If you’re liberal and want all guns removed, this sermon will make you mad. If you’re conservative and want not regulations on guns, this sermon will make you mad. If you’re somewhere in the wide-middle, or sick of mass shootings, or wondering about how to follow Christ in this time, there should be food for you here.

I was a high school junior the spring of 1999. I was dating a young woman. After school, I would head over to her house and we’d hang out with her grandma, I would change and then head to work. It was a nice routine. One day it changed.

On Tuesday, April 20, 1999, there was a rumor that a school had been shot up in Colorado. These were the days before smart phones. News traveled a little slower. After school, my friend and I sat glued to the TV watching the events of the Columbine school shooting unfold. Two students came in and killed 12 students and one teacher, wounded 23 others, then killed themselves.

My friend went to a public school, and I went to a small Catholic one. We spoke about how Columbine changed the cultures of our two schools. We talked about our stances on gun control. She was totally against guns. Her family never hunted, they didn’t own guns.

My view was very different. I grew up around guns. I remember my mom taking me out to my cousin’s house in the country when I was 5 or 6. I was going to get to finally shoot a gun! First up was a 12 gauge shotgun. I was so excited. My mom told me how this was a tool, and a powerful one at that. I shouldn’t ever play with it, point it at anyone (even if you were just joking), and to treat every gun as if it were loaded.

She helped me hold the gun, showed me how to aim it, and then I fired. The sound was deafening. The gun kicked so hard, my shoulder went numb. I dropped the gun and cried for 10 minutes. My mom made me shoot it again, and I never wanted to touch a gun again. She then had me shoot the .22 caliber revolver. It didn’t kick or hurt like the shotgun, but it was loud, and I didn’t like it. That was my first lesson.

I studied guns and weapons. My grandfather had a few shotguns and hunting rifles. My mom had guns in the house. We would take them on vacation with us. A single mom and two kids? We were vulnerable. There are evil people in the world.

Guns were a tool. They were for hunting. They were for personal protection. They deserved respect and a trained and knowing hand.

My freshman year of high school, I went to the local gun range for Boy Scouts. I was earning the riflery and shotgun merit badges. We were trained by NRA instructors. How to handle. How to clean and care for guns. How to shoot. I started skeet and trap shooting at this time. It was a lot of fun.

Skeet and trap, for those unfamiliar, are clay pigeons. It’s like the old Nintendo game Duck Hunt. These little clay frisbees are flung out either sideways (skeet) or straight out (trap), and you try to shoot them out of the air. I even entered a team tournament with a buddy from scouts. We placed first. This inspired us to shoot more. We kept winning. We practiced at the gun range more. The more time I spent, the more I learned about guns and shooting. I also noticed something else. Something not so positive.

My buddy and I were pretty good. And we were 15. We were better than a few of the guys who were twice our age and consistently shot the lowest scores in trap. These guys had big personalities and would tease us. But their teasing would sometimes border on bullying. Once, after a day of shooting, one of the guys came up to my friend and me and really berated us. “You think you’re so great winning today. Let me tell you something you don’t know about the world. I graduated high school before you were out of diapers. You’ve never shot anything bigger than that 12 gauge. You haven’t shot real guns like I have,” he said.

I started to notice this toxic masculinity. Men would berate other men for not being man enough. Not having a real weapon. About a month later, the range brought out some semi-automatic weapons. There were all sorts. The biggest fuss was made over the AR-15, a weapon that looked like an M-16. It was owned by the loud-mouth who bullied us. He bragged that he had 3 more of these at his home.

I puzzled at this. The AR-15 is not a hunting rifle. Guns are tools, and this one is designed for one reason: to kill as many people as possible. The AR-15 shoots a smaller caliber .223 bullet (smaller than your pinky) that wouldn’t stop anything other than small game and people; it wouldn’t really do much to a deer. Hunting rifles need a higher caliber, you want one shot, one kill, something thumb size or larger. An AR-15 shoots at 45 rounds per minute, which would shred a deer and wouldn’t leave much meat left. It doesn’t make sense, so I wondered why he owned 4. So I asked, and he said it was so we could take down the government.

This logically didn’t fit. There were flags everywhere at the range. Many of the guys were veterans, including my scout merit badge instructor. We said the pledge before each class. How can we pledge allegiance to the flag that we are then turning around to train shoot at? To shoot at our police and military men and women. I hate this line of thinking. I was and still am really troubled my these words.

