“9-11 Revisited”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, September 11, 2011
It was a sunny morning very much like this morning when three weeks ago Marial and I boarded the Staten Island ferry to go from southern Manhattan, past the Statue of Liberty to Staten Island. We took that ferry because it's free. And as we sailed away from Manhattan something struck me - the brochures that I had about visiting New York that I had in my hands and in my bag were 11 years old, and the skyline depicted of Manhattan included the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre.
As we gradually sailed away from Manhattan and its southern tip the striking contrast between those photographs on the brochure and the skyline that we saw was overwhelming. Maybe for the first time I fully realised what a colossal, what a monumental event had occurred ten years before. It gave one pause for thought.
As the ferry returned back to Manhattan from Staten Island we disembarked and went to Battery Park. And I couldn't make up my mind at that very moment whether or not I wanted to actually go a few streets across to Ground Zero. There was a great deal of construction and I could see it through the narrow streets, but did I want to go? Somehow I didn't. And the reason I didn't at that moment was that I felt as if I was a voyeur looking upon the misery and the deaths of others.
I felt that I had seen enough with the absence of the World Trade Centre that simply going to Ground Zero would not mean anything for me, but it might profoundly for others. I felt that I would be looking in somehow at the death and the sorrow of others' lives that had been lost.
I know it's strange but I felt the same way when I visited the Battle of Gettysburg and when in South Africa I went to Sharpeville where there had been the shootings in 1960. I felt the same thing when my father took me to Dunkirk and the slaughter of the troops on the beaches. Somehow it's as if we're voyeurs, that others lost their lives and all we can do is respectfully remember.
Today we respectfully remember. We do not glorify; we remember, and we remember solemnly. Why? Well, because in many ways the events of that day ten years ago were grotesque. Human sin, when it's on a personal level is a terrible thing. When we do wrong to others or when we have been wronged ourselves it is awful, but when something on the scale and magnitude of 911 happens it reminds us all how even the sins of a few can produce the destruction of the many.
When sin manifests itself in such a horrible way it hurts, and yet for a moment, not wanting to be overwhelmed simply with misery or with anger or the pathos of the human condition, down one of those streets I gazed to Ground Zero, and I thought of the bravery, the courage, the camaraderie, the strength of those who tried to save and to restore and to heal.
I thought of the Canadians who particularly in Newfoundland, in Gander, had provided great support and love and care for those who were in the air, and terrified. In some ways what had happened on 911, in Philadelphia, in Washington and in New York didn't only mean that those who died there lost. There's a sense in which all of us, in some ways, felt as if this was an infringement, an attack on us.
And so as I got in the cab and drove up Manhattan and went past all the other great buildings, and thought of the energy of that city, I paused for a moment in my heart and something came to me. It's the 30th sonnet by William Shakespeare. And although at that moment I didn't remember every single word of it I never the Lord thought this was a telling moment of remembrance.
Shakespeare wrote:
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past. I sigh the lack of many a thought I sought, and with old woes, new wail my dear time's waste. Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, for precious friends hid in death's dateless night. And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe, and moan the expense of many a vanished sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, and heavily from woe to woe tell o'er the sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.
I thought of those and their families and their loved ones who were affected by sin. But what is the effect of all this? Have we ten years later become any wiser? Safer in many ways, yes; for rejoicing we should that a similar event has not occurred here on our shores, and we have much for which to give thanks. But it clearly was an event that shook us, and it shook the world.
David Gergen, in a comment ast week said it was as if there was an earthquake that day but the tremors are still being felt. And this morning he is going to preach a word of hope at the Memorial Church at Harvard in the belief that we need to deal with the shakiness and the tremors in the world.
What happened on that day ten years ago was unique. North America, as we all know had seen, and has seen much violence over the years. One only needs to visit the Plains of Abraham or the Alamo, or read of the lynching of slaves, or think about the Oklahoma bombings, or the children at Columbine.
