Last night people gathered in vigil, and tonight, at 5:30 pm, we will come together locally at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Des Moines for a service of lament. Yet even "Oh Lord, how long?" is inadequate as God has already spoken and acted on the issue and we do not like God's answer.

"Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword." "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." "Love one another as I have loved you." "The earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea." "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Of course, it is not that simple. Vulnerability is the gift we offer each other in desiring to fulfil the law of Christ "to love one another." The vision of the children safely playing in the streets and the old folk hanging around for conversation remains the prophet's dream, and it assumes a form of vulnerability. We believe that God restores us by returning us to an innocence that is child-like. As we pray and lament, we need to ask ourselves what kind of world do we really seek? What satisfies us? When will we decide violence and weapons of violence have no place among us? The children and old folk in the streets surrounded by protective SWAT teams or streets only entered through metal detectors doesn't quite capture the spirit of the prophecy.

I read that there are about 5 pages of governmental regulations related to safety in ladder use for human protection - even though ladders only kill about 300 Americans a year. Of course we register and have national access to the identity of every automobile because we acknowledge that that is the most lethal machine most of us have at our disposal. We have even recognized the dangers of second hand smoke and have managed to limit a very addictive habit. We are working hard to address a similar epidemic with the use of pain killers. But we cannot manage to name gun use as a human health hazard.

We are simply not healthy enough as a society to be gun happy. And unfortunately we are not happy enough a society to become gun-free. In the meantime, children get hold of them and accidentally kill their siblings; gun access is too easy a temptation for those suffering from suicidal thoughts; too many temperaments are too volatile and readily prone to violent reaction to make a gun too deadly to be at hand; and for some life is too mentally fragile that the available use of a gun as an instrument of mass destruction of human life is a tragedy waiting to happen. If this is not a public health issue, and needs to be treated as such, I am not sure what is.

Are we champions of human liberty? Then let us recognize that the license of some is in fact endangering the liberty of all. And we can alter that differential with sensible gun safety laws that truly protect the rights of everyone not to have to worry about being in a public space. There has to be a tipping point and to that end I pray. 

God has spoken. And what God is often willing to do is hear us when we ask to be brought back to our rightful minds. Or, maybe it will be terrorists that in turning our own freedoms against us actually manage to bring us to that point. How much better it would be to find our own resolve for the greater good in handling our guns, as Australia has done, and in one movement decrease the danger we pose to ourselves and close the opening we offer to our serious enemies.

This has to be the will of the whole people, and we who are strengthened by the Spirit of the Prince of Peace can take a lead. Each day in this nation, ninety-two souls who are victims of gun violence and accidents meet God to ask that very question. Their lament is not "How long, Oh Lord?" but joins God's lament to us "How long, my people, until you see your answer for peacefulness and health is among you all along?" 

In the peace and love of Christ,

+Alan 

 The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, Bishop of Iowa

October 2017

In three weeks we will be together in Des Moines for our annual Convention. We have designated this past year as one of Revival, and certainly the imaginations of many have been stimulated as each Revival 2017 weekend has come around. It seems to be reaching a crescendo as we come into the home stretch. Some have been amazed that we stuck to the program consistently through the whole year. Every congregation has had the opportunity to use this time to consider its own life in the Spirit of God. And it has been a joy to see the variations on a theme that have arisen.

I knew that Revival would also catch up on me during this time, and on several occasions, I have experienced my personal renewal with God. I did not foresee however that I would meet the joy of the Lord in the bouncy house at St Paul’s, Council Bluffs. Brought in for the children, we expected it to add a carnival atmosphere and keep them occupied while we adults prayed and communed with God. But Jesus expects us to come to Him as a child.

Let me tell you that there is no dignity to be found or preserved in a bouncy house. But laughter? I think the half an hour recovery time after the bouncing was as much from the laughter than anything else. And of course the laughter was only after falling on one’s face and not being able to get back up on your feet so readily. I laid there laughing, and I think God laughed with me. Donna and I have traveled throughout our ministry with two pictures of Jesus developed as illustrations for the Living Bible. The one we have at home is of Jesus laughing among children; and the second hangs in my office and depicts Jesus in the middle of a huge belly laugh. Sometimes I have had to look at the picture and say strongly –“what are YOU laughing at?” Normally the response is “Looking at you, taking yourself so seriously.”

Is God to be found more readily when we try and bounce and when we fall flat on our faces? That would seem to be the case. God is also more readily available when we are defeated by the kind of horror of Las Vegas or Charlottesville. As we lament and mourn, God is there too. At both ends of our emotional spectrum there God stands – weeping with those who weep, and rejoicing with those who rejoice.

Revival is about becoming more open to God’s extremes. It is not about the Church as you have known it. It is about becoming God’s agents for loving change now and moving forward. That is why at Convention we will talk about following up this past year in intentional ways, and about learning what we have to say as good news found in our relationship with Jesus Christ. How do we carry God’s renewal of us forward, and how do we learn to let it take us beyond ourselves into the world we are now experiencing? Revivals produce leadership and leadership brings change. Change can transform things around us.

See Convention as one great bouncy house, and let God laugh with you as you take on the impossible of being God’s people of love and reconciliation. Bouncing high with the Spirit will land you on your front and your back, and will not be very dignified, but you will laugh and in your laughter maybe the world around you might lighten up itself. For, without you knowing, it will be God’s light penetrating dark and wild places. It will be God's light that shines through you in that vulnerable moment of self-forgetting that is our laughter.   

In the peace and love of Christ,

+Alan
The Rt. Rev Alan Scarfe
Bishop of Iowa