MONDAY MORNING REFLECTIONS--PRAY FOR AMERICA

BY STEVE DUNN

Our hearts are deeply troubled by the tragic events perpetrated yesterday at the Boston Marathon. Three people dead and 141 injured by a person or group who has yet to claim responsibility.  Police did search the home of a potential lead this morning but there is already speculation that this attack was motivated by Middle Eastern terrorist as was the attacks of September 11, 2001. Read more ...  This is a grim reminder that people in a free society cannot be totally protected from those who carry their hatred to such extremes.

I had been preparing a post about the beginning of the Major League Baseball season  That became quite unimportant when this news broke.  Instead I shared these observations with my congregation here in Shippensburg:

"We are reminded this morning of the evil that persists in this country.  The bombings in Boston brought tragedy into what is generally a celebration of the best of the human spirit.  But the haters of this world have little regard for the collateral damage they create and reveal by their actions that human life is worthless.  But we profess that life matters—and that life matters to God.  People are not to be cast off and destroyed simply because we have a cause or an issue.  We are called first to love our God with every ounce of our being and to express that love by loving our neighbor.  Pray for the victims and their families in Boston, and pray that the haters of this world will repent."

Some would consider my prayer for the haters to be naive.  Most would pray that such persons simply rot in hell after being blown away by a Seal Team.  But we must pray.  Unless there is a transformation of the human heart from the darkness that so often defines it to the love of neighhbor that God is calling all of us to embody, the haters will still keeping hating and producing more haters and more of our neighbors will have their lives ripped apart.

Life matters and life matters to God and only transformation through Christ can end the madness of hatred and violence that sin harvests from our unchanged human hearts.

(C) 2013 by STEPHEN L DUNN