Remembering and Let the Anger . . . Go
I’ve watched on my social media feeds as persons tell the stories of what they were doing or where they were on this day in 2001. I was the guest preacher for a small country congregation the Sunday after the Towers fell from the New York skyline, a plane dug up the ground outside Shanksville, PA, and another plane harpooned the Pentagon. These are the words I shared that Sunday just after one of the deacons, a man in his 80’s, gave me the last cup of communion juice. The congregation was standing room only. No one could remember it being that full. The deacons returned with the trays to the table and were serving themselves and the elders. Two people to serve: that deacon and me. After the service I was told that he didn’t hear very well. It was apparent in that moment. As the elder moved to serve the deacon the last cup of communion juice he said, in a voice loud enough for the congregation to hear, “You better give that to the preach. He is gonna need it today.” After some nervous laughter and a prayer, I rose to the pulpit and offered these words.
Universal Sounds
Bethany Christian Church
September 16, 2001
A Response to the Terrorist Attacks in New York & Washington D.C.
I am 36 years old. I represent the oldest end of what sociologist call, “Generation X”. Nothing in my life’s experience has prepared me for this moment. This day, that I trusted would never come, is here. In the wake of the horror of Tuesday, I think the human family needs to mourn and one of the places the Jewish and Christian communities turn to is the book of Psalms.
Psalm 46
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; God utters God’s voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations the Lord has brought on the earth; the Lord breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; the Lord burns the shield with fire. ‘Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.’ The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”
In the original Star Wars film, the young Luke Skywalker is traveling by spaceship with his new friend OB1 Kinobe from one planet to another distant planet. His friend, OB 1 is a believer and practioner of an ancient religion, which believes there is a “force” in the universe that is part of all life and holds all matter together. The force can be used, manipulated, for good and evil. At one point of the journey OB 1 is overcome for a moment and has to sit. When Luke asks what is wrong OB 1 says, “I felt a strong disturbance in the force. As if a million voices all cried out at once in horror and then were suddenly silenced.” It is this haze of disturbance that I have been wandering in since Tuesday morning. You could call it concern, fear, violation, confusion. My guess is that some of you have experienced this as well. I am grateful that I can join you for worship this morning because no matter what name we use for God, the human family needs to be with each other if we are to make sense of our feelings, remember and think through our beliefs, and be the people whom God calls us to be in the pile of rubble, twisted metal, grief, anger, and inflamed patriotism of this week and the weeks to come. In many houses of worship around our world people of diverse faith traditions are asking those questions that begin with “W”. Who did this? Why did they do this? Why, God, did you allow this to happen? When God, will justice be done? It doesn’t matter if you ask in the quick cadence of a northerner or the slow drawl of the southerner. It doesn’t matter if you ask in Korean, Japanese, Spanish, the Queens English, French, Arabic, street slang or Hebrew. Whatever the dialect the pain in the words remain the same. Grief and fear like the cry of new life are universal sounds. Sounds that bring you to your knees or punch you in the gut or take your breath or let loose a river of tears and thoughts and words.
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.
Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!” O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” Psalm 137
In the aftermath of Tuesday, words have been used to comfort many and carpet bomb others. Politicians have made nice with each other while making promises and assurances. Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kings and governments have made threats. The news outlets in print, film and cyberspace have added their spin with headlines, special guests who are authorities, exclusive footage and 24-hour coverage. Neighbors are watching out for neighbors and strangers are attacked because of their choice of clothing, ethnic background, religious tradition or surname. The exiled Israelites of long ago speak the words we want to speak and do exactly what we would do. They ask, “How can we sing the Lord•s song in a foreign land?” We can identify with this. It is a good question to ask, but the captives quickly skip it and move to . . .”let’s pray that God helps us or someone make them pay for their actions”. And lets understand that even if we sing the Lord’s song, they probably wouldn’t understand it anyway. We can hear their pain and anger across the centuries and some of us can feel it in our bones. It is hard to consider how to sing or what to sing when all you want is to get even and make them hurt more. It is like we forget about the universal sounds. Maybe we just turn the sound down in our head or wrap soundproof material around our hearts.
“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” You have probably heard that one before. As a young boy who was short with red hair and freckles, I was encouraged to remember this and did a few times. The Psalms of Lament and Anger are good examples of words meant to clear the soul. Words meant to voice the pain and anger experienced in life. They are words asking God and in some instances demanding that God be God or at least be on our side. They are words asking for mercy and forgiveness recognizing that God remembers. The words of the Psalmist reflect the need to cleanse the grief and anger from the human heart so we don•t resort to sticks and stones. They are not meant to rally people for some great conflict or victory celebration or recovery effort. They are different than shouting, “USA, USA” or cheering “we’ve got spirit yes we do”, or singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. These are words lifted to God in prayer. Some lifted in silence. When we read them it is like looking into your diary or journal. Words not meant to be spoken. These words are personal and confessional.
“O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them–they are more than the sand; I come to the end–I am still with you. O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me– those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139
“Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Do I not hate those who hate you? Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Sometimes I imagine God to be like my mother. There were times when I was a teenager that I was so close to getting something really important right; and then…. well she wanted to pull her hair out or my hair out when frustration with me set in; but her love endures forever.
The Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and the memorial for Holocaust victims in Jerusalem. Rev. Will Van Nostrand’s grave. The Dome of the Rock on the Temple mount in Jerusalem, and The Vietnam War memorial, these places all hold a common experience for me. Silence. They are places where I have no words. Places where experience has taught me that my silence is the best respect I can show and maybe the only way I might listen. There are times when no words can do justice to the profoundness of a place or an experience. Universal sounds. On Tuesday, I sat silent at home and wept for the human family, those killed and those who will be killed because we muffle the universal sounds. My grandfather wore hearing aids for as far back as I can remember. My grandmother told stories when I was younger about grandpa that almost always ended like this, “if grandpa didn’t want to hear you, he didn’t have to . . .he would just turn his hearing aid down.” In the days and weeks ahead there will be times when we will want to turn our hearing aids down because we will not want to hear the universal sounds we are causing. In the days and weeks to come people of faith must turn our hearing aids up as high as they will go to listen through the sound bites of patriotic propaganda to hold our country responsible for the universal sounds we will cause.
Friday was declared a day of prayer and mourning for the victims of terror. I think those in the world who claim faith in God, by whatever name, need to encourage the whole world to pause, unwrap the sound proofing flags from our hearts, remove the ear muffs of history and politics from our ears, and sit in silent, prayerful respect. Maybe if we can hear the universal sounds, we can learn the melody of the Lord’s song and sing honestly the words of the Psalmist,
“O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good. God’s steadfast love endures forever.”