Author: Paul Louis Metzger

This piece was originally published at Patheos on December 18, 2012.

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Like so many other Americans, I can’t wait for Christmas. I can’t wait to see children open gifts and to worship Jesus to whom the magi of old brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Still, like for so many Americans this Christmas, my thoughts and prayers will wander on Christmas day to Newtown, Connecticut, where some children who would be opening presents won’t be.

As I drove home last night, my thoughts wandered until I turned on NPR. I listened intently to an interview on the assault rifle used in Newtown—the semiautomatic AR-15. According to NPR’s Melissa Block, the AR-15 “is essentially a civilian version of the military’s M-16. And it is, according to the NRA, the country’s best-selling firearm.” Ms. Block interviewed Malcolm Brady, a retired assistant director with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. I was as surprised as Ms. Block was when Mr. Brady said that he expected consumer demand for the gun to jump dramatically: “…it may be for protection. It may be for the coolness. And it may be for the fact that people will be in fear that the weapon will be put back on a banned level, and they want to obtain it before it is banned again. But I think you will see the popularity of it and the purchase of them increase drastically, in between now and the holidays, near Christmas.”

One does not need such a gun for hunting. A simple rifle will do. I sure hope people in my neighborhood aren’t buying this gun for Christmas. I would hate to see anyone lost to friendly fire or caught in the crossfire between modern day Hatfields and McCoys. While some might think the gun has a Rambo effect (as stated in the interview), Rambo didn’t go around killing innocent civilians; I would hope people will reconsider what associations are made with this gun in view of its use in gunning down movie goers in Aurora, Colorado, shoppers in Clackamas, Oregon, and kindergarteners in Newtown, Connecticut. Besides, this gun was once banned. That should at least cause us to ponder the questions: why was it banned and why then was the ban lifted?

People can talk all they want about how it is not the gun, but the person using the gun. I get that point. In fact, that is the point. Make sure those people don’t get these guns. How many innocent and even helpless people need to die before we come to realize that such violence will not likely lessen but will increase the more such firearms as this are available for sale and purchased? Where are the wise men today? If only people would exchange their M16 equivalents for myrrh. Jesus didn’t come to play Rambo. As king to whom homage was paid with gold and incense, homage was also paid with myrrh, which was used for embalming. Quite possibly, the wise men’s gift of myrrh foreshadowed Jesus’ burial: Jesus did not engage in violence as he atoned for the sins of a violent world in which he lived and in which we still live today.

Wouldn’t it be an amazing Christmas gift, if wise men today were to come and lay down their M16 equivalents at Jesus’ feet to worship him? (Matthew 2:2, 11)

This piece was originally published at Patheos on December 17, 2012.

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I was talking with someone the other day about Nostradamus’ prediction that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. I have also been informed that the Mayan calendar ends on December 21^st. Some people have determined that these two items alone provide sufficient grounds for them to get their houses in order for the end. It doesn’t matter that NASA has gone on record saying that life will go on just fine on and after December 21^st. No collisions in the sky or changes in the universe signal that the end is upon us. I’ll go with NASA most any day, except if NASA were to predict that the stars are aligned for the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series next year. I have come to the point with my beloved Cubs that I say in Spring Training: “Wait ‘til next year.”

It’s amazing to me, though, that people will go to great lengths of stockpiling food and possibly ammunition for the end in view of Nostradamus and the Mayan calendar. I’m not sure what takes more faith—believing that the world will end on December 21^st because of these “signs” or believing that the Cubs will win the whole thing next autumn because the stars are aligned. What I do know is that after December 21^st has come and gone, most of us will not be making sufficient preparations for the end of our own lives. No wills. No “I love you” to our spouses or “I’m proud of you” to our kids, as we step out the door to go to work. Building bigger storehouses to stockpile the surplus of our wealth in order to kick back and enjoy life, we forget Jesus’ story of the rich fool who did the same. Jesus says that God says, “‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:20-21) In the very next passage, Jesus tells his disciples to give to the poor because the kingdom of God has been given to them (Luke 12:32-34). Here he basically sets up a contrast between the rich fool—young or old—and the holy fool. Which kind of fool are we?

Whether or not we are stockpiling for the Apocalypse, storing up for a life of Acapulco leisure, or saving up to buy tickets for a Chicago Cubs World Series next year, do know that all other predictions ring hollow in view of Jesus’ words. You can count on it.

This piece was originally published at Patheos on December 14, 2012.

