Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, whoever he was down deep, whatever his motivation, regardless of his legal right to own an assault weapon, has done more than he could have expected to do when he planned to slaughter a roomful of unsuspecting people.
He may not have intended to play into the hands of a reckless politician, but he did. He probably did not intend to make life harder for Muslim Americans, but he did. He no doubt did not mean to provoke an outpouring of love and support for the gay community, but that he did. He probably did not propose to reveal the violence in Islam, but of course he did a good job of it. Nor did he hope, I suppose, to expose violence in the Christian tradition, but that too happened.
The Shocking Story
My morning newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, tells the shocking story. The young pastor of a small church, Verity Baptist, in his Sunday morning sermon praised Mateen for killing people who deserved to die. He said that Mateen had made Orlando safer and helped society. In fact, he said, “The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die.”
Wait, there is more.
“I wish,” he said, “the government would round them up against a firing wall, put the firing squad in front of them, and blow their brains out.”
He supported this wish with quotes from the Old Testament making sodomy punishable by death.
When I read this, it took a few moments to recover my breath. I wanted then to speak to this young man and point out to him a small eloquent detail in his New Testament. Luke tells us in chapter four, that Jesus preached in the synagogue in Nazareth, reading first from Isaiah these words, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I wanted to tell the Rev. Roger Jimenez to look it up in Isaiah 61, and see that Jesus did not read the whole quote. He stopped before he got to these words, “and the day of vengeance of our God.” Jesus refused to read these words—words from the Hebrew scripture, written by the great prophet Isaiah! I wanted to tell the young preacher to think about this, and think some more, and not to preach again until he figured it out.
Reasoned Responses
By then I was calm enough to read on and discover that by Tuesday, after the sermon had “gone viral” as we say, the Sacramento City Pastors Fellowship, 700 ministers strong, had issued a statement in opposition to it, telling Jimenez, “These comments, applauding the death of innocent people, are completely contrary to the Bible’s teaching and God’s heart.” Thank God. I did not even know there were 700 pastors in the Sacramento area.
Later my morning mail brought me a post by Nabeel Qureshi, author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, who pointed out that we could respond in different ways to the tragedy in Orlando. We could say that Islam is a religion of peace so the attack had nothing to do with Islam. Or we could say that Islam is inherently violent, so we must consider all Muslims as possibly dangerous.
As a committed Christian who was once a committed Muslim, Qureshi was not happy with either of these options. The first, he said, endangers our country by ignoring some of the teachings and history of Islam, which are behind extremist movements. The other position, however, endangers “my Muslim family and friends, loving and patriotic Muslims, that are as innocent and American as the rest of us.”
Then he told what I had not heard elsewhere, that three months ago an Imam in Orlando preached a sermon against homosexuality, saying, “Let’s get rid of them.” This happened in an Islamic center 20 miles from the site of Saturday night’s atrocity.
Right now we don’t know whether or not Mateen knew about or was influenced by that sermon. Nor do we know who, if anyone, feels like responding violently to the sermon, preached in Sacramento and posted on You Tube. What we know is that the words of religious figures are often powerful. They even can be used as an excuse for the evil we want to do.
My own fear, however, is not that Christians will respond to Jimenez’ words with violence but that other people will see them as evidence that Christians are “judgmental” and avoid our places of worship.
It is true that Christians are sometimes judgmental and, worse than that, violent, just as it is true that some Muslims are willing to kill in the name of religion or their own morals. It seems to be also true that a great many Americans will not compromise their personal right to own assault weapons in order to protect our society. Few of us are examples to follow.
Tragedy and Opportunity
Qureshi concludes his blog by calling on all of us to follow the example of Jesus, who died forgiving his murderers. “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.” (I Peter 2:22)
Jesus, of course, is himself the center of our faith. It is Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who reveals the heart of God. He refused to perpetuate the violent history that he inherited. If we are violent, it is because we have accepted, instead of resisting, the evil culture of our world. This culture is the way of perpetual conflict, but every tragedy is an opportunity to see our mistake and learn.
Add this latest opportunity to the unintended accomplishments of Omar Mateen.