One of the guns we also shot that day was a Tech-9. It’s a small, semi-automatic pistol. I couldn’t hit anything with it. It felt cheap and sloppy and weird. I had no idea I would be talking with my girlfriend in two years about this gun and how it was used at a high school in Colorado to kill so many students.

I told my friend these things after Columbine, and she said she wished these guns were never invented. She was appalled that I had ever shot or been around guns. We argued, but not with all that much passion. We were both mourning the innocent lives lost at Columbine. We tried to hear one another’s position, but mainly we just wondered what to do.

And I’m still wondering. We’ve had 25 mass shootings since Columbine.[1] Columbine isn’t even in the top 10 anymore for fatalities. Columbine ranks 13^th according to the Guardian.[2] The February 14 shooting at Parkland, Florida is the worst shooting at a high school. It ranks 8 in the list mass shooting list. Sandy Hook Elementary is 3^rd. Las Vegas is #1.

I’m wondering what to do. The fact is, we haven’t done anything since Columbine. In the days after, I heard people blame rock music, video games, and cable television. I have heard people blame the parents. Or the school teachers.

In my argument with my friend, I said, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” She argued that guns make it easier. I argued that we have a heart problem. The problem is with the individual. We have the Second Amendment that states that the right to bear arms should not be infringed. She argued that the Second Amendment was written about muzzle loaders and that we have societal problem. I still hear these arguments. Maybe we were both right in a way. What I do know is that Columbine was 19 years ago and things have gotten worse and not better.

Since then, we lived through 9-11. We have long TSA security lines. We can no longer greet our friends and family at the gate when they step off the plane. We’ve made changes. We had a guy try to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb and we’ve taken our shoes off at airport security ever since. We’ve made changes. Yet we have 25 shootings and nothing has changed. In fact, we’ve seen policy get rolled back about guns. This past fall, a policy restricting those with certain mental illnesses from legally getting guns was blocked.[3]

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Yes. The background checks are for the people, not the guns. The safety courses are for people not guns. The stricter negligence penalties are for people who try to bend or not follow the law, not the guns. But nothing has changed. And we aren’t willing to try. I have heard it said that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Which is what we’re doing…

We follow Jesus. Our crucified and risen savior. Today Jesus tells about how he is to undergo great suffering, be rejected by the religious establishment and be killed. Peter can’t believe what he’s hearing. He rebukes Jesus. Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan!” Or “Get out of my way, tempter! I know what I have to do.”

Then he says, “If you wish to be my follower, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

Those are hard words. Jesus is called the prince of peace. He’s called wonderful counselor. We say he died for our sins, yet he also died because of our sin. We are addicted to violence. We are so busy trying to be safe that we are creating unsafe conditions for ourselves and our children. In trying to save our lives, we’re losing our lives.

We here in modern America should heed these words. Many will say the answer to our society is more guns. Nothing stops a bad guy with a gun than a good guy with a gun. And that might be true. When we ran into some trouble here, we had an officer around just in case. We want to be safe. Yet I also don’t want to live in the wild west where everyone has a gun on their hip. I’d rather live in a world where we don’t think we need that.

Jesus tells his disciples in the Gospel of Luke to go buy a sword on the day before his death. Peter says, “It’s okay, Lord, we already have two! Should we get more?” Jesus says that it is enough. Then 9 verses later, Jesus is betrayed by Judas and the disciples ask, “Should we strike with the sword?” One of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear.

How bad do you have to be to hit the ear? You have the head, the neck, those would kill someone… but the ear? Jesus says, “no more of this!” and he touched the ear and healed the slave and then quietly leaves. Matthew adds, “No more of this, whoever lives by the sword, dies by the sword.”

Deny yourself. Whoever loses their life will find it… We worship a man who goes willingly to the cross and dies.  We say, “This man is the Messiah, the son of God. Part of the Trinity! Oh how I love Jesus.”

Yet we have worshipped guns. We have made an idol out of them. I don’t know what the answer is. I do know it’s a heart problem. Our conservative friends say it’s an individual issue. People are violent. There are evil people out in the world. No amount of talking or counseling can work on some people who are determined to do wrong. I am concerned about safety, yours and mine and our children and grandchildren’s. I yearn for a world of peace. I mourn that this has affected our schools, our universities, our military bases, our movie theatres and restaurants, our bible studies and sanctuaries. This happens everywhere.

