First Parish Sermon

It is hard to believe that just a week ago I was preaching about the movie “Pearl Harbor” and why I thought it was important to see it and to remember why the act of war that took place on December 7, 1941 was so critical to the formation of our national psyche. President Roosevelt called the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor “a date that will live in infamy.” That day we lost our innocence and the belief in our invincibility. We quickly came to the realization that we could no longer isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and cut ourselves off from responsible engagement with others. I concluded my remarks by saying that then as now there was certainly no room for any kind of isolationism and we no longer needed a Pearl Harbor to remind us of that fact. 

Well, whether we needed it or not, we got it in spades, and then some. The GLOBE called it “New Day of Infamy”, and that it was. None of us will ever forget where we were when we first learned of the two planes crashing into the World Trade Center towers, then watching the devastation that followed when the towers came crashing to the ground, killing hundreds and thousands of people still trapped in the buildings as well as nearly 400 firefighters, police and rescue workers below. Before we could take all this devastation in we learned of a third plane crashing and exploding into the Pentagon, and a fourth falling to the ground in a field in Pennsylvania. It all seemed like a Hollywood blockbuster violence film except it was all too real. 

In the few short days since the Attack on America on September 11 we have each in our own way wept and cried, prayed and protested to heaven, been to prayer vigils, candle lightings, watched the service of mourning and remembrance at the National Cathedral, and seen again and again the images of death and destruction in New York City and Washington, D.C. until we can’t take it in anymore or comprehend how such a thing could have happened. I was particularly moved by a photo of three firemen raising an American flag atop a mound of dust and rubble—reminiscent of the Marines doing the same at Iwo Jima in W.W. II. Americans have rediscovered their patriotism and how much the symbol of the flag means to them in the expression of their love of country. 

There have been some moving stories of heroism that have come out of this terrible tragedy. Jeremy Glick on Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania called his wife Lysbeth on his cell phone to tell her he loved her and to say good bye. He told her to have a good life and to take care of their 3-month old baby girl, and to find happiness again. He then told her that he and two other passengers were going to do what they could to prevent the terrorists form carrying out their plans. They succeeded. That plane never made it back to Washington. They may well have saved the White House or the Capitol from destruction.

Another man called his wife and left a message on the answering machine: “Liz, it’s me, Dan. My building has been hit. I made it to the 78th floor. I’m OK, but will remain here to help evacuate people. See you soon.” He helped to save others, but himself he could not save. He is among the missing. I was struck by a message written on the hood of a dusty car in lower Manhattan: “We will survive.” Yes, indeed, even those who died will survive in the heroic spirit that has emerged out of this tragedy. As it says in the words of a chant: “You can’t kill the spirit. It is like a mountain. Old and strong, it goes on and on.” 

We were visiting my stepmother in Springfield, Mass. when we learned about the attack on the World Trade Center. A few hours later our daughter called to let us know that she and Bobby, our son-in-law, were safe in Wilmington after being sent home from their jobs in the financial district in Boston. She revealed that the New York division of Fiduciary Trust International on the 103rd floor had been lost. Though she did not happen to know any of the New York employees it made this tragedy all together too real. My God, I thought to myself, has the day now come when my daughter and her husband can no longer feel safe at their place of employment in the heart of the city because they happen to work in the financial field? 

Later when we returned home to the Cape one of our daughter-in-laws called and asked to speak to me. “I need to speak to my minister,” she said. On the verge of tears she expressed her fears that her first-born son, Adam, our grandson, in his second year at the Coast Guard Academy, could well be impressed into service should we go to war. She also told me that our son, Jim, her husband, had been to the World Trade Center towers on a number of occasions in the course of his travels for his company. He was, of course, devastated by what had happened because he knew some of the people who worked there and may well have lost their lives. 
Still later a parishioner expressed his concern to me about a forthcoming flight to the west coast and wondered if things would ever return to normal. No, he reflected, things would never be normal again. He spoke for all of us. Our nation will never be the same. We have been forever changed. We have lost our innocence yet again. Except that this time we are seemingly at war with a faceless enemy. 

