Our Great God Gun

What do you imagine God thinks of all the calls for prayers for the victims of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history accompanied by the constant protests that ‘it’s too soon to call for gun control’? Gun stocks rose immediately after this domestic terrorist attack in Las Vegas.

It is clear to me that Americans really worship the Great God Gun.

So I imagined God’s response to this idolatry via the profound words of Isaiah 58.

1

Shout out, do not hold back!

Lift up your voice like a trumpet!

Why does the United States worship guns

Instead of God?

2

Yet day after day they seek me

and delight to know my ways,

as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness

and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;

They ask of me righteous judgments,

they delight to draw near to God.

3

Why do you go to all these churches, but you do not see?

Why do you humble yourselves, but you do not notice?”

Look, you serve your own interest on your worship day,

And then just do the bidding of the National Rifle Association.

4

Look, you pray and then go out to buy and sell guns

And make it easier for many to commit mass murder.

Such prayers as you do today

will not make your voice heard on high.

5

Is such the worship that I choose,

a day to make it easier to sell guns?

Is it to bow down the head in prayer,

And then call for prayers for gun victims?

Will you call these prayers,

a day acceptable to the Lord?

6

Is not this the prayers that I choose:

to free the nation from the yoke of the NRA,

to undo the fraudulent interpretation of the second

amendment,

to let those who fear guns in their neighborhoods be freed,

and to overturn the gun lobbies?

7

Is it not to share your opposition to out of control

guns with your neighbors,

and to bring better policy to our nation;

when you see those in terror of gun violence,

protect them and keep them safe?

8

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

9

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help, and God will say, Here I am.