It's okay to not feel optimistic after mass shootings
We wonder, this week, what voices you’re paying attention to in the wake of what happened in Buffalo?
Our own comments as pastors, for the sake of our community, are just: it’s okay if you don’t feel optimistic right now about the world.
To believe in the God Jesus shows — who joins those who suffer in solidarity, and whose mission is to bend the world toward justice — DOESN’T require you to feel optimistic.
The playing out of our world involves *our participation as human beings*, not just God’s. And frankly our faith in humanity’s willingness to join God in a mission of solidarity and justice is shaken after mass shootings.
It’s okay to not be optimistic.
We think of Jesus’ story of the widow who everyday went to the judge in her town asking for justice for the ways she’d been wronged, even though (and Jesus is careful to note this part) the judge had a consistent record of injustice.
The upshot of Jesus’ story is that, eventually, the unjust judge actually gives the widow her justice. But NOT because he saw the light or repented of his unjustice or was moved by higher values. RATHER because he was so bothered by the widow.
Not exactly a story of optimism about human rulers and society.
BUT, like the widow in Jesus’ story, God perseveres. God will never not come to comfort those in pain, and never not work to correct what is broken or supremacist or racist or harmful in our world.
May that fill us with the hope and perseverance we need to continue to, as best we can, choose to join this God. Even if we lack optimism.