grief

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Covenant pastor preached on death, grief and the tears of Jesus -- weeks before the attack

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Covenant pastor preached on death, grief and the tears of Jesus -- weeks before the attack

The Bible's shortest verse -- "Jesus wept" -- is also one of its most important.

That was the message delivered by the Rev. Chad Scruggs in a March 5 sermon -- "Death's Conqueror" -- as the faithful at Nashville's Covenant Presbyterian Church continued their Lenten journey toward Holy Week and Easter's promise of new life after death.

"How do we face death in our world," he asked, "especially untimely deaths, without the pain and confusion of death leading us to despair?"

That was three weeks before a gunman crashed through the glass doors of his church's Covenant School and killed three staff members and three 9-year-old students -- including the pastor's daughter, Hallie Scruggs. Police fatally shot the attacker, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a former Covenant student who had taken the name "Aiden" and male pronouns online. 

Police confirmed that Covenant had been targeted. But Nashville officials and the FBI have declined to release a "manifesto" referenced in Hale's final social-media warning: "One day this will make more sense. I've left more than enough evidence behind."

The families of those killed have mourned in private, even as solemn Holy Week rites flowed toward Easter (April 9) -- surrounded by a whirlwind of familiar arguments about gun control and a mental-health crisis that has shattered so many lives.

In his sermon before the attack, Scruggs had already plunged into deeper, ancient, mysteries -- stressing that believers can trust that God understands the grief, anger and confusion caused by violence and death.

When meeting the grieving family of his friend Lazarus, Jesus responded with anger, as well as compassion. Thus, the importance of the Gospel of John's blunt words: "Jesus wept."

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Question for church leaders: Is your congregation ready to help young widowers?

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Question for church leaders: Is your congregation ready to help young widowers?

There was no way that Christmas was going to be easy for Daniel Brooker and his two young children after his wife Lyndsie lost her 10-year battle with cancer.

At their church, friends cautiously asked if Brooker and one of his kids wanted to play a role in the Christmas service -- making their story part of a season of new life.

"My church saw ME, as a person" that first Christmas, said Brooker, a 37-year-old marketing specialist for a team of financial advisors near Atlanta. It was crucial that this offer "gave us something to do, something that didn't ask us to hide what was happening. … They offered us this opportunity and let me think about it. They didn't force anything."

That positive experience became part of the process that led Brooker and an all-volunteer team of widowers, mentors, pastors and friends to create Refuge Widowers, a ministry for men who have lost their wives, especially young men with children.

This work grew out of the conviction, he said, that religious congregations have long demonstrated the ability to rally around widows -- in part because women often play crucial roles in hospitality and care-giving ministries.

"Women are gifted at this. They know what to do," said Brooker, who has since married a widow, Brittany, with three children of her own. "As much as I love the church, I've learned things are often different for widowers. … Church people aren't trained to step in and fight through grief with a man."

Yes, the faithful brought food and gift cards after his wife's death. Some people volunteered with child-care as he tried to create new patterns for work and home life. Before long, however, many assumed that the best way to help was to funnel Brooker into the singles group. "Folks really didn't know what to do with me," he said.

Eventually, he met another young widower, and began building a support network. This evolved into RefugeeWidowers.com, which worked with 14 men in 2020, 16 in its second year and 18 this year.

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After wrestling with sorrow and cancer, Anne Graham Lotz inches back into ministry

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After wrestling with sorrow and cancer, Anne Graham Lotz inches back into ministry

Anne Graham Lotz has done her share of thinking about the past, present and future of evangelism -- which is understandable since her father Billy Graham liked to call her the "best preacher in the family."

But in recent years, Lotz has had other serious issues to think and pray about, while caregiving for her husband before his death in 2015 and then her own surgery and a year of treatments after being diagnosed with breast cancer. 

At this point, Lotz believes "that the Lord has healed me." Thus, she is inching back into public life. 

She has been doing lots of thinking about the health of the modern church in an era of strained family ties, a rising tide of loneliness and legions of online demons lurking on digital screens. Consider, for example, a sobering dinner conversation she had with the president of a major seminary, as described in "Jesus In Me," her new book about the Holy Spirit.

