09/12/2021
Dear Friends,
We all remember what we were doing when we heard the news on September 11, 2001. It was one of the events indelibly etched into our memories and our collective consciousness. Twenty years later, those memories and the feelings they evoke are as fresh as they were that terrible day.
As a way to mark the moment and also to reflect on its meaning, I wanted to share a portion of the sermon I preached on September 11, 2011, the 10-year anniversary of 9-11. I titled it, “Between Memory and Hope.”
I was on a train heading into Manhattan for a meeting with clergy colleagues on that stunningly clear September morning. We were just pulling into Penn Station when the conductor concluded his final announcements with a message in that characteristic train-talk tone, “Something happened down at the World Trade Center. If you’re going there you might want to call first.” None of us, save those heading in that direction, thought much about it at the time.
Sara was on a different train traveling from our home on Long Island to her Manhattan office for work. Neither of us had any idea of the events that were to unfold that would change all of our lives forever…
One of my many memories is of the masses of people who were walking north from lower Manhattan, a stunned and silent army marching home or to places of refuge, as I had done to Christ UMC in midtown. One of those walkers was Sara, who had made it the fifty blocks to that same church, though neither of us knew that the other was there.
While we were happy that we had found each other, we were more than a little concerned that, with phone service down, we could not communicate with our children who were back home in Port Washington. Fortunately, our good friend Dayle figured out what was going on and she met our children as they got off their buses later that morning.
Sometime in the afternoon we were able to call home and this is the conversation I remember with our first-grade son:
“Daddy, where are you? When are you coming home?”
“William, I’m in the City and we may not be able to get home for a while.”
“Why not?”
“Did you hear what happened today?”
“They drove a plane into the Tower and they knocked it down.”
“That’s right. And so the trains aren’t running right now. I’m sure we’ll get home before too long.”
“Daddy, why did they do that?”
I don’t remember my answer nearly as well as I do Will’s question. Explaining the rationale behind the unfathomable events of that day ten years ago to a six year-old was a sizable challenge.
It still is. How do you explain the hate that drives people to kill themselves and thousands of innocent civilians in an act of utter terror? How do you name the evil that gets into people to so dehumanize them? And how do you begin to comprehend the demented logic of destroying that which is of sacred worth in the name of its Creator?
The questions are daunting, even a decade removed from 9-11. When we remember that day, though, it seems far from removed. The feelings of shock, fear, terror, anger---all sentiments you may have felt rising in you as you shared your recollections of that time with one another---all return pretty quickly. When those towers came tumbling down, much of our world did, too. As many said then and since, it was a day that everything changed---in fact, that was the title of my sermon the following Sunday. Something inside of us will never be quite the same again.
And yet it is ten years later, and we cannot remain where we were then. Sara, Will and I were saying last night that the media is indulging in a bit of 9-11 over-do this weekend. We need to move from memory to hope, from getting stuck in our hurt to reaching out in a spirit of openness and mutual respect.
I was thinking about the numbers that have come to signify this day, “9-11”. But we use those same numbers in another way when we say, “9-1-1.” It’s the number we teach our kids to call if there is any kind of an emergency and that we dial when we’re in trouble. On September 11, 2001, the entire country was a 9-1-1 call. Many responded by rushing into burning buildings to help others escape, tending to the terrorized, treating the wounded. Others took it upon themselves to take down the plane in which they were riding before it could take down the Capital building or the White House.
Thanks be to God for those who laid down their lives for friends that they had never even met. In the midst of the horror brought by the worst of human behavior, that response exhibited some of the best we can be. And thank God for those who still respond with such selflessness and courage to our calls of distress.
But it’s time for us dial a different number. Professor Leonard Sweet calls it a “1-1-9” call. “Instead of making distress calls,” Sweet says, “let’s honor the sacrifices and love and commitment of all those who responded by purposefully making a 1-1-9 call.”
A “1-1-9” call is that daily working out of our lives with the conviction that we will no longer be guided by hatred and bitterness but instead with compassion and love. Len Sweet says that they are:
Calls that spread good news.
Calls that offer hope and help.
Calls that celebrate and congratulate.
We have some good guidelines for making our 1-1-9 calls in---where else? ---Psalm 119. Titled, “The Glories of God’s Law,” Psalm 1-1-9 lifts up the power that rests in remaining faithful to God’s Word. “How sweet are your words to my taste,” it says in one of its 176 verses, “sweeter than honey to my mouth! Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Dialing 1-1-9---living by God’s Word---is our calling. God stands by us even though the earth should tremble and the mountains quake, even though hurt still too often turns to hate and evil continues to deceive the vulnerable into believing that God condones violence committed in his name.
Our children have been raised in a 9-11 world. It’s a different world than the more innocent one we were brought up in. But it will be their world, and they seem determined to make it a good one. We owe it to them to live in the hope that they, too, will have good and productive lives. And we need to make that hope not just an idle dream but a concrete reality.
It happens one day at a time. One day by one day, we need to find opportunities to encounter the power of God’s enduring word of justice and peace for all people, regardless of race or religion or culture. Each day we must offer encouragement and hope to those who hurt or hunger for a better life. Every day we need to show the world that religion, which so often has been the cause of the world’s problem, can be part of the solution, that those who serve the God of mercy and peace are stronger than those who defame God with their calls to holy war.
In the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus has given us his peace, just as he promised his disciples that he would. A peace that the world cannot give or take away. A peace that passes all understanding. A peace that is our last and best hope.
Let us take that gift to our hearts, remain true to God’s Word and, upon them, build our world anew.
