THE NEW NORMAL
Acts 9: 36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7: 9-17
Dean Feldmeyer04.17.16
“No security apparatus is going to stop a 24 year old guy, in his room, radicalizing on line, having easy access to guns, going to a soft target in the name of ISIS.” Thus speaks terrorism expert and former undersecretary of Homeland Security, Juliette Kayyem in an interview on the National Public Radio program, “Here and Now.”[1]
Calling on her experience in dealing with the aftermath of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Boston Marathon Bombing, and reflecting on the recent attacks in Paris and Brussels, she advises us to acknowledge that terrorist attacks are the new normal and while we should do everything in our power to minimize the risk, we must also invest some of our resources in finding ways of recovering after these kinds of disasters occur, as occur they most certainly will.
This week’s passages from Acts and Revelation, as well as the 23d Psalm, remind us that, as People of God, we have some very special resources at our disposal, resources that provide life and comfort where death and pain seem to hold sway.
When Peter brings Tabitha from death back to life, his next act is to call the saints and widows and show them that she is alive. Likewise, we Christians have been given, in the resurrected Christ, the ability to show the world that we, too, are very much alive, even in the aftermath of tragedy and disaster.
PEOPLE GET READY
April 19, 1995: Oklahoma City bombing — Timothy McVeigh parks a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City which explodes, killing 168 people, including 19 children.
April 20, 1999: Columbine – Two students enter their high school with guns and bombs and kill 12 students and one teacher.
September 11, 2001:New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania. Four domestic commercial airliners are hijacked simultaneously while flying within the northeastern United States; two fly directly into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the third into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and the fourth (thanks to a revolt by the passengers and crew members) into a field near Shanksville, PA. Killed are 2,507 civilians, 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, and 19 perpetrators.
November 5, 2009: 2009 Fort Hood Texas: Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army Major serving as a psychiatrist, opens fire at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and wounding 29.
April 16, 2012: Virginia Tech mass shooting: In one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, 32 students and teachers die after being gunned down on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University by Seung Hui Cho, a student at the school who has a history of mental health problems.
August 5, 2012: Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting: Six people are killed and three others injured, including a police officer who was tending to victims at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
December 14, 2012: Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut. 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shoots his mother, then drives to the local elementary school where he shoots and kills 20 children aged between 6 and 7 years old, as well as six adult staff members.
April 15, 2013: Boston Marathon bombing: Two bombs detonated within seconds of each other near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 and injuring more than 180 people.
June 17, 2015: Charleston church shooting: Nine killed and one wounded at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina by 21-year old Dylann Roof in an attempt to initiate a race war.
July 16, 2015: Chattanooga, TN: Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez opens fire on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Four Marines are killed immediately, and another Marine, a Navy sailor, and a police officer were wounded; the sailor dies from his injuries two days later.
December 2, 2015: San Bernardino attack: Fourteen killed and 22 injured when Syed RizwanFarook and Tashfeen Malik, open fire at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, during a holiday party.
These are just a few of the terrorist and criminal attacks that have happened in the United States in the past 20 years. These are the famous ones – the ones that resulted in multiple or mass casualties. According to the Heritage Foundation, there have been 60 terrorist plots against the United States since 9/11.[2]Research by Mother Jones has identified 42 mass shootings (random, public shootings by a single person resulting in more than 3 deaths) in the United States since2001. While, in general, the rate of violent crime in the United States is decreasing, the number of mass shootings is increasing. Between 1982 and 2011 there was a mass shooting every 200 days. Between 2011 and 2016 the rate has increased to every 64 days. Shooting events that resulted in fewer than fourdeaths from random shootings, armed robberies, assaults, drive-by shootings, gang and drug activity, and domestic disputes are legion.
Add to these the terrorist assaults on innocent people that we see and hear about all over the world (think Brussels and Paris and Lahore, Pakistan in just the past two months) and it is tempting to just crawl into our safe places, pull the blankets over our heads and hide until someone comes and saves us.
