Holy Ground: Not Stand your Ground

Stand your ground.  What is going on in my one-time state of Florida?  (I graduated from Florida State University and was sponsored for ordination from the cathedral in Jacksonville. My two sisters live in Florida).

It started as a legal defense that allows someone to use force – deadly force if need be – when they feel threatened by another person. In all other states, a threatened person must retreat to safety. At least that is the presumption. The law in Florida is: "A person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if: He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.”  In Florida, there is no “duty to retreat.”

So case after case we hear the ways in which this law is being used and, to many outside observers, abused.  What began with the tragic death of Trayvon Martin and the hands of George Zimmerman has expanded to the death of 17-year old Jordan Davis – another young African American male, and Chad Oulson, who has shot dead after a texting dust up in a movie theatre.  Madness. With media hype the rule of the day it is hard to dissect the law here with any real impartiality. 

We hear a lot about road rage and anger management classes in our society. It is hard to get at the root of the problem.  Are we getting too isolated and alienated from one another? Is technology interfering with normal interaction? Or is all of this blown out of proportion because, in truth, people probably always have “lost it” in the heat of the moment. 

Yet, with this talk of stand your ground, I thought of a notion in Scripture that resonates through time.   Recall the story of Moses at the Burning Bush in Exodus 3. When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

I recall an encounter I had with a Hindu man in a very cold cathedral in England. During a meeting we were having in the large space, the man entered from the street – he clearly looked like he was having a tough time of it. His clothes were quite dirty and he appeared a bit what one might call “unstable.”  Yet, from his tradition, he knew what to do when entering a temple or any holy space. He took off his high top tennis shoes and placed them in a corner. His socks may have been less than clean, but his shoes were off. His feet certainly felt the cold unheated floor of that English cathedral.

The Lord said: “remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

I hope Florida changes its Stand your Ground laws. And I hope we remember that we cannot fight every battle or enter with tempers flaring into each conflict situation.  The ground upon which we all stand is not ours to defend. It is God’s and our desire should be to seek unity with the Holy and peace with one another. 

Do we feel that we are standing on holy ground?