And we have done nothing. What can we do?

We can deny ourselves, and follow Christ. We can listen to one another and consider points of view not our own. Like my friend and I did. Like so many others have. Our liberal friends say it’s a corporate issue. We can ask our representatives for sensible gun laws. Background checks. ID laws. We have to show identification to vote, why not to purchase a gun?

My mom’s ex-boyfriend came to the Medina fairgrounds gun show in the 1999. He like these snub-nosed police shotguns from the 1950s. They were easy to clean and really good for trap and skeet shooting. He bought four of those at the gun show without ever showing an ID. You can still do that to this day.[4] Should there also be a waiting period for guns? I don’t know. I don’t know what other policies we’ll need, but I do know that policy will be part of the change that needs to happen. A well-regulated militia IS regulated.

Policy will be a part of the solution… but so will changing our hearts and minds. We’ll need to talk about ALICE Training here. ALICE is an option based program to respond to violent intruders. The headquarters is right here in Medina. Ken Zuelke, Stu Root, and I heard a speaker from ALICE at the Safety Council monthly meeting this past week. We’ll need to teach ways of peace, discipleship in Christ, and nonviolent conflict resolution. We’ll need to deny our idols of safety and follow Jesus. We’ll need to open up space to have these hard conversations.

We’ll need to arm our teachers… Arm them with school counselors, training in mental health, and small class sizes. We’ll need to arm them with involved parents and grandparents who take an active interest in the students. We’ll need to arm them with volunteers to help carry their load. We’ll need to arm them with a community that supports and cares for them and takes an active interest in our children, for they are our future. And we here in Medina do community well! Each of you, checking in with your neighbors, taking an active interest in the lives of our children and praying for them. That’s part of this, too. We’ll need to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Christ.

In these days, we might want to blame someone. Blame the parents and blame the kids. Well, who raised them? Who raised these parents? The blame never stops. Deny yourself. If you feel that you need a weapon to feel safe, like my mom did and does to this day, then that is your right. Yet I know responsible gun owners would go through training. Maybe we could treat it like a driver’s license. Basic classes get the hunting rifles and shotguns, those are like the sedans of the gun world. Handguns would be like a motorcycle license; smaller vehicle needs specific training. And if you want to drive the big-rigs you’ll need your class A’s. I don’t know, it’s an idea.

What I do know is that a better world possible. We don’t have to live in a world where all these shootings happen. Maybe if we set our minds not on human things but on divine things and then live according to that, we might just save our lives. We just have to deny ourselves… Connect with God and with your fellow human, make space for love.

More Resources

Dave Cullen, Columbine. An amazing read about all the events surrounding April 20, 1999. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_(book)

Sue Klebold’s TED Talk. Sue is the mother of Dylan Kelbold, one of the two shooters of Columbine: https://www.ted.com/talks/sue_klebold_my_son_was_a_columbine_shooter_this_is_my_story

Further Considerations
Someone asked about guns for personal protection. They were wondering what Jesus’ stand on that would be. They thought he wouldn’t advocate for even guns for personal protection. I stated that the gospels seem to be divided on this: “He commanded them to take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bag, no bread, no copper in their money belts—but to wear sandals, and not to put on two tunics” (Mark 6:8-9).

“Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff; for a worker is worthy of his food” (Matthew 10:9-10).

“And He said to them, ‘Take nothing for the journey, neither a staff nor bag nor bread nor money; and do not have two tunics apiece’” (Luke 9:3).

Mark is the earliest gospel and it says to take a staff while Matt and Luke (written about the same time and 20 years after Mark). Matt and Luke state NOT to carry a staff. A staff would be good for walking and also for a simple form of self-defense. Something to consider and ponder.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/15/fox-news-anchor-shepard-smith-emotionally-lists-all-25-fatal-school-shootings-since-columbine/340108002/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/15/deadliest-mass-shootings-in-modern-america

[3] https://www.snopes.com/trump-sign-bill-revoking-obama-era-gun-checks-people-mental-illnesses/
[4] https://gun.laws.com/state-gun-laws/ohio-gun-laws