Professions of shock and astonishment notwithstanding, Wednesday’s massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. was predictably inevitable.  The murderer, who I will not dignify here by using his name, held hate in his heart that was fueled by his purported association with a known White supremacist hate group.  As that hate festered, he adorned and wore a jacket with the flags of two White, brutally oppressive governments on the continent of Africa — yet no one who knew him took meaningful notice.  Of late, he had some drunken rants in which he declared that he wanted to begin a race war, the desired outcome of which would be the segregation of Black people (and, presumably, other people of color) from White people — yet no one who knew him took action to stop him.  Then, oblivious to the indicia of hate manifested in his behavior and his speech, his father gave him a gun.   

The killer gladly took the gun and had target practice with it.  He then went to a Bible study at an historically African American church.  He sat with the people there, who reports say showed him love and acceptance.  And after an hour of receiving what they offered in the name of Jesus Christ, he stood up and methodically shot them.  Because they were Black.  And because he hated Black people.  And because no one who knew him took notice of the evidence of his sin.  And because no one who knew him took action to keep him from harming others as a consequence of his sin.  

...And what does it have to do with you and me?   

Only this: Everybody knows somebody who is wont to engage in hate speech — not just ethnically-oriented hate speech but other kinds as well. When the pus of that infection bubbles to the surface at a social gathering or at the family dinner table or at church, how clearly do we decry it to the perpetrator so there is no question of its unacceptability?  When the KKK comes to a Long Island community to spread its message of hate, how clearly do we condemn that behavior to the public so there is no question that those who speak hate do not speak for us?  

My argument is that hate speech + silent acquiescence + inaction by those who were in a position to speak and act before the fact resulted in last Wednesday’s deaths.  My argument is that, therefore, such atrocities can happen anywhere just as readily as they happened in Charleston.  My argument is that, to quote Edmond Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [people] should do nothing.”   

The Church cannot be complicit in such barbarousness as occurred last week, but all too often it has been and continues to be.  Church people dare not be complicit in the violence perpetrated against sisters and brothers who God made but who are nevertheless uncomfortably unlike us according to our perceptions; but all too often we have been and continue to be. Those who claim the name of Jesus owe God -- and the world -- more than we have rendered.  We have watched the consequences play out in myriad ways.  Last week's atrocity was but one.

Let’s think on these things and remember them the next time we are tempted to look the other way.  

I went home for a few hours last week.  A final farewell for a fallen skydiver found me back at Skydive Sussex for the first time in many, many months.

Paul's ash dive was well thought out and well executed.  A bagpipe played as the jumpers walked to the plane.  The dude wearing Paul's ashes on his arm stopped at the entrance to the jump plane and each jumper gave their comrade a final "high five" as they climbed in.  I walked behind and to the side, remembering my training to remain with the departed as long as possible.  As the jump plane taxied, turned and took off, I stood nearby watching over my sky friends and saying prayers for their safety.

Paul had recently earned his rating as a skydiving instructor and was on the verge of jumping with his first student when he died.  So one of the skydivers jumped in the student position while Paul's ashes rode on the arm of the skydiver jumping in the spot Paul himself would have occupied.  Ten other jumpers accompanied Paul on this his last jump before he was released into the air.  

The jumpers landed near the spot in the landing area where Paul's D license number was cut into the grass.  His family and friends, who had gathered at the dropzone to watch the ritual, walked out to greet and hug the returning skydivers.  Then the jump plane flew in low over the landing area, dipping its right wing.  Cheers, more hugs, pictures, food, sitting in the warm sun, listening to people talk and laugh.

The beer light comes on once the last jump plane of the day takes off.  In some drop zones there is not an actual light, but it is just an expression.  When the beer light is on it means you can have a beverage if you want to.  So, after one more jump the clouds rolled in and the beer light came on and we walked to the pub at the end of the landing area.  Someone carried a couple of pictures of Paul with us.  We put the pictures on a picnic table outside the pub, ordered draft beers and stood, with Paul's pictures and Paul's family, in a huge circle in the parking lot, toasting him and pouring libations.