Politicians assure us that they can protect us from these kinds of attacks and tragedies. The Heritage Foundation insists that more must be done and offers a four point proactive plan for preventing future terrorist attacks on American soil.[3] Mark Follman, writing for Mother Jonesoffers a three point plan of identifying, evaluating, and then intervening to prevent mass shootings.
Other experts in the field like Juliette Kayyem (above) and CasMudde, who is the associate professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia and a researcher at the Center for the Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo, are beginning to speak about the West coming to accept that terrorist attacks and mass shootings may have, sadly, become “The New Normal.”[4]
We can prepare and take preventive measures but, as a free society, we are limited in what we can do. And, besides, all the prevention and intervention in the world isn’t going to stop every single terrorist attack or random, public mass shooting. The odds are that, sooner or later, a few of these fish are going to slip through the net and telling ourselves and each other that we are safe will only lead to more problems when we have to recover from the damage that these incidents will cause.
As Kayyem says, a reasonable response to these threats is to remember that we still have a far greater chance of dying in an automobile crash than in a mass shooting or terrorist attack. “Don’t freak out and don’t tune out.” Stay calm and stay informed. And, rather than invest all of our resources in preventing tragedies, some of our resources need to be aimed at what to do WHEN and AFTERthese bad things happen. We need to adopt and develop the capacity to pivot, be flexible, and react appropriately when violent tragedy befalls us.
We need to prepare ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually to make sure that our response to these horrors is healthy and appropriate.For instance, Kayyem and Muddeboth offer common sense advice on what to do during an active shooter event: “Run away if you can, hide if you must, engage only if you have no other choice.”[5]
But very few experts offer much in the way of advice for what to do after events like these. How can we prepare ourselves so that we can recover from the kinds of tragedies that happened in Brussels and Paris in the past few weeks? Or, for that matter, how can we prepare ourselves in such a way so that we canrecover from any kind of devastation whether it is of human origin or emerges from nature.
Mass shootings, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes – how do we get the strength, the courage to emerge from our hiding places and return again to the light?
LIFE ALWAYS WINS
We serve a God whose option is always for life and, while God does not always reach into our lives to calm the storms, God does walk with us through them. No matter what tragedy, what horror, what attack may befall us, our God is with us, walking at our side through our grief and despair.
Acts 9: 36-34
Tabitha/Dorcas is one of the leaders of the Christian community in Joppa (modern day Jaffa) a Philistine city on the Mediterranean Sea. She is well known for her devotion to good works and acts of charity. Many scholars hypothesize that she was a wealthy widow who ran a collective for widows who supported themselves by sewing clothing. Her position in the church is so great that when her health fails and she dies, her friends in the First Church of Joppa send two men to Lydda to get Peter and bring him to Joppa as quickly as possible.
When he arrives he discovers that the members of the church have washed her body and laid it out in preparation for burial. Around it they have arrayed the lovely “tunics and other clothing” she made when she was alive.
Peter sends everyone out of the room and kneels to pray at her bedside and then says to her, “Tabitha, get up,” a command not unlike the one that Jesus spoke to the little girl in Mark 5: 41, “Talithakoum” (Little girl, arise). Tabitha awakens from death and sits up. Peter takes her hand and helps her out of the bed.
And then he calls together all of the people who were there for the funeral and shows them that their friend and sister is alive. Did you get that? The story does not end with Tabitha’s resurrection. Before the story can end three important things have to happen.
1.)Her resurrection has to be used as a witness, a declaration of the power of Jesus Christ in our lives. The resurrection of Tabitha is a story that must be told. It is a declaration that must be made. Once again, life has won a victory over death. And we can declare with Paul, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (I Corinthians 15:55)
2.)The good news of God’s victory over death must be spread throughout Joppa so that many can hear it and respond to it by coming to believe in Jesus Christ.
3.)And, finally, Peter must demonstrate the freedom and power that we are given through the gospel by spending the days he is in Joppa with a man whose profession is considered unclean by the Jews.
Psalm 23
The appearance of the 23rd Psalm on the same Sunday as the story of Tabitha (who is alive, not dead) reminds us that it should be sung at other times than just funerals. It’s time to snatch it from the funeral home and place it where it needs to be, in the hearts of those who are afraid at any time in their lives.
