GUNS & GETHSEMANE

Just yesterday, 3 young, law-abiding Muslims were murdered in North Carolina.   Their deaths at the hands of a White shooter will  prompt a new round of debate about guns in America.  Lots of public Christians will speak to the issue.  None of them will say anything new.  They’ll all be reading from the same memos.

So if we could all just take a moment and stop pulling our sermon outlines from the Democratic and Republican talking points of the week and just let the Bible speak, that’d be great.

I present, for your consideration, the words of Jesus from the night before He died. 

Then He said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. (Luke 22: 36)

Jesus did not prohibit His disciples from owning weapons.  It’s not un-Christian to be a gun owner.

So they said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.”

And He said to them, “It is enough.”  (Luke 22:36-38)

Jesus did endorse limits on weapons ownership.  It’s not godlessly communist to license and/or limit how heavily citizens can be armed.

But Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”

When those around Him saw what was going to happen, they said to Him, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?”

Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear.

So Jesus said to Peter,  “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Permit even this.” And He touched his ear and healed him. (Luke 22: 48-51; Matthew 26: 52;  John 18: 10-11 combined )

Jesus permitted the right to bear arms and simultaneously condemned the impulse to use them to solve our problems, even when the problem was somebody attacking our Jesus.

So, yeah, you can carry your .40 cal in one pocket and your New Testament in the other without hypocrisy.  But if your first instinct when you feel angry or threatened is to reach for the pistol instead of the Psalms--- then you are waaaay outta line with God.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told the disciples that they could not use the very weapons He had just hours before said they had the right to carry.  Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled. (Matthew 26: 56)

And that right there is the problem.

Liberal Christians, conservative Christians, Democrat Christians, and Republican Christians: on guns and pretty much everything else, we’re still running away from the whole truth of what the Bible speaks.  We are regurgitating the same politically polarizing points without considering the possibility that maybe neither side is completely, infallibly right.

Maybe God is an Independent.

Let God be true but every man a liar. (Romans 3:4) 

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

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