Parkland: An Issue of the Heart

 PARKLAND TRAGEDY

Sadly, once again, the headlines are filled with reports of another shooting at a school by a young man with malicious intent on doing harm to as many fellow youths as possible.  As many have already said, our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the victims.  

Questions arise once again:  

How can anyone do something like that?  

Why didn’t the FBI act on the information they had?  

Why didn’t someone catch this and help prevent it?  (as, I understand, was done with a similar threat up in Washington state.)  

How can we stop this madness?  

When is enough enough?  

Why doesn’t the government act?  

Isn’t it time to get serious about gun laws and shut down the trade on assault weapons? 

It is another terrible tragedy.  The answers are not easy.  Certainly it is true that if these kind of individuals don’t have rapid fire weapons, they will be less able to commit mass murder as quickly.  Would outlawing those weapons produce that result?  That seems doubtful to me, because murder is also outlawed, and the fact that it is illegal has not hindered these individuals from making their attacks.  While I may not object to efforts in that direction, I don’t hold illusion that such laws would solve the problem.  After all, there are laws against burglary, yet my house was burglarized.  There are laws against sexual harassment, yet the headlines are filled with one accusation after another.  There are laws against embezzlement, but how many have chosen to misappropriate the pension funds of others?  Passing a law does not stop the behaviors.  It may hinder them.  It may allow for punishment of violation.  

But it cannot solve the problem.

Others cry out for mental health monitoring, with the belief that the problems these individuals have are mental health issues.  Having worked at a mental health facility myself, I have concern that such statements wrongly characterize those who suffer with mental health issues, and creates an unfounded prejudice against good people who struggle due to difficulties arising from brain chemistry, abuse or trauma.  Still others look to economic causes that lead to hopelessness and anger, or to social issues such as bullying that build resentment.  Personally, I believe there is a degree of truth that can be defended in all these different perspectives.  

But I believe the neglect the real issue that all too many in our country choose to ignore:  the issue of the heart.

What is the answer?  I am always reminded of a passage in the prophet Jeremiah at times like this:

“The heart is deceitful above all things,
    and desperately sick;
    who can understand it?
‘I the Lord search the heart
    and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
    according to the fruit of his deeds.’”  ---Jeremiah 17:9-10  (ESV)

The scriptures teach very clearly that the sinful nature of humankind has infected every person who has ever drawn breath except Christ himself, although the way that sin nature manifests itself varies from person to person.  Jeremiah pointedly informs us of the deceitfulness of our hearts, a charge many today choose to disbelieve.  Or we believe it about other people, but do not put ourselves into that same boat…which is itself one of the ways our hearts deceive us.  In fact, a common admonition these days is for people to “follow their heart.”  But if Jeremiah is accurate, as I believe he is, is that really the good advice it is assumed to be?  I don’t think so.  God’s voice through Jeremiah then follows up with the statement that God’s assessment of each of us is achieved when he looks deep into our hearts at the essence and the deceitfulness that exists there, which is then manifested in our actions.  

What is the solution?

Well, once again, I find powerful thoughts in the Hebrew scriptures, this time in the book of Ezekiel:

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.       ---Ezekiel 36:26-27  (ESV)

The answer to these problems is to deal with the heart, which is something only God can do.  God’s offer is to deal with the issue by giving us a new heart, when the Spirit of God comes to take up residence inside us, and to shape us into people who live lives of righteousness instead of pursuing sinful lifestyles.  It matters not whether our hearts lead us to sins of dishonesty, or selfish living, or mass murder as we have witnessed in Florida; in each case it is the sinful nature within manifesting itself through actions far less than the righteousness of God.  

We need to take seriously the need for God to cleanse and transform our hearts, and take that message and opportunity to individuals whose lives are in such desperate need of genuine change from the evil intentions that have consumed them.  The good news of the Gospel is that, as Ezekiel describes, God is ready and willing to come to us, to take up residence within, and to transform the hardness of our hearts into conformity with the love and righteousness of God.  We have but to invite him to do so. 

I invite you to join me in praying for God to give hope and comfort to the sorrowing families in Florida tonight.  I also invite you to join me in living with a transformed heart, and to do our part in helping prevent such tragedies by sharing that message of hope with people bound in the anger and despair that comes from sinful hearts.