‘Enough is enough’
August 7, 2024
The Rev. Dr. Angela Johnson is pastor of Grace Hope Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky.
A Louisville pastor just lately summed up the nation’s gun violence disaster with a three-word chorus: “Enough is enough.”
The Rev. Dr. Angela Johnson, pastor of Louisville’s Grace Hope Presbyterian Church, delivered a quick however highly effective sermon throughout a morning chapel service for workers of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Through the gathering, Johnson raised troubling questions concerning the state of the nation the place gun violence has led to greater than 7,000 deaths this yr.
“Have safety and security become things of the past?” Johnson requested. “What has happened to the idea of God’s beloved community? Have our cities become the degenerate cities of Isaiah’s time where justice and righteousness have been chased out of town by the right to bear arms and by neighborhood beefs? Enough is enough.”
Johnson had opened her message by itemizing Columbus, Ohio; Rock Hill, South Carolina; and Decrease Santan Village, Arizona. These are three of the 14 locations the place shootings had occurred since June 1 that concerned a couple of particular person being shot at one time.
“Enough is enough,” she stated.
Johnson would proceed to repeat that phrase and to say extra metropolis names, together with her personal, noting that at the least 16 individuals had been shot just lately throughout one weekend in Louisville.
“Enough is enough,” she stated.
Taking the sermon past statistics, she spoke of societal failings, together with delighting an excessive amount of in private privilege and privileged {dollars} that go to rebellious princes who fail to handle orphans and widows. She additionally spoke of the real-life impression that gun violence has on these it touches.
“Non-Violence” by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd is exhibited on the United Nations. (Photograph by Wealthy Copley)
“The slogan ‘Guns don’t kill people. People kill people’ pales in the faces of countless family members who have lost a loved one to gun violence and rends the souls of those who have been traumatized as family members, as victims and witnesses of these mass shootings, the aftereffects of such drama, living on in their dreams and memories,” Johnson stated.
Along with mentioning current shootings, she recalled how in April 1999 she was stress-free on the sofa when common tv programming was interrupted by breaking information of the mass capturing at Columbine Excessive Faculty in Littleton, Colorado. She stated she couldn’t perceive how such a “horrific thing” might occur, and he or she recalled how her thoughts turned to “our own two kids in two different schools and thinking about all the ‘what ifs.’ Since then, according to one source, there have been 404 more school shootings. Enough is enough.”
Although teams akin to Mothers Demand Motion and No Extra Purple Dots are striving to stop such tragedies, “there is more work that needs to be done, working from a different direction but with the same goal of reducing gun violence,” Johnson stated.
One such effort is the Weapons to Gardens initiative, which makes it attainable to “beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks by taking unwanted guns, using a chop saw, and turning them into gardening tools, so they will no longer exist as weapons of possible harm,” she stated, “so that our youth will not solve their issues with guns anymore, but with tools of compassion, so that our young adults will not use guns to prove their position in our communities but with tools of respect, so that older adults will not live in fear of leaving their homes but will enjoy the tools of peace.”
Lastly, “nation will not lift up sword against nation and we will study war no more because enough is enough,” she concluded.
To overview and be taught extra about gun violence assets from the PC(USA), go right here. Your congregation could also be all in favour of making use of for a Decade to Finish Gun Violence grant or attending the James Atwood Institute for Congregational Braveness.
Darla Carter, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
As we speak’s Focus: Rev. Dr. Angela Johnson requires finish of gun violence
Allow us to take part prayer for:
PC(USA) Companies’ Workers
Ronnika Muhammad, Payroll Specialist, Administrative Providers Group (A Corp)
Jacquelyn Muir, Supervisor, Shopper & Admin Providers, Presbyterian Basis
Allow us to pray
Therapeutic God, thanks for giving us well being and energy to serve you. Thanks particularly for all who work to assist others in instances of disaster or weaknesses. We ask for non secular wholeness for all related that we might rejoice collectively to sharing your love via Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Well bless their hearts.”
