Mother's Pain, God's Love (Reflections on Lent 2, Year C)

God bless Sue Klebold. I really mean that. I heard her interviewed this past week by the brilliant Terry Gross of WHYY radio’s “Fresh Air” series, and I was deeply touched by this mother’s painful story. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the mom of a boy who turned out to be a mass murderer.

You’ll recall—and I doubt any of us who were around on that horrible day in 1999 will ever forget—that Mrs. Klebold’s son Dylan was one of two teenaged gunmen who went on a murder-suicide rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing thirteen human beings before taking their own lives. For almost two decades Mrs. Klebold has tried to keep a low profile—haunted by the terrible deeds of her emotionally unbalanced son, guilt-ridden for not seeing the signs of danger in Dylan’s behavior, blamed by the parents of Dylan’s victims, and yet deeply grieving the loss of the boy to whom she had given birth.

Sue Klebold’s story seems to mirror the themes in our Gospel for the Second Sunday in Lent Year C (Luke 13: 31-35). Here is both violence and compassion. The tyrant Herod would have Jesus killed. So would the political rulers of Jerusalem, because killing God’s prophets is what they have always done. And yet Jesus can look at these murderers as a mother looks to her erring children. In fact, Jesus even employs a maternal image to describe his compassion:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (v.34)

As a mother, Mrs. Klebold feels the double pain of shame for her boy’s vicious and senseless crimes, but also compassion for the mental disease and spiritual pain which led him to commit those crimes. Perhaps this is how God sees us? Perhaps our God—like our mother—grieves that we are so far from pursuing righteousness, so often full of anger, despair, selfishness, and hatred. And yet this same God loves us with a passion that surpasses all of our evil inclinations.

Perhaps this is what we must see whenever we look to the cross of Jesus—our own capacity for senseless, wanton, and indifferent cruelty juxtaposed with God’s desire to love us anyway and suffer for our sake.

At any event, as a clergyman, I find something holy in the sorrowful witness of Sue Klebold. I pray for her comfort and healing and for the healing of all of those who are victims of violence.