A More Excellent Way

by The Rev. Eric Thomas M. Randolph

Preached Sunday, September 14, 2025

We’ve navigated the past week in the shadow of sorrow, stunned once again by the violent events that unfolded in our country. The shooting in Utah, and the school shooting in Colorado, pierce our collective hearts with grief and confusion. These tragedies demand an honest reckoning—not just with violence itself, but with the deeper wounds that plague our nation.

I cannot speak truthfully about these events without naming the context: What happened in Utah was not simply a random act of violence; the victim was a public figure whose rhetoric fanned the flames of division, intolerance, and even hatred. This is not to diminish the gravity of his death or to justify violence in any form. Rather, as Christians committed to justice and truth, we must examine how our public discourse—especially when rooted in exclusion and contempt—contributes to the culture of violence we now endure.

It's difficult and uncomfortable, but necessary, to acknowledge that his public voice was marked by a pattern of demonizing those who differed from him—immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, women, and many others. His platform too often celebrated exclusion, sowed suspicion, and stoked cultural warfare. As followers of Christ, we must ask: What happens to a society when voices of influence consistently turn neighbor against neighbor, erode empathy, and replace compassion with contempt?

In John’s first letter, he writes: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars” (4:20). To love God is to love our neighbor—not in the abstract, but in radical, embodied solidarity, especially with those whom society pushes to the margins.

The United States is addicted to ideological purity! We’re tempted to see our political opinions as ultimate truths, and to treat those who disagree as threats. This isn’t new—but today, the volume and venom of public discourse have reached a fever pitch! Friends, when rhetoric dehumanizes, it fertilizes the ground for violence.

Theologian Karl Barth unapologetically said, “God may speak to us through Russian Communism, a flute concerto, a blossoming shrub, or a dead dog. We’d do well to listen to him if he really does so.” Beloveds, if God can speak through anything, then surely God calls us to listen for the voice of Christ—especially when public voices like call us away from love, empathy, and peacemaking.

Let me be clear here: the teachings of Jesus Christ stands in stark contrast to the kind of rhetoric that is being espoused by many today. Jesus did not bless power; he blessed the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, women, children, and more. He did not encourage fear of the stranger, but called us to seek the face of God in every person.

Jesus says in Luke 6: “But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.” This is Christian witness—not the scapegoating of the vulnerable, not the celebration of division, but the radical, costly love that sees the image of God in every human being.

I know it’s tempting to feel relief, even vindication, when a voice so opposed to our values is silenced. But as people of faith, we must resist this! Violence is never the answer! Ever!

The victim's death, no matter their rhetoric, is a tragedy. The school shooting in Colorado and the 40+ others are a tragedy. The 340 other shootings our country has experienced year-to-date are tragedies. But each point to a larger sickness—a society so fractured that we can’t see the divine in those whom we disagree.

To quote Barth again, “To clasp our hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” Friends, our prayers are not escapism; they’re a commitment to nonviolence, to justice, to the healing of a broken world.

As a Christian community, we’re called to something more than ideological victory. We’re called to a radical openness, a widening of the circle, a refusal to mirror the hatred we deplore. We must model a different way—a way rooted in the gospel, which Paul proclaims:

“There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abrahams’s offspring, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:28-29).

This is the unity found in God through Christ. This is unity, not uniformity. It isn’t agreement at all cost. It’s the deep, difficult work of loving even those who don’t love us, making room at the table for every voice, of building a community where justice and peace can flourish.

As Christians we are called to reconciliation. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, explains, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (5:18).

Our witness is not merely to oppose hate, but to embody God’s reconciling love—to challenge systems (empires) and speech that harms, yes, but also to extend grace, to create space for transformation, and to risk relationship with those who seem far from us.

Beloved, in a nation where the loudest voices often promote exclusion and enmity, we’re called to be people who follow not the path of power, but the path of Jesus Christ. We mourn every life lost to violence, but we must also speak truth about rhetoric that wounds and divides. Above all, we must recommit ourselves to the way of Christ—a way of peace, inclusion, and radical empathy.

“The command of God is not a program, but a call to obedience in the concrete situation,” says Barth. Today, our obedience means refusing to dehumanize even those who have dehumanized others. It means working for justice, speaking truth to power, and living as ambassadors of reconciliation in a broken and fearful world.

Let this faith community, and all Christianity be known—not for our ideological zeal—but for our Christ-like love, our courage to speak truth, and our unwavering commitment to the dignity of every child of God.

In the name of the One who breaks down every dividing wall, Amen.