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What is it about the mass murder of innocent children at school that troubles us so? I would dare say that elementary school killings trouble us even more so than the horrific mass shootings at shopping malls and movie theaters. Why?

One reason is that many if not all of us feel some level of responsibility for school children’s wellbeing. We promise innocent school children so full of promise and potential that they are safe and sound, when they are dropped off at school. These kids depend on us to protect them. They are not allowed to carry weapons to protect themselves. They are defenseless children. Our society is without defense (and many of us feel this burden deep within our souls), when we do not do everything possible to keep them safe from harm.

Another reason why the mass murder of innocent children at school troubles us so is that all their promise and potential bound up with learning is snuffed out by their senseless deaths. They go to school to be educated and socialized. While movie theaters can educate, their main focus is to entertain. While shopping malls can socialize us, the kind of socialization that occurs there centers on buying and selling goods and services. While movie theaters and shopping malls have important functions to play in our society, they do not serve as storehouses of knowledge and public virtue. You won’t normally find bars and porn shops near schools (except perhaps in places like Portland, Oregon) because schools are sacred ground for the cultivation of innocent lives. We have to do a better job in making sure guns are not on or near school grounds either (except in the case of the police).

During one of his teaching sessions, Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14). He rebuked his disciples—his own students—for rebuking those who brought these children to him to place his hands on them and pray for them (Matthew 19:13-14). Jesus’ disciples did not see these little children as all that important; in their estimation, the little children weren’t worthy of Jesus’ time. How wrong they were, for the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like them—young innocent lives, so vulnerable and trusting and full of hope.

Although prayer is not allowed in public schools around our nation, many people are praying around our schools today. Pray that as a society we find a way not to hinder the little children from experiencing the fullness of life. Let’s place our hands on these children’s heads, bless them, and do whatever it takes to protect them. Let’s make sure that just as the kingdom of heaven belongs to those like these little children, our public schools belong to the little children; otherwise, the last remaining spark of our own innocence will die with them, when a gunman’s shots ring out.

At this time, we are all vulnerable, just like little kids. What can we do together to protect the little children and secure our country’s future? May the same hand used to bless the little children lead and guide and strengthen us to welcome them back to school and shield them from all harm.

This piece was originally published at Patheos on December 11, 2012.

Listen to me read “Uncommon Decency”.

A Macy’s employee led a customer to safety and went back to help others during the mass shooting in Clackamas Town Center yesterday. The Macy’s employee’s deed has been rightly hailed as a heroic act. It was an act of uncommon decency.

We are all familiar with acts of common decency at stores: sales clerks ask us “How’s it going?” as they ring up our purchases and wish us “Merry Christmas” to which we respond in kind as we depart.

Sometimes sales clerks and customers don’t talk to one another. In such situations, all they seem to be concerned about are the transactions, not the interaction—an all too common indecency on the part of both parties. I must confess that I’ve been guilty at times of using sales clerks to check me out so I could get out with my purchases ASAP. Salespeople sometimes give the impression of using customers in checkout aisles to get their paychecks (saying such things to their fellow clerks as “I can’t wait for closing time,” not even acknowledging their customers as they process the sales). Unfortunately, these forms of transaction are all too common indecencies.

What is so uncommon about the decency of Macy’s employee Allan Fonseca who helped customer Jocelyn Lay and then went back to see if others needed help is that he simply thought he should do what he did. He knew how to get to safety and so he wanted to get as many people to safety rather than save himself or help only one. He didn’t do it for a Christmas bonus or a benefit associated with helping people in crisis situations. He simply did it because he believed it to be the right thing to do, no matter the cost.

You can’t put a price tag on such an action. It gives me hope that for all the commodification of human identity in our market-driven society we can move beyond such reductions. We can move beyond our market value as customers and sales clerks bound up with mere transactions and forms of polite nicety interaction to make real life and death connections. Priceless.

This piece was originally published at Patheos on December 11, 2012.

Listen to me read “Mass Shootings”.

This afternoon there was a shooting in the middle of a major shopping mall near where I work. At least two people have been confirmed dead so far. What do such shootings say about our society? Random violence? Random lives? Random meaning? How do we respond?

So often we approach one another simply as mass, where we have no inherent meaning or value. Kind of like the stuff we buy at Christmas—no inherent meaning, only the value we give to it. Of course, people are more than mass, as a collective and as individuals. Next time I am in that mall, I am going to look at each person I pass by not as a mass, and not simply as one of the nameless mass of people shopping, but as those whose lives are by no means random. They count far more than the stuff we buy.