God is love - a Lenten series 29 Love mourns with the mourning

Luke 6:21b, 25b "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh....Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep."

One of the weirdest things going on in our society today is the refusal of those who will not empathize with the students who have lost friends and classmates to school shooters. This is an extension of the racist refusal to empathize with African American men, women, and children who have been shot in cold blood by American police forces.

In the first circumstance, which I saw first with Sandy Hook, and now with Marjory Stonemam Douglas, the accusations of "crisis actors" portraying grief and horror instead of real students and real parents and real teachers and real first responders actually witnessing mass murder and suffering horribly from it. Then I see media figures mocking the appearances of these survivors; adults are actually bullying children from their high profile positions. Instead of mourning in sackcloth and ashes with them, the mock them and laugh at them. Jesus is warning them.

In the second circumstance, African-Americans are blamed for being murdered by police action, because they run away from cops. They deserve to be shot in the back in white supremacists' eyes. Black children are shot for carrying toy guns. Young black men are shot to death for carrying a phone. White privilege is plainly evident in these situations. After a mass murder in a black church, the killer is picked up and provided with a meal from Burger King. A black man pulled over for a traffic violation, which is typically DWB (driving while black), is shot to death in his car. And the cops are told to shoot to kill. There are never any consequences. Yet when black citizens protest, they are met with militarized police. When white citizens protest, they shake hands with the cops. The African-American community is perpetually in mourning. We need to weep with them, not blame them.

As St. Paul amplifies this, 12:15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Jesus and Paul were certainly familiar with Sirach, spiritual writing sometimes called the Apocrypha of the Jewish scriptures. Sirach writes,
7:32 Stretch out your hand to the poor, so that your blessing may be complete.
33 Give graciously to all the living; do not withhold kindness even from the dead.
34 Do not avoid those who weep, but mourn with those who mourn.
35 Do not hesitate to visit the sick, because for such deeds you will be loved.
36 In all you do, remember the end of your life, and then you will never sin.

Jesus' words are not new. They are a call to compassion, a life of love so desperately lacking in our world.

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