"As we conversed, he confided that the number one problem that he faced with students at his school was pornography," wrote Lotz. She was shocked and asked him to repeat his statement. "Was he talking about the men and women who were studying at his seminary in preparation for Christian ministry as pastors, youth leaders, music directors, Bible teachers, seminary professors and other leaders in the church?"

Yes, the seminary president replied. The problem surfaced when staff examined the online search files on computers in a hidden corner of the campus library that students assumed was private.

Lotz is still struggling with that image and all that it symbolizes. 

Thus, when asked about the future of evangelism -- such as the "Just Give Me Jesus" revivals she led from 2000-2012 -- she stressed that she needs to focus her AnGeL Ministries work elsewhere, at least for awhile.

"The key is whether people are actually trying to live Christian lives and touch other people," said the 71-year-old Bible teacher, in a recent telephone interview. "People need something larger and more authentic than having more social-media followers on some website. ...

High Holy Days, one year later

The ritual could not have been more familiar, but Rabbi Howard Shapiro found it almost impossible to say the usual prayers for the infant.

It was only a few days after Sept. 11th. Suddenly, it was hard to talk about blessings, peace, goodness, faith and hope.

"I remember what I said to the family that day," said Shapiro, the leader of Temple Israel in West Palm Beach, Fla. "I said that we must force ourselves to say these words. We must say these words, because if we do not say them, then we will never believe them. And if we never believe them, then we will never act on them."

Now rabbis across from coast to coast are facing the High Holy Days, with the first anniversary of 9/11 falling in the middle of the season this year on the ancient Jewish calendar. The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, begins at sundown Friday (Sept. 6) and the season ends 10 days later with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

There will be many pages of familiar prayers to say and none of them will sound the same. Rabbis who have prepared scores of services and sermons for the High Holy Days all know that, this year, their words will carry a special weight.

What should be said? What should be left unsaid?

In his Rosh Hashanah sermon text, Shapiro listed the familiar questions: "When people reflect back they ask: What did we do? Why did this happen? What do they have against us?"

In the public square, he noted, many are trying to blame Islam, insisting that it "does not honor life as Judaism and Christianity do." Others are blaming God, insisting that Sept. 11th proved that "religion is the root of all evil." Some blame Israel. Some people, as always, blame the Jews.

"Some blame our very way of life -- from McDonalds to Hollywood to Wall Street to Washington," wrote Shapiro. "This much I know. It is none of the above and all of the above. It is all about the way we see the future and ourselves. It is all about whether we are going to enter this new century as free, independent people or we are going to walk back into the Middle Ages."

After the sermon, the choir will sing Psalm 61: "Hear my cry, O God. From the end of the earth I cry unto Thee. My heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You are a Shelter; You are a Strong Tower."

Many will flinch when hearing the words "Strong Tower." It also will be hard to pray for the day when, "Violence shall rage no more, and evil shall vanish like smoke; the rule of tyranny shall pass away from the earth, and You alone shall reign over all Your works." It will be hard to praise God, saying, "Your power is in the help that comes to the falling, ... in the faith You keep with those who sleep in the dust."

At Temple Israel, here in heavily Jewish South Florida, the faithful said they did not need a special Sept. 11 service. The High Holy Days rites will be enough.

A rabbi does not need to make many additions to a rite that already states: "On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed: How many shall pass on, how many shall come to be; who shall live and who shall die; who shall see ripe age and who shall not; who shall perish by fire and who by water. ..."

The events of Sept. 11 were shocking, horrifying and unique for believers in this generation. But the prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur have been recited for centuries. They have been prayed just as often in times of terror and tragedy as in times of peace and security.

These prayers unite worshippers today with those through the ages. These prayers transcend time.

"To say these prayers is to know that we are not the first generation to deal with the precariousness of life," said Shapiro. "That is what a religious tradition offers to us. It helps us deal with the fact that life is often scary."