As I always do in large gatherings I stood at the edge of things, watching the faces, listening to the laughter, smiling to myself at how good it was to be there, despite the circumstances.

But the best part?  The best part was that I got to be the pastor me in the midst of my sky world.  At another dropzone I once emerged from the bathroom after a jump wearing a suit and my clerical collar so that I could go visit someone in the hospital.  I recall walking across the packing mat to get my rig and my gear bag, and that the reaction was rather comical -- something like the entrance of the villain into a saloon in an old Western.  It seemed everyone stopped talking and the piano stopped playing and the glasses tinkled down to silence... But last week I was able to stand as fully and completely myself.  I read a poem suitable for funerals and invoked some prayers of comfort and commital.

I recall standing in the large circle that had gathered in the packing tent, a circle comprised of skydiving comrades and Paul's family and his friends, and realizing the moment was the perfect intersection of everything that I am.  I felt at peace.  I felt at home.

And God was in it and over it all.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.  ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I preached this passage this past Charge Conference season.  Church after church, day after day, most weeks at least seven times a week, I promised the people I lead that not only is change inevitable -- it is the thread that God almighty has woven into the fabric of human life.  I assured them that even though we may not like that we must live through currents of ongoing change, the best way to cope is to keep our attention and energies focused on the work God has given us to do: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world; to begin building the peaceable kingdom that Christ will complete and inhabit with us when he returns in his final glory.

Believe me -- I meant those words every thime I spoke them.  Sometimes they even moved me to tears. But, oh...oh...

I miss the sky.  I miss crouching in the open door of an airplane that is cruising at nearly 14,000 feet above the ground and hearing the hum of the engine, feeling the force of the wind as it passes over my body, identifying the deeply peaceful place in my heart that asures me that I am ready to jump.  I miss the feeling of liberation that comes with stepping free of the plane into air, playing with friends out there or even just practicing some maneuver I am hoping to improve, if not perfect.  I miss standing in the landing area, hands trembling with adrenalin rush, trying to stow my brake lines with jittery fingers, stopping every now and again to look up and smile (or even laugh out loud) and recall what had just happened, gathering my lines and flinging my canopy over my shoulder to make the walk back to the packing area.  I miss the people I have grown to love and respect and pray for.  I miss the smell of the engine fuel, and the smell of parachute fabric.  I miss listening to long time jumpers tell stories of the "old days," their eyes shining as they laugh their way through accounts of the sky antics of youth.  I miss how good a beer can taste when I'm drinking it while I'm watching the sun set over the landing area and listening to the laughter of the people with whom I am in community.

I am not the most accomplished skydiver by any means.  But, oh...oh...

It takes time and planning and hard work to become an accomplished skydiver.  It takes even more time and planning and hard work to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  If I work to become an accomplished skydiver, that will benefit no one but me.  Yet, if I work to make disciples of Jesus Christ that could potentially benefit the entire world.  So there it is.

A friend of mine, when talking with me about the various things I hold in  tense balance during this time of my life, said of my jumping, "You might need to let that just be something wonderful that happened to you once."  He may be right.  But today, as I watched a skydiving video shot with a friend's helmet camera, I found my grin turned to tears.  And I hoped -- not for the first time, and probably not for the last -- that he is wrong.

To everything there is a season. And my seasons have changed; the wind has shifted. Whether and when and in what form another shift will come is up to the God who has woven change into the fabric of human life.  With my brake lines stowed and my canopy flung across my shoulder, I set my eyes on my destination and begin to put one foot in front of the other.  I look up now and again to smile and even laugh out loud and remember. Behind me: the landing area of my last jump; before me: who knows?  But wherever it is, whatever comes, I am glad to know I will have my God -- and my rig -- with me.