Sermons

"Living Post-9/11"

A Sermon by the Reverend Cole
Emmanuel Church, Newport, RI

September 10, 2006
The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18B

The words “Nine Eleven” have joined with “Pearl Harbor” and “The Civil War” as part of the lexicon of difficult defining moments in American history. Tomorrow we observe the fifth anniversary of that fateful day. We can reflect on the attacks and the American response to them through many lenses – as Americans or foreigners, as Democrats or Republicans, as pro-war or anti-war, as fearful or hopeful, as confident in the leadership of our government or as skeptical. Many perspectives compete for our attention as we consider the state of our post-9/11 world.

We are here this morning because we share a common commitment to living as disciples of Jesus Christ. So, added to the many perspectives listed above is that of our faith. How does our commitment to discipleship inform our response to terrorism and to all that has transpired in the past five years?

On the afternoon of 9/11, our Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, wrote a note to the church. In it, he said that our responsibility was to “engage with all our hearts and minds and strength in God’s project of transforming the world into a place of peace – where swords can become plowshares and spears are changed into pruning hooks.” Later that month, the House of Bishops met to discuss the church’s response. Our bishops challenged us to “wage reconciliation” in the world, and urged us to “bear one another’s burdens across the divides of culture, religion, and differing views of the world.”

To “engage in God’s project of transforming the world” and to “wage reconciliation” – these are daunting, almost overwhelming tasks that require very active, fervent effort from all who consider themselves to be disciples of Jesus.

One of the reasons that they seem so daunting is that they run counter to the prevailing wisdom of many of our nation’s leaders. The hope of some is that we can find peace through military might. They tell us that as long as we are stronger than the rest, justice will prevail and our freedom will be preserved. However, peace that exists at the business end of a Tomahawk missile is no peace at all. What lies behind it is fear that projects a false hope of a peace that does not really exist. It brings no long-term comfort to think that peace on earth is only as enduring as the military power that sustains it. It is a far cry from the shalom that was the goal of the people of ancient Israel. For them, shalom was not just the absence of conflict. It was the “cosmic harmony (that) exists where the world and all its inhabitants are reconciled with God.”

You and I will not see this total reconciliation in this life. However, we can live with the comfort and hope of knowing that we participate in this “God-project” of creating shalom in our world. Instead of waging war, we can wage reconciliation.

Last Sunday, we began a five-week journey through the Letter of James. We heard James exhort us to be “doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves” (James 1: 22). This week, James challenges us directly when he says,

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead (2:14-17).

Waging reconciliation requires that we take these words of James seriously and that we allow them to guide our actions.

Presiding Bishop Griswold reminds us in a letter to the church this week that we who live in America “must play the role not just of a superpower but also of a super-servant.” More to the point, we who call ourselves disciples of Jesus have no option but to participate with James in the work of responding to the needs of people throughout the world. Christian faith is not about feeling good. It is not a panacea for our ailments or our psychological shortcomings, although certainly God cares about every part of us. Our Christian faith primarily is about action – about partnering with God to bring about God’s vision of peace in our world.

We live in an extraordinary era. It is true that we live in a world that we could easily destroy through weapons of our own devising. However, it is equally true that we live in a world where for the first time in human history we possess the technology and the resources to end extreme poverty throughout the world. In 2000, all 191 members of the United Nations signed the Millennium Development Goals, pledging among other things to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, to achieve universal primary education, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, and to develop a global partnership for sustainable economic development and environmental stewardship.

If you want something to get excited about on the fifth anniversary of something truly horrible, think of the possibilities that lie before us. Think of a world without extreme poverty. Think of a world where every boy and every girl receives a primary education. Think of a world where little children do not live as orphans because their parents died of untreated AIDS.

Christian organizations throughout the world have embraced the MDGs as major mission initiatives, seeing in them God at work to bring about God’s vision of justice and peace. The Episcopal Church has made the MDGs a major part of its mission strategy and has committed a significant portion of its budget to that end. Episcopal Relief and Development, the disaster response and economic development arm of the Episcopal Church uses the MDGs as a blueprint for its development work. The Episcopal Church invites each diocese, local parish, and individual Episcopalian to participate in this global effort to put into practice what James says to us today – to respond to the needs of the poor.

You may be asking what you can do. One thing that you can do is attend the Rector’s Forum during the next few weeks as we discuss the Millennium Development Goals with an eye toward local, tangible action. We will study the goals and we will study a book called “What Can One Person Do?” Of this book, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said, “(The authors) have given us a hopeful vision, along with a useful plan of action, that each of us can follow to extend God’s reconciling love for all people.”

I am a member of ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History. In a recent bog entry on the ONE website, a young woman named Laura, from Texas posted the following,

I believe the fight against AIDS and global poverty is the fight of our generation. I recently asked my father where he was during the American Civil rights movement, and if he felt a pull to be involved. As I listened to his answer, I thought, “What will my children hold me accountable for?” In the years to come, when my children ask me what I did to fight AIDS in Africa and how I tried to keep millions from needlessly dying of poverty, I want to have an answer. A real answer. This is the fight of my generation, and I will not pretend I don’t understand what devastation will occur if I do not act.

This is the fight of our generation because for the first time in history it is a winnable battle. So, the question for people everywhere is, “If we can, how can we not?”

I do not suggest this morning that we have to make a choice between fighting terrorism and fighting poverty. I do not suggest that we have to choose pacifism over armed resistance. However, I do suggest that fear, that demonizing the enemy, that manipulating the truth, that peace that is won only through armed conflict is not the answer. I suggest that the only weapon that will bring about lasting peace on this earth is love, the type of love that says, “I can no longer sit back and watch millions of people die every year of starvation.”

Our commitment to Christian discipleship demands nothing less than that we respond in this post-9/11 world to the needs of people everywhere. Only then will we have charted a course towards lasting true peace. Only then will we experience the shalom that has been the hope and dream of people of faith for millennia. Only then will we truly be free. Amen.

[1] Paul D. Hanson, The People Called, p. 3.