A Holy Week to be Freed from Our Foolish Gun-Killing Ways

2018 Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday Procession into Jerusalem coincides with a Valentine’s Day Mass Shooting to yesterday’s March into Washington, D.C.  This year’s Lenten journey of repentance led surprisingly, but surely not unexpectedly, to a “March for Our Lives.”

         This afternoon is the funeral service for my beloved colleague and friend of almost four decades, the Rev. Dr. Ralph Quere, Professor Emeritus of Church History and Theology at Wartburg Theological Seminary. Among his many gifts, Ralph devoted special attention to ministries with youth and to the work of evangelism for the contemporary world.

          This weekend Burton and I are caring for two youth of our own, 11 and 13-year old Jackson and Jennaya Everist, with whom, in our Mason City blizzard, we watched the marches on TV (more than 800 around the world). Jackson and Jennaya processed with Palms in church this morning. The connection was not lost on them. Jennaya prayed at lunch for the marchers and that the voices raised by youth against gun violence might be heard by legislators.

         Ralph Quere, as an historian and teacher of Lutheran Confessions, was never surprised by the human condition of cruelty and violence. And he was always a man of deep faith and great hope. His passion for youth blends with my absolute joy in hearing the voices of youth yesterday. The newscasters who covered the story all day Saturday, for the most part, dropped adult commentary, and let the youth talk. It was good news indeed. Amid excruciating suffering, with clarity and perseverance, the youth spoke. The youth organizers engaged social media—yes—and involved intersectionality. Youth of all colors and economic backgrounds are killed in schools, and on the streets outside of school, and at home. The Lutheran Confessions remind us there are not bad guys with guns and good guys who should buy guns to shoot the bad guys with guns. There are not bad neighborhoods and good neighborhoods. We need to be liberated from a killing culture.

        On this Palm Sunday, with a Lent which began with an Ash Wednesday on a deathly Valentine’s Day, we are bid to ponder deeply, and be ready to be awakened from our foolish ways on April 1^st. Easter! Resurrection. Christ is alive.  Ralph Quere lives eternally. We are called to live and to serve and to act and to march for our lives—everyone’s life.