There has been much pain and bloodshed but there is nothing quite like what was experienced that day. In a time of peace, of relative order of business as usual, a few people decided that they hated what we stood for so much that they wanted to kill. It's as simple as that. And the effect of that and the ramifications of it have been enormous; enormous. There are some who say we should not hype 911 - how can you hype it when you reflect about what has happened since it?
Wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we have bombings in Bali, in Madrid, in London, in Baghdad and Karachi and India. We have seen immense security changes that have transformed the way that many people live and do commerce and travel. We have seen and read of the death of Bin Laden, the perpetrator, of Hussein and others. Young Canadians have returned to this country in boxes rather than with teddy bears to greet their children. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in various conflicts and skirmishes and lives have been threatened and maligned, and the economy has paid a stiff price for all of this.
To say that that sin, on that day did not begat sin, as the Bible says, that evil does not begat evil, that hatred does not begat hatred, clearly has not been alert over the last ten years. The effects of 911 continue to be the aftershocks and they rumble and they continue.
So how then, as people of faith in Jesus Christ, do we bring the Word of God to bear on this trembling world? How can we offer a word of solace and hope and encouragement that the cycle of sin begetting sin stops, or is halted, or at least is named? What should we do and believe?
I think the sad reality is though that that very question is not on the hearts and the minds of most people today, and certainly not on the hearts and the minds of many leaders in the world. In fact, what we have seen over the last ten years is an actual growing disdain for religion, a suspicion of it. That in fact, the Word of Christ is often silenced amidst the desire to somehow silence all voices that might speak of something transcendent.
It is fascinating in First Sunday, that book published of sermons given ten years ago, that in retrospect virtually all the preachers of every stripe and of different religions say the same thing. That in the ten years since the 9/11 incident there has been a falling away, an apathy, a movement towards materialism, a desire to hide other things. And in so doing has been almost silent in the midst of financial corruption in high places. At times we have just become so secular that we cease to hear a voice from outside ourselves.
And what a shame, and it's just a shame, that in the remembrances today at Ground Zero no clergy of any kind are present for fear - for fear of offending someone. When there were, on that moment, voices raised of hope and healing, when churches opened their doors and gave sanctuary, when ministers and priests gave their lives to help - shame, shame.
But Christ's voice cannot ultimately be silenced and the Word of God needs to be heard. The passage that Janet read for us so beautifully this morning is in fact the lectionary reading for today and in it there is a profound message from the scriptures. Jesus tells the story of the lost sheep and going after that one that wandered and strayed. And then Matthew, in compiling his Gospel, brilliantly puts it together with advice for an emerging church that would come after his death and resurrection. Where he gives advice as to how you deal with people who have wronged you. That in fact, first of all, you go to the person who has wronged you and you name it, and you go to them personally. And having gone to them and found no response you take others with you who can pay testimony to what you have said. And if the person who did the wrong does not listen then, then you go to the whole community, to the whole church and you bring the wrong to them. And if the person does not then respond to the whole community then, and only then, do you treat them as Jesus said, like pagans and tax collectors. You walk away.
What Jesus was doing here in this marvellous story, and in this great advice for the early Christian church, was to do three things, and it seems to me that these three things are powerful messages for our time. The first of which is to avoid the escalation of any conflict. In other words go and address it, name it, seek to deal with it. Secondly, not to ignore it and just put it under the carpet and pretend it is not there. But thirdly, to seek reconciliation, to seek the lost sheep, to try and bring the one who has wronged you back into fellowship again - and then, and only then, when that is rejected and it is not forthcoming in an apology or a regret, to walk away.
It seems the world needs now, after ten years, not just to sort itself out with guns anymore, but to think about the very things that honestly seem to be dividing us. The perpetrators in some ways were brought to justice, the world is a safer place, but it is in the realm of ideas, it's in the realm of beliefs, it's in the realm of attitudes of one to another that, in fact, the new struggle must continue.
