‘Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel! The Lord has brought charges against you, saying, ‘There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God in your land…There is violence everywhere – one murder after another. That is why your land is in mourning, and everyone is wasting away. Even the wild animals, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea are disappearing. Don’t point your finger at someone else and try to pass the blame! My complaint, you priests, is with you.’
– Hosea 4:1-4 (NLT)
I’ve been sitting on this post for a while now. I began writing it shortly after learning of the mass shooting event at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston Maine, an event that took the lives of eighteen, injured thirteen, and left countless others in mourning. It was the 560th mass shooting of 2023.[1]
The facts are eerily familiar: a shooter with a well documents history of mental illness; an AR-15 style assault rifle; authorities who received troubling information about the shooter but failed to act. Now begins the familiar cycle of calls for common sense gun control legislation from the left, Second Amendment saber rattling from the right, offering of ‘thoughts and prayers,’ criticism of said ‘thoughts and prayers,’ promises by political leaders to do something, debates about doing something, the public getting bored and distracted by something else (have you seen the Taylor Swift concert movie?), the resignation to the fact that nothing will be done, and then a lull until the next newsworthy mass shooting (some mass shootings aren’t newsworthy for some reason) at which point the cycle will start up all over again.
I’ve blogged about this issue from time to time, thought about it many more times, and honestly sat down this time with little more to say. But turning to the scriptures, specifically to the above quoted passage from Hosea, I found something God had to say.
Hosea prophesied in similarly violent times: ‘there was violence everywhere – one murder after another.’ As he relayed God’s words about the times, he identifies who God blamed. Not the murderers themselves (although he surely held them accountable) but, the priests of Israel. In other words, the spiritual leaders of the nation.
Why would God blame them? Hosea explains why in the remainder of the chapter (take a moment to read it if you wish). The priests, you see, held a sacred trust. They had been charged with living faithfully and pointing the people along the right paths. Alas, they did neither. Instead, they exchanged the glory of God for the shame of idols. They deserted the Lord to worship other gods. Instead of walking in God’s ways and using their positions responsibly for the sake of those they represented before God, instead of fulfilling their sacred charge, they birthed a culture lacking in faithfulness, kindness, and the knowledge of God. A culture in which violence was everywhere, one murder after another.
‘That is why,’ says God through Hosea, ‘your land is in mourning.’
And that was why, God went on to say, he would punish the priests for their wicked deeds (4:10). God would hold the leaders accountable for failing to keep their sacred trust to care for the people.
They may not be priests, but it seems to me that many of the political leaders of our age should feel cautioned by Hosea’s words. The people of Lewiston Maine, along with people from every city, town, village, and hamlet on the infamous list of places where mass shootings have occurred, are demanding answers and solutions. They have every right to call upon those in charge to enact reasonable gun control measures (such as banning the possession of assault weapons), improve access to mental health care, and mount more energetic responses when in receipt of information that an individual might be armed, dangerous, and harboring murderous thoughts. Not much to ask for, really.
But what do their (our) leaders have to say in response? Well, there are some signs that some may do something in Maine. But chances are it won’t be enough, and it is a near certainty that leaders at the federal level, at least on the right, will do nothing. If history is an accurate predictor, they will keep offering the same tired excuses and deflections: ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people;’ ‘the real problem is in the human heart;’ ‘the best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun;’ ‘you know what I blame? Video games;’ ‘actually, it’s transgender people;’ ‘this is the price of freedom.’ The same tired crap over and over again.
True, some leaders want to do something, typically liberals and progressives who are righteously frustrated by the intransigence of right. But even these must be held accountable for their failure to be more vocal, more insistent, for valuing political civility over the lives of the next set of victims, for lacking the courage to stand firm and to gum up the works in an effort to stop the slaughter, for settling in and whimpering ‘peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.
The scriptures say that God ordains civil authority (see, Romans 13). This does not mean that government is righteous, or that the action or inaction of leaders is always right. But one of the things it does mean is that those in places of political authority hold a sacred trust to keep the peace, to, in the words of Jean Lassere, ‘stop people from tearing each other apart.’ They, like the priests of Israel, bear a sacred charge. And they are failing to fulfill it. They have valued their idols (guns, the second amendment, reelection, etc.) above the lives of those they represent, even children. In this they have birthed a culture lacking in faithfulness, kindness, and the knowledge of God. A culture where violence is everywhere, one murder after another.
This is why, Hosea would say, our land is in mourning.
I pray for the day when our political leaders, and those who elect them, wake up. When they cease to bow before their false gods. I pray they receive wisdom from the Lord and the courage to act upon it. I pray they will value what is right above their own political futures. I pray they will see that the reason we have so much gun violence in America has everything to do with the fact that we have too many guns, too little compassion, and the lack of common sense to do something about it. I pray they will finally fulfill their duty to the people and work for a society in which people need not live in constant fear of being shot while bowling, or worshipping, or going to school.
Until then, I weep with Hosea, and with Hosea, I call them out.
Don’t point the finger elsewhere, leaders of America.
This is on you.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent
P.S. I could almost write another blog about this, but it is worth noting that Hosea’s initial words were addressed to the spiritual leaders of Israel. Church, where is your voice in all this?
[1] According to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more persons are injured or killed.