Eleven years ago today, we saw the attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon known collectively as "9/11". Last year was the tenth anniversary of that event, and it was also, as luck would have it, a Sunday. Preachers around the country, and presumably many from other countries, grappled with the difficult task of bringing the Word of a loving God on the day of remembering such hatred and death.
In the months and years that followed those attacks, we saw a wild rush of emotions wash over Americans. Despair and pain, anger and hatred, fear and panic. Love and community, patriotism and globalism, tolerance and understanding.
But for a few months - a glimmer in the pages of history - we were united. Whether it was by pride, or fear, or anger, we were united as a nation. Before the fights sprang up - the wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment that swept our country; the highly divisive wars that drew ideological battle lines in our own soil; the multitude of answers to the basic question of "What do we do now?" - before all of that, we were united.
What makes that kind of unity? What makes people draw together like that? Is it the negative emotions - fear, anger, pain, panic? Is it the positive ones - pride, righteousness, attachment, certainty?
I think that, more than any of these, what drew the country together in those dark days was the reminder that we're all in this together. The reminder that each life, in our country and around the world, is sacred and fragile. That all of us - from the moderate to the extreme, from the nonbeliever to the fundamentalist - are a heartbeat away from being lost to this world. We are all one act of cruelty away from destruction. That we are all on equal ground in this world.
In moments like that - moments when we are reminded of our common humanity and our common mortality - we have an opportunity. When we remember the great loss of that day and the times that followed it, we are presented with a continuing opportunity to direct that pain, that grief, that pride, that anger - that common experience - into reshaping this world. An opportunity to recreate this place a little better, a little more deeply in touch, a little more peaceful.
It's part of what makes the Gospel so powerful. When we hear the stories of the life and teachings of Jesus, we are given an opportunity to take their lessons to heart and enact them in our lives. When we hear the story of the righteous one killed over a political power struggle, we are reminded of the folly of our divisions. When we hear the story of a resurrected Christ, we are unified as human beings into the larger Body that encompasses all of us. The experience of grace can give us fresh eyes to see these opportunities each day.
I find that these opportunities - to recognize the ties that bind us, and act in love to strengthen them - are always around us. That we are constantly given the chance to turn our failures into strength and our pain into unity. May we take them, and so make our world resemble God's Kingdom a little more closely.
Lord of peace,
We cry out to You in memory of a day of darkness and cruelty.
We praise your mercy, that those who were lost rest in You.
We beg Your forgiveness for the infinite ways that we hurt each other.
We ask that Your Spirit move among us, and inspire us anew to build your Peaceful Kingdom in this world.
Amen.
