From Remembrance to Hope - A Sermon on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

Isaiah 65: 17-25

Philippians 4:4-9

Mark 13:1-8

                Many of us remember where we were the exact moment that the first plane hit the World Trade Center 10 years ago today.  It was a sunny Tuesday morning, the sky was a bright blue and the fall crispness was in the air tempered by the warmth of the sun.  I was working as an accountant for a large corporation in downtown Minneapolis at the time.  It was early in the morning and I was listening to the radio while processing my daily cash accounting. My favorite DJ was reading the news in her usual joking manner but suddenly she stopped, and in a panicked voice she said that a jet had hit a sky scraper in New York.  I stopped working and looked at my radio.  Then my phone rang.  I picked it up and my partner Shelly said that she had just seen on TV an airline jet fly into one of the twin towers in New York.  I was stunned.  I didn’t know what to say.  I tried to get on the CNN but it was overloaded.  I changed the radio station to public radio to hear more news of this situation.  At first I thought it was just some bizarre accident, that someone must have fallen asleep at air traffic control thus causing these planes to fly amuck. Then the towers started to collapse.

            “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”  Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” (Mark 13: 1-2)

As the day wore on, the media revealed that terrorists associated with the group Al-Qaeda had hijacked the commercial airline jets planes and had flown them into the towers for the purpose of utter destruction.

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.  This is but the beginning of birth pangs.” (Mark 13:8)

Then I heard that a plane had crashed into the pentagon.  My panic shifted into high gear because my sister lives just a few miles from the pentagon.  I tried to call her but couldn’t get through because the phone circuits were overloaded.  I then I did something that I hadn’t done since I was a kid, I called my big brother hoping that he had a word of comfort or protection for me.  When we spoke he went into problem solving mode, he guessed that Osama Bin Laden had something to do with these planes crashing.  He deduced that because we were in the Midwest, there was no way harm would come to us, because really what was there that was worth attacking in Minnesota.  When I got off the phone with him I just sat and I worried.  Eventually my workplace closed and they sent us home for the day. 

Shelly and I rode the bus home from work together.  The bus was full but the people were dead silent.  I noticed that the streets were unusually empty in our normally bustling downtown Minneapolis.  The stores had closed early and many of the offices were empty.  The skies were also empty because all planes had been grounded.  I realized that my world had changed instantly in the moments that the planes had hit the twin towers.  I thought to myself that if these massive buildings could come down, then maybe the whole world could come down as well.  Safety was no longer something that I could take for granted. 

            There is something about September 11, that has challenged our core beliefs and perceptions of God.  We know that God’s own name was used by the suicide highjackers before they crashed the planes into the twin towers and the pentagon.  We experienced the raw force of evil, not caused by a mere blow of fate but as a result of a group of men believed in something so much that they forget that there were human beings involved.  How could such things be planned so meticulously, executed so destructively in the name of God. 

For the ancient Israelite people the destruction of the great Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD was their September 11.  History tells us that the temple of Jerusalem was the center of the lives of the Jewish community of which Jesus was a part of.  They came to the temple because they believed that God physically dwelled within the temple in a room called the holy of holies.  The Jewish folk throughout the Middle East made pilgrimage to the temple on Passover to celebrate the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  This was exactly what Jesus and his disciples were doing in this morning’s gospel reading.  

Most Biblical Scholars believe that Mark was able to include the prophecy of the Temple because it already happened.  In trying to make meaning out of this destructive event, Mark writes about the story of the temple destruction by having Jesus prophesy it.  While the disciples marvel at the grandeur of the buildings while Jesus let’s them know that these buildings will be destroyed. 

             Forty years later, the temple of Jerusalem did fall as the Roman Army quashed the Jewish rebellion in the year 70 AD.  All of the Jewish people which included the early Christians were devastated by the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem.  They wondered how God’s dwelling place could be so brutally destroyed by an earthly empire.  What does that say about God, what does that say about us who worship God?  This indeed was an uncertain time in the life of the early Christian Community. 

This was not the first time that the Temple had been destroyed.  In the year 587 BCE, Jerusalem had been invaded by the Babylonians who destroyed the first great Temple built by Solomon.  The older testament text we read this morning from Isaiah was written just as the ancient Israelites were beginning the difficult task of rebuilding their community in a time where people were cynical about their future.  There was hardship all around them, their lives were difficult.  And yet Isaiah was able to say with confidence “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.” (Isaiah 65:18)  Isaiah had confidence that the God who created heaven and earth does not seek to destroy but rather seeks to build upon the original creation and transform it into something new.[i]  But how does a community move from remembering the destruction of the past to a new hope for the future.

This morning we participated in a litany where we made this very transition.  We began with lighting a candle in remembrance for all who suffered and died on September 11 and ended with lighting a candle of hope for a new world of unity and peace.  We moved from remembrance to hope through lighting a candle of penitence, where we acknowledged our shadow side, the times when our anger, hate, rage and indignation have caused us to dehumanize others who are not like us.  In so doing, we begin to repent, we make a commitment to towards God and choose to do “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable.” (Phil 4:8) 

I want to end this sermon with a note of hope, let us remember that while there was much planning behind the terrorist acts of September 11^th, 2001, the kindness that poured forth in the immediate aftermath was not planned.  It was seen in the tender acts of kindness that people gave to one another not only in New York but all over the world.  It was seen in the reverence of the search teams that meticulously picked through the rubble of ground zero to recover the remains of those who perished in the disaster.  It was seen in the unity of our body politic as the members of congress sang “God Bless America” on the steps of the capital building.  On that day there was no democrat or republic, there wasn’t even the designation of liberal or conservative, there was only a group of our nation’s leaders praying together for God’s blessing on our nation in our time of need while the whole world prayed for us. 

Yes, ten years later, we are still fighting the war on terrorism and our world polarized and divisive.  But if we can remember the small ways that patience, love, kindness, compassion and forgiveness were given and received in the days after 9/11, we can keep doing the things we’ve learned from that time and the peace of God will always be with us.  May it be so.  Amen.

           

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[i] Mary Eleanor Johns, “Isaiah 65:17-25: Pastoral Perspective.”  Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 290.