Enough

I wanted to be in Chicago today standing with the March for Our Lives, but sometimes your jobs interrupts your plans.








I am instead celebrating the life of a 92 year old woman. She lived a long life, a good life. Her death happened after being able to watch her children, grand children, and great grand children begin their lives. She was able to run a family business, retire, travel and enjoy a full life. We remembered her, we laughed and we cried. We drank a toast and sang a drinking song. She left to become stardust, the way we all want to leave at the end of a full life. So I am unable to march because I am walking with a family through their grief.

Mom's Demand Action Chicago 2017

Chicago Rally Fall 2017

 I couldn't march today, but many marched. They walked and spoke out. Enough. People are marching for our lives. People are marching to stop needless death. Death that comes too soon. Death that was unnecessary, destructive. Death that occurs in schools, in classrooms. People are marching to say these young people need to be protected, need to be safe. They are marching to say that children should be able to walk through their neighborhoods without being afraid of getting shot. People are marching to say enough.
Enough Deaths
Enough Guns
Enough Grief
Enough Excuses
Enough Thoughts and Prayers
Enough Inaction

Every Town for Gun Safety

 Enough
 Our kids are crying enough.

So they march for our lives.

People march.
People head to the nation's capital. I think of another march a march that I am preparing to preach on tomorrow.

he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, ³⁰saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.” ’ ³²So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. ³³As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ ³⁴They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ³⁵Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. ³⁶As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. ³⁷As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, ³⁸saying,
‘Blessed is the king
   who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
   and glory in the highest heaven!’
³⁹Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ ⁴⁰He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’                       Luke 19:28-39

 Jesus marched to the capital. He marched to the center of power. He marched to Jerusalem to take his message, his mission, his fight to those who were having the greatest impact on the lives of the people he healed, walked with, taught everyday. He marched on the capital and the people praised God. He marched to the capital and the people shared, they told the stories of what he had done. They told of a brother given sight, a daughter brought back from death, a son freed from his demons, a wife no longer bent over and bleeding, a lover healed, a leper cleansed, a deaf man who can now hear, 5000 people fed. They waved palm branches, laid down their cloaks, and shouted He Saves (Hosanna). Jesus march (ok road a donkey) to the seat of power and when asked to make the crowds stop their protest. He tells those asking them to all get along and be quiet that if they were quiet the earth would cry out. Those who say to stay home, to leave it be, he says that the earth is crying out for action. He talks to them about the need to march, to protest, to face death to bring God's kingdom closer. And then he weeps.

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, ⁴²saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. ⁴³Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’

Jesus cries over the city.  He says if only you had recognized the things that make for peace. Our kids our crying. They are asking us, shouting at us, protesting for us. They are saying loudly - recognize the things that make for peace and do something. Enough already.
10000 Maniacs Peace Train