We are not loosed like a flock of sheep, to wander freely, unprotected, wherever our nose leads us. We are watched over and loved by a good shepherd who knows each of our names and, while tragedy may, from time to time, befall us, the shepherd will always be with us to see us through the trouble and onto the other side, wherever that may be.
He offers us rest. He supplies us with safe water to drink. He restores our souls when they are worn and bruised. He does not just show us the right way, he leads us upon it.
The good shepherd does not direct the course of the storm but, should it overtake us, he is there to walk with us through it.
Revelation 7: 9-17
Acts and Psalm 23 have told us how God stands with us in the midst of tragedy. Revelation gives us a glorious picture, a beautiful aria that tells us how God comforts us after the tragedy.
In his ecstatic vision, St. John sees a vast multitude of people – all races and nationalities and languages – wearing white robes and marching before the throne of God, waving palm branches and singing songs of praise. His guide asks him if he knows who these people are and he says that he does not.
The elder informs him that “these are they who have come out of the great ordeal [persecution]; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” that is, the blood that they shed through being persecuted, by dying as Jesus died.
They get to spend eternity in the presence of God, singing God’s praise and God will shelter them. “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
The Good Shepherd is now the sacrificial, pascal lamb. And it is the lamb who becomes our shepherd, whose healing touch makes us whole again.
BEING PREPARED
It is a good thing to do all we can to prevent disasters from befalling us. We rebuild and reinforce the levies in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. After Hurricane Andrew devastated the state of Florida in 1992, they reviewed and strengthened their building codes so that buildings would be able to better withstand being battered by high winds.
In fact, after noting that all of the homes built by Habitat for Humanity came through the “Andrew Apocalypse” virtually unscathed, the state began creating building codes fashioned after Habitat’s building standards.[6]
In our house, we keep a “Blizzard Box” that contains batteries, candles, flashlights, and other items that might come in handy if we lose power for a couple of days. We have a gas fireplace to keep us warm and plenty of canned goods that we can cook over our Coleman camping stove if we need to. And we have about 10 gallons of bottled water we can drink and cook with. But we aren’t fooling ourselves. We know that if the house gets blown down those items aren’t going to be much help. We know that if we are trapped in our home for more than 72 hours we’re going to be in trouble. Come the zombie apocalypse, we will probably be among the walking dead.
Common sense and experience tell us that no matter how much we prepare for trouble, trouble has a way of slipping through the cracks and finding us. No amount of preparation can prevent a tornado from going where it will go. No amount of security can prevent a lone gunmen who is willing to sacrifice his/her own life from entering a soft targetand attacking innocent people.
So our last bit of preparation needs to be how we are going to handle the aftermath of tragedy. How are we going to get past our grief and despair? How do we continue to be resilient in the face of a mass shooting every 64 days and a terrorist attack every 91 days, as is now our plight in America?
One way is to do as Peter does in this week’s lesson. We need to find life in the midst of death and we need to declare it to those around us. We need to demonstrate for ourselves and for others that God is walking with us through even the most violent storms and will see us through to the end of them wherever that end may be, in this life or the next.
And we need to remember that at times such as these, and especially in the midst and aftermath of tragedy, the only image of God that people will see is us. As Christians, we are called to be God’s agents in place. Our hands are God’s hands. Our feet are God’s feet. Our words are God’s words.
When God wipes tears from the eyes of the suffering it is with our hands that the comfort is given. When God leads the sheep beside the still waters it is our hand that holds the staff and wields the rod.
When the video images were released after the Boston Marathon bombing I could not help but notice that even as the wounded and injured were making their way, crawling and walking and running from the blast area, there was another group of people, those who were not injured, running into that area to give help and aid to those who were hurt.
There may be not better picture of God in action than that one.
And it may very well be that the best way to recover from tragedies when they inevitably occur, is to make sure that we are in that picture, that we are the ones running in to the blast area to give aid and comfort to those who have been hurt.
For, indeed, the best way to recover from any kind of tragedy is to help others recover from it.
AMEN
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[3]Ibid.
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