It is in finding ways to heal what is a trembling and a shattered world. To somehow overcome the suspicions, protect oneself, yes; maintain the hope of the innocent by all means. Stand up for what is true and just in all things, and sometimes pay the price. But the primary goal; the primary goal must be the restoration and the reconciliation of humanity who are created by God, and for whom Jesus died.
I was reading an incredible story - it is in Chuck Colson's book Loving God. It's a story about a prisoner who was in Siberia during the Soviet time and he was there as a political prisoner, and his name is Doctor Boris Kornfeld. And Doctor Boris Kornfeld, because he was a surgeon, even though he was a prisoner, was asked to take care of the guards medically, and the inmates, the prisoners. And he did but he started to resent taking care of the guards; it was starting to get to him and he was feeling bitter.
One day, one of his patients came in who just happened to be a devout Christian, and for one reason or another Kornfeld and the patient started to talk about faith, and all the patient did was talk about a prayer that was important to him because he didn't have a Bible anymore, but this he did remember. It was a prayer by Jesus and in it there is a line - forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Doctor Kornfeld was moved by that but barely gave it another thought. A few days later one of the guards came in bleeding from an aneurism and he was asked to heal the guard. And as he was stitching the guard up he wondered whether or not, in fact, he should let this guard live for he had a bad reputation. And he thought I can suture him up and he can still bleed inside and no one would know, but I'd know I hadn't helped one of the guards.
And then he was struck by the hatred in his heart. He was shamed by his feelings; he couldn't believe it was him saying and thinking this. He was a doctor after all. And then at that very moment he thought of the words of the Christian who said, forgive us our trespasses, our sins, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And he sewed him up properly and the guard lived.
But he decided to change his ways and if guards were to come in that were brutalising prisoners he would tell them that. He wouldn't avoid the problem, he would say you're doing this and it's wrong, how can I heal you if you're going to be bullying, if you're going to be hurting other prisoners? And so he said that to a few of them and to one guard in particular who took great umbrage at being told what to do by a prisoner.
A few days later a cancer patient, who was a prisoner, came in to see Doctor Kornfeld and the prisoner explained to Doctor Kornfeld how he hated the guards and he had bitterness in his heart, and the bile in his stomach would rise his mouth. Doctor Kornfeld stopped him in his tracks and quoted a passage by a man called Jesus - forgive us or trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
The patient walked away, was deeply moved by Kornfeld's words. 48 hours later, in the surgery, Doctor Kornfeld was bludgeoned to death by a couple of the guards and he died. But his words that day to the cancer patient lived on. They have been repeated many, many times, and have been read by millions. For the cancer patient who was deeply moved by the words of Jesus, was Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Such is the power of one word to change many. Such is the power of faith to alter the perspectives of a lot. We may carry around in our hearts these days sombre and sad memories of those days ten years ago - I will never forget driving through tranquil Vermont and hearing what had happened, or returning here that week to be with you. We were all frightened, we were.
And I know that for many other people this is simply another moment in time, another tremor amongst many tremors. I know that we often feel powerless to change the course of history or the ideas of men and women. But you know, true faith starts somewhere - it starts in the heart, it starts in the words of Jesus. If you have anything against your brother take it to them and seek reconciliation; if you can't, you can't. But whatever your attitude must be, it must be to forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.
Where is this word heard, if it is not heard from the source of faith? At the end of my sermon ten years ago I said my words are but a vapour; I have nothing more profound to add. But to those who have laid in the rubble, for those who have lost their lives since, for those who feel the tremors, for those in power I leave you with the words of Saint Paul from the Book of Romans.
“Be devoted to one another in brotherly and sisterly love, give preference to one another in honour, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted in prayer, contributing to the needs of he saints, practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind towards one another, do not be haughty in mind but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your estimation. Never pay back evil for evil. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. And if possible; if possible so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God for it is written vengeance is mine; I will repay says the Lord.” Amen.