September
2007
9/11: A Day of Remembering and Healing
A Sermon from Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
September 11, 2007
Romans 8:29-39, Psalm 23, John 5:1b-9
It could have been any of a dozen Tuesday mornings. The alarm had sounded and I had shut it off and gone back to bed. I lay there waiting until I worked up the fortitude to actually pull myself out of the sack. As I pondered the tasks that lay ahead the phone rang. Sleepily, I stumbled over to it, almost dropping it, and attempted to sound bright and chipper as if I were already on my third cup of coffee, and had been an hour or so into the day’s activities (who was I kidding?).
“Dad,” the urgent voice almost shouted. “Do you have the TV on? You’ve gotta turn the TV on. A hijacked plane just flew into the World Trade Tower. Turn it on! Gotta go to class now. Bye.” And Jonathan was gone.
I rushed over and turned on the TV. The camera remained focused on the smoking tower, the announcer’s voice droning on and on.
I was frozen to the picture. I didn’t know what to think. My mind was still numb as a second plane flew into the other tower. And then that sickening scene of collapse and choking dust billowing up everywhere as the terrified crowd burst headlong running from what looked to be a scene out of Dante’s Inferno.
I just sat before the TV in a stupor, with an empty feeling for the rest of the day - hollowed out.
Now, as I re-read the tales of survivors and others who were witnesses that day, as I am inexorably drawn toward those memories of collapsing buildings and choking dust, I find myself experiencing once again the same numbness, the same sense of loss, the same dread.
My spirit cries out, O God, your people come with empty hands before you. We are numb. We come asking, can you bring healing when the hurt and bitterness just refuse to go away? Can you spread a banquet table in the midst of this awful desolation of our national soul that festers even unto this day? O God, we are here because we have nowhere else to go.
Christians, I tell you: The word you and I need to hear today is that we shall not be cut off. No power, no fear, no sense of dread shall cut us off from this God who indeed prepares a table in the worst desolation. Neither height nor depth can separate us. Nothing shall separate us.
On this sixth anniversary of 9/11we need to know that healing is at hand. I tell you it is as near as our own heartbeat, as near as this table.
Jesus asks the man at the pool of Beth-zatha, “Do you want to be healed.”
Do we want to be healed? Let God’s Holy Spirit prepare space in the midst of our pain, and anger for reconciliation. Pray now that the Spirit enter in.
Now, no one can presume to tell anyone who has suffered the personal loss of a loved one when the time for grief and anger is over. Grief has its own season which we must honor. Only over time can God soften such loss.
But on this sixth anniversary of 9/11, I’m beginning to feel in my own spirit that if we truly desire a national healing , it is now time to begin to put aside the anger, the hurt, and the desire for revenge.
We as a nation need now to hear Jesus’ question, “Do you want to be healed.”
I believe it is time to let go. It is time to stop using the events of this day for political gain. It is time to begin to imagine what the mystery of forgiveness might look like. It is time for us to understand and acknowledge our part in this terrible cycle of enmity and bitterness that is the tragedy of the Middle East.
Such work is the gift of God. We humans do not have it in us of our own accord. Let us pray that God soften our hearts and grant wisdom.
Do you want to be healed? Hold on to one another. Make real to one another God’s promise that the separation, the loss, and the pain of that terrible day – the pain of these terrible days we presently face as a nation — will not be the final word.
Listen to how James Baldwin in his essay, “Nothing Personal” puts our need of each other. He says:
“For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”
Let us come in humility around this table acknowledging that the food we seek for our own souls, Christ offers to all. Yes, even our enemies. Let us lay down our burdens of grief and anger at this table. Receive the bread and wine made holy that healing might find us.
Let us ever remember, God does not break faith. Amen