Out of my depth, but not Habakkuk's

Interesting experience today. I was one of two white folk at a funeral for a man who was shot and killed two weeks ago tonight. The other was our children’s minister, there to sing the Lord’s Prayer—which felt, sadly, pretty hollow as there had been amplified gospel through a phone and amp as we gathered. The Lord’s Prayer is beautiful, and especially a capella, as she sings it, but it did not “play” for this particular service, at least to my ear. No matter.

There were maybe 75 people there, dreaded-out, most of them, and quite a few in tee-shirts with the picture and dates of the deceased. My role was to convene the service, offer a Prayer of Comfort, invite the gatherers to speak as they would, deliver a “eulogy” and benediction.

Jumping to the “eulogy,” it was anything but. I read these verses from Habakkuk, and was glad the lectionary assigned them to me last week…

             The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

² O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
    and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
    and you will not save?
³ Why do you make me see wrongdoing
    and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
    strife and contention arise.
⁴ So the law becomes slack
    and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—
    therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

¹² Are you not from of old,
    O Lord my God, my Holy One?
    You^[b] shall not die.
¹³ Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
    and you cannot look on wrongdoing;
why do you look on the treacherous,
    and are silent when the wicked swallow
    those more righteous than they?
I will stand at my watchpost,
    and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
    and what he^[d] will answer concerning my complaint.
² Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
    make it plain on tablets,
    so that a runner may read it.
³ For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
    it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
    it will surely come, it will not delay.
⁴ Look at the proud!
    Their spirit is not right in them,
    but the righteous live by their faith.

 

I suggested that it was hard, these days, to live by faith, when all we see is destruction and violence, when we cry Violence, and hear nothing from heaven in return. But an act of faith, nonetheless, and especially when we don’t feel faithful, to gather ourselves together; to lean on each other; to say the sacred words and sing the holy songs; to pray the ancient prayers…

And to tell God that, like the prophet, we are watching. And waiting.
 
When I grew up, I said, I heard a lot about God watching me; but that the prophet Habakkuk gives us permission to say to God that we are watching him, waiting for him to act, listening for him to speak, to answer our complaint about violence and destruction.

Hard to have faith, and hard to have hope, too, I said. When the evil surround the righteous. When justice is prevented or perverted. When God seems to ignore the sins of some who clearly deserve judgment but is silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they.

It is hard to love, too, I said, and especially when it is so painful. When it hurts so much to lose someone…who was way too young, and so senselessly, so tragically. But the depth of pain is the best measure of your love, and you would want to pretend it doesn’t hurt.

So, perhaps today we think of another young man who was killed before his time, tragically and violently and unjustly taken away from his mother, his friends and disciples—and from many more who, while loving him, would never get to see him, again or ever.

Like Mario’s children, who will love him without seeing him or enjoying his presence.

But you will tell them the stories, I said to the assembled. Because, while I didn’t know him at all, you did. Enough to remember and share.

I knew him not at all; you knew him well; but Jesus knew him even better…

Mario was created in the image of God and Jesus died to redeem him, and made him and the rest of us promises that we expect for him even as we claim them for ourselves…

Then I read John 14, and I Thessalonians 4:13.

+ + +

I felt good about my part of it. And I told the singer afterwards that while, at the first, I could feel a bit of “Who is this old white man and why is he here? He knows nothing of our reality, has nothing to say” (which would have been entirely justified). And who is this woman singing this white shit?"—I felt that they not only listened to us both but also, eventually, received the word. They were locked onto me from the time I read Habakkuk. It was pretty profound.

Back up: several people stood to speak. One young man in particular remains fresh to my memory. He said basically (and with this vocabulary), “We got to stop this shit.” He noted that Mario was the third of their friends they have buried this year. That this is their world and they have to change it. Something like that. That it can’t go on.

I “met” the two-month old who was the fourth of his four children (three daughters and a boy). 

Throughout the service there was weeping and wailing and a person or two fell out. At the end, Mario’s mother (who works at HLUMC and is the reason I was there), lost it entirely. She had been stoic till then. People kissed the casket and stomped the ground as if running in place. Others took walks or sat down to bury their heads in their hands. There were un-embarrassed tears on the faces of many young men who, you know, have seen and experienced more than most of us can imagine.

One powerful picture and prayer from the service: A tall man, who said he knew Mario through the Northwest School of the Arts (I did not get the particulars of their connection and I did not know Mario when there, if he did)…anyway, he brought, I suppose, his young son to the service. The little boy was three, maybe four. Just a little guy in a blue dress shirt and a black bow tie—who held his dad’s leg, and kept looking up to watch him cry, while the father kept rubbing the boy’s shoulder, and head.

I wondered whether the father was crying just for Mario, or for himself, or for the fact that his son was born into a context where gun violence is expected and “normal.” I wondered if the father feared there was no escape for any of them—for any of them there. And I prayed, especially, for that little boy, and for Mario’s children—for whom there might not be.

I had been worried, early in the discussions regarding the service for this young man, whether I (or our sanctuary) would be in any kind of danger. Who knew but what the murder was drug or gang related. The CMPD assured us, no.  

Today, at Oaklawn, I felt like I was the safest person there. That the young men, especially, are the ones in terrible danger. And will remain so till God answers our complaint.  

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.