Sermon, September 16, 2001
15 Pentecost – Proper 19, Year C
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Gospel – Luke 15 1-10 The story of the lost sheep; the lost coin

The Sunday after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center & Pentagon

It is as though we lost something this past Tuesday. Peace of mind; a sense of security; something hard to put words around. And various commentators, experts and leaders have been sweeping our house desperately trying to find the silver coin which will solve this problem, make sense of it, restore us and protect us.

But we know, people cannot be replaced. And we wonder whether the scars on our physical and emotional landscape can really be healed. With a painful sense of helplessness, we reach to God, placing our anguish within a greater reality and begging for help.

We need help to get through this. We need God’s help and the church’s. We need each other. Many of us will need the help of skilled professionals who know the map of the territory of fear, anxiety and fury. I find that my own mind seems to destabilize me with unbidden haunted memories and overwhelming waves of emotion. What do we do with that stuff? How do we cope? Our souls are having to process terrible things. God help us.

Each of us brings memories of September 11 that we wish we didn’t have. Different images or descriptions of the horror have planted themselves inside us, and we are sickened. How can God heal these memories of terror?

The central image of Christianity is a cross. It is the symbol of our most treasured story – that God has come fully into our humanity. In Jesus Christ we learn that the divine is not far away or removed from our suffering and evil. Whenever evil appears to triumph over innocence, there is Jesus the holy victim. Whenever human beings suffer physical pain or spiritual abandonment, there is Jesus the man on the cross. Whenever people know the terror of certain and unavoidable death, there is Jesus the crucified one. God knows our plight. God is with us.

Take the memories that haunt you from this past week and look at them through the reality of the cross. Feel the presence of God within that memory; see Jesus there, protecting, guarding, loving. As those particular haunting memories return to you, let Jesus’ arms embrace those people as they die. See God’s divine light surrounding them in an eternal, protective love that is more powerful than death. Look beyond the superficial material image of earthly terror, and see the spiritual reality that is present and strong to save. Believe that the resurrection of Easter is already present in our Good Fridays.

But we’ve inherited more than just terrible memories this week. In some way those planes attacked our souls as well – our peace of mind and equilibrium has been shaken. Life ground to a stop. And close behind the experience of shock and disbelief came overpowering waves of anger. What do we do with the sense of dis-ease and change in our lives? Harder still, what do we do with the anger?

First, let’s think about what’s happened to destabilize and threaten life as we have known it previously. On the day after, Wednesday morning, I was driving to work and listening to the radio. The commentator was talking about how everything had changed in America. With hyperbolic language he went on and on about how we will never be the same again, and how awful it is. As he was speaking, I looked out my window and saw a mother walking her child to school. In one hand she had a sack, and every few steps she bent over and picked up a piece of litter along the roadside, putting it into her sack and she and her child talked together on the way to school. Something deep inside of me said, "This woman is more real than this radio commentator."

There is a risk to over-dramatize and hype what has happened, and if we do that, we give power to the people who have perpetrated this evil deed. No army is threatening to invade us. There is no nation with an arsenal preparing full scale assault upon our country. This is nothing like what France and Britain and even the United States faced in World War II. To exaggerate what a small isolated group of terrorists have done only plays into their intention to disrupt. We must keep our perspective. We are still more threatened by cigarettes and automobiles than by terrorists.

They’ve hijacked four planes and struck three buildings. That’s all. It is a lot. And the loss of life is staggering. But part of the battle now is for us to limit the damage only to what happened on September 11. After taking time for the holy work of honoring our dead and grieving our loss, it is important for us to return to normalcy. It is important for us to let go of irrational fears, to resist the media hype, and to get on with our lives with confidence. What do we do next? We go to school and talk with each other and pick up the litter on the side of the road. Our life is good, and we refuse to let evil people take its goodness away from us.

However, the most subtle battleground for us is the interior one. We are angry. And we have a right to be angry. Anger is an emotion of God. We see in scripture that God gets angry. Anger is the appropriate emotion whenever anything you love is threatened. Anger is the right and normal emotion to such atrocities.

But anger can metabolize into a consuming fire that turns into rage, fury, bitterness, hate and obsessive feelings for revenge. This week I have imagined incredible and violent scenarios for purging the world of these evil people, but when I’ve stopped enough to monitor my own spirit, it is my own soul that I am consuming, my own peace that I am destroying. It is important for the strong to protect the vulnerable from those who seek to harm. But vengeance is a treacherous place for humans to trod.

We are compassionate people. Do not let the wicked turn you into less than you are; turn you into something you are not. In the aftermath of this attack, the real battleground for us is in our hearts. We must not let them triumph inside of us by surrendering our compassion, our love, and our peace. Beware of trying to slay the dragon, lest you become the dragon.

The story that keeps returning to me bears repeating. Beginning in 1948, the country of Tibet was invaded by China. In a series of events, China overran, annexed, and attempted to wipe out the entire culture of that remarkable and gentle nation. The temporal and spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, had to flee his home and has lived in exile for over forty years.

One of his companions, another Lama, was no so lucky. He was captured by the Chinese and imprisoned for years. Much of the time he endured torture, physical and mental torture. When he was finally released after years of international pressure, he was reunited with his old friend the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama asked him how it had been for him. He said that he had been in grave danger two or three times. Grave danger. On two or three occasions he said, he was in danger of losing his compassion for the Chinese.

One of the hardest things to do is to change hate into love. For most of us, Jesus’ command to love our enemies and to forgive those who harm us seems like an impossibility. But the truth is, forgiveness is for us, not for our enemies. Carrying hate, resentment and bitterness is a heavy and debilitating load. There are only two things that I know of that will freeze and block your spiritual growth. One is a refusal to forgive.

Forgiveness doesn’t come easy. It’s not a simple decision you make and you are finished. It is a process that takes courage and time. This church has resources to help you with that courageous journey.

The one battle that you and I can engage in against the unseen enemy that has attacked our people, is for us to refuse to let them damage our souls and our lives. We must refuse to let their evil have power over us. We must continue to be the people we were created to be – loving, compassionate, and strong.

We come to this holy place, because we can’t do that alone. We need each other. We need God. We need the prayers and the hymns and the sacraments. Most of all, we need perfect love, for only perfect love casts out fear. And God is perfect love.

Let yourself dwell in communion with perfect love this day. Close your eyes and let the most powerful reality in the universe enter your soul. Open your hands in communion, and let the perfect sacrifice of love nourish your being. Rest your mind in the peace that passes understanding.

God has triumphed over all. God will triumph over all. God is with us, and what God does best is resurrection. God is bringing life out of death. Allow that life to enter into you this day with power and grace. Let God’s light heal your painful memories. Let God’s peace restore you to normalcy and balance. Let God’s perfect love liberate you from the bondage of fear and bitterness.

Let us pray.

O God of peace, you have taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray you, to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Book of Common Prayer, p. 832