Juan Bruno, 38, whose wife worked on the 100th floor of the trade center, expressed concern that this terrible event might indeed ignite a war. “They do this in the name of their god, Allah. For us they are crazy; for them we are crazy. That’s what creates war.” Yes, indeed. We know that one of the terrorists, whose luggage did not make it onto the plane, had a copy of the Koran in his suitcase. He no doubt thought he was carrying out the will of his God and would be transported into heaven for his action. What kind of a God does he worship that would countenance the wanton killing of innocent civilians—men, women and children? We need to be reminded that the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not support this belief or action. It is against the teachings of the Koran to murder innocent people. Those who do so are self-deluded fanatics.

Talal Eid, the imam of the Islamic Center in Quincy, who once spoke from my former pulpit in Norwell, has expressed a double concern—“we are grieved for the loss of innocent lives, and at the same time we are concerned about the safety of many Muslims who live and practice their faith here in New England.” He and his faithful followers have received many threats and fear for their lives and safety. “We all agree”, he says, “that those who committed this cowardly attack against innocent civilians…are full of blind hatred. Other people should not do the same by directing hatred toward people of genuine faith.” He asks, “What does it matter if the perpetrators were Americans or from the Middle East? Did it matter whether Timothy McVeigh was Christian or Muslim? He turned out to be a Christian, but people did not condemn Christianity.”

We need to remind ourselves that we have our share of self-deluded political and religious fanatics who would if they could kill or maim or harm those who do not adhere to their view and interpretation of Christianity and politics. Remember Gandhi’s words: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” And we might add, “A tooth for a tooth makes us all toothless.” As the Buddhists have taught for centuries, “Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time. Hatred ceases by love.”

If we do go to war because of this attack upon our nation and people it will be like no war we have ever fought. Terrorists are not necessarily people of one nation or religion or culture nor do they live conveniently in one geographical area. It will be a long protracted struggle and whether we intend it or not many innocent people will die because of it. One of the survivors of the Trade Center disaster asks, “What can you do to avenge someone who wiped out two of the largest buildings in the world? What can you do to them? Hang them? Shoot them? Burn them? They don’t care about life? Life means nothing to them.” 

We would do well to ask ourselves how and why our presumed enemies have come to such a stance in their lives, and what if anything we could do to address the issues that have brought them to this juncture? They may be politically and religious insane, but at least we should try to understand them. After all, one of the first rules of war is to know your enemy. Mind you, I am no absolute pacifist when it comes to confronting and stopping the spread of evil and destruction in the world. Sometimes we have to resist evil and set limits to its expression, but we delude ourselves if we think we can ever eradicate it from the world. In resisting evil we always run the risk of becoming tainted by it and therein become the very thing we hate.

Osama bin Laden and his followers have issued a “fatwa” or religious decree: “To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible.” Though he denies direct involvement in the recent attacks against our nation, he nonetheless applauds what they have done. If we should decide to take direct action against bin Laden in Afghanistan we have some very difficult questions to consider. Afghanistan is a rugged mountainous country with difficult terrain. The Russians got bogged down in a war there and finally had to give it up. The irony is that we helped support the Taliban and other Afghan fighters against the Russians. Now we may find ourselves going to war against the Taliban because of their giving refuge and support to bin Laden. 

I don’t envy our President as he has to consider what actions to take against the evil and terrorism that has been visited upon us. He has told us that this will be the focus of his administration for some time to come and that it will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil. I don’t think it’s that simple. There is good and evil in all of us including our enemies. The struggle of good against evil is an internal struggle as well as an external one. I am reminded of the words of the Japanese naval commander, Yamamoto, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve.” 

My hope is that in our resolve to resist the evil of terrorism in the world we might take to heart these words from a prayer by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Let peace abound in our nation and world. Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere, to accept and to forgive, as we ourselves need to be forgiven. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us if it may be in all our innocent endeavors. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another. Amen.