“What Now?  Is it Possible?”
(Originally intended for delivery on 9/11/05)

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. God of all times and situations, calm our souls, keep us from panic and fear, so that we might seek and find you in our world, and in our lives. God, we pray every week, every day, for our men and women who are serving in the military. We have folks here who have relatives and friends in the service. We have two members, as you know God, Justin and Nathan Smith. We pray, not only for their safety O God. We pray that the people who serve around them would be affected by Justin and Nathan’s dignity, honesty, and integrity, that other soldiers would strive to serve their country and our God in an upright manner, like Justin and Nathan. Use this time to further your purposes. Speak Lord, your servants are listening. If these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.

We all know exactly where we were when we heard on Tuesday morning, the 11^th of September. And we could all tell the stories of what that day meant for us, what we did that day. Many of you know exactly what others of you were doing that day, since many of you were together, gathered that night for a prayer service at NPC. And so that you know, here’s what I did that day. We were to have a Presbytery meeting that night, and it was I who had been asked to preach. I had a great sermon prepared, or one that I thought was great anyway. But obviously, the events of the day mandated that I write and preach a new sermon. So, like most of you, I went home, and turned on the television. And, like most of you, I sat in a state of shock, with my faith, my life, my whole understanding of the world shaken. And in that state, I wrote a sermon. Some of what I will say this morning is taken from that sermon. Some of what I will say this morning is new, more to date with 2005 perhaps. And then, I will stop speaking, and will open the sermon up to you. I’m going to throw a couple of things out there, and then ask that you respond and talk yourselves. We’ll move from that directly into a time of prayer. So, it will be a little different.

Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in selected verses from Psalms 56 and 57. Listen.

Be gracious to me, O God, for people trample on me; all day long foes oppress me; my enemies trample on me all day long, for many fight against me. O Most High, when I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I am not afraid, what can flesh do to me? All day long they seek to injure my cause; all their thoughts are against me for evil. They stir up strife, they lurk, they watch my steps…O God! You’ve kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record?

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by. I cry to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me…God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness. I lie down among lions that greedily devour human prey; their teeth are spears and arrows, their tongues sharp swords. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth.

The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

We live in a serious tension people. One of the most chilling verses in all of the Bible is Psalm 57.4. “I like down among lions that greedily devour human prey; their teeth are spears and arrows, their tongues sharp swords.” 9.11 reminds us that this world is a world of tragedy and pain. There is nothing we can do to completely and comprehensively assure safety for ourselves and our loved ones. As a parent of two beautiful young girls, that reality pains me to no end. There is nothing we can do to completely and comprehensively assure safety for ourselves and our loved ones. We can never be sure, no matter what we do, how careful we are, how vigilant we are in our security, and even how much we pray, that we are immune from harm and heartbreak. In fact, the opposite is true, everyone who lives can be sure that, at some point in our lives, we will know catastrophe and disaster. Some times it will be on a national scale. Other times it will be on a personal scale, like the loss of a child, the illness of a spouse, depression. Tragedy will come as sure as the earth will turn. And our faith does not prevent it. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. The point of our faith is not to provide some sort of protection against all harm, or some sort of assurance that our lives will be better or free from danger. The point of our faith is to find ourselves in the presence of God, our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer. And that is a miracle, to find ourselves in The Presence.

So, what happened on the 11^th of September, 2001 was evil and abhorrent, because simply calling it sin doesn’t cover it. And it is right to want to make sure that the people who did this get caught, and the people who do this kind of thing get stopped. But I’m troubled. We are called as Christians to be peace makers. And here’s the tension.

Less than a year ago we were in the season of a hotly contested Presidential race. I wish I had heard this speech, from anybody. But I didn’t. So here it is.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we live in a dangerous world. We don’t know whether, when or where terrorists will strike again. If elected, I will do all that is humanly and humanely possible to protect this nation and its people. But I must level with you: there are no guarantees of safety. And the search for absolute security is itself full of risk.

“History is replete with leaders who have risen to power by playing on people’s fears and assuring them they will be protected. They diagnose the illness – and then prescribe themselves as the cure.

“Fear is the most primal of human emotions. It’s a God-given response to danger. But it’s a short path from heeding dangers to being overcome by irrational rears; it’s a quick trip from acting out of fear to letting fears control us.

“One problem with the politics of fear is that our fears may, in fact, be misplaced. Is our greatest danger that some radical jihadists will get weapons of mass destruction and wreak massive havoc in the U.S.? Or is there also a great danger that in the quest for security and safety we will undermine the very values that have made us strong – a pledge to equality and opportunity for all; a constitutional guarantee of the right to free speech, the freedom of religion, a free press and the freedom to assemble; a commitment to serve as a beacon of hope to marginalized and oppressed peoples around the world, and a haven for the world’s poor in search of a better life?

“(Is it) possible in the war on terrorism to save our skins but lose our souls(?) We could win the war on terror but end up as a mirror image of our enemies, both real and imagined. Will we be better off if we become so afraid of strangers that we mistrust our neighbors?...

“Not only our fears but also our trust can be misplaced. We…are tempted to put our faith in all-too-human leaders. But in the end there are no guarantees. We can only have faith in the God who created and sustains us. May God bless America – and may God bless all the peoples of the world.¹

Is it possible to defeat the terrorists only by such means that are commonly associated with terrorism? If so, is it worth it? We need to be safe, and we need to be separate from the terroristic tendencies. We need to catch the people responsible for 9.11 and prevent it from happening again, but we need to not be dragged down to their level to do so.

Perhaps the best way I can describe it is this. If something ever happened to Murphy or Kayla, I’m not sure I would recover. I obviously pray that I will never have to find out. But to keep anything from happening, I could move in with them while in their dorm room. And go to every class with them. And on every date. But I’m doing them a service, protecting their freedom. And if something did happen, I’d probably want to not ill the person responsible. I’d rather torture them, and watch them be tortured. But as much as my daughters need to be safe, and have retribution, they need their father to be above the kind of retaliatory behavior that would lead to their pain.

Jesus says, “Blessed are the peace-makers.” Not peace-lovers, but peace-makers. I believe that making peace is a call to us as Christians, and quite honestly, as Americans. You don’t make peace by sitting around singing acoustic songs, and lamenting current policies and protesting. Sometimes, in making peace you must use force. And we want that, as citizens. We want our police to use force, when they find someone resisting arrest; we authorize them to use force. When someone is endangering themselves or others, we authorize them to use force. But, we don’t want them to use violence. When they go to far, when force turns into violence, we as a society get rightly upset. Tackling a would be suicide jumper is acceptable force. Beating Rodney King is violence.

In our reaction to terrorism, we need to use force, maybe even physical force, but not violence. We need to gather terrorists up, contain them. I am for putting them in prisons, and using that force. But I’m not for Abu Ghraib photos with naked people and dogs. That’s violence, and we’ve had investigations to try to see who was responsible.

Our reaction to terrorism needs to take seriously the reality that terrorism needs to be stopped. We must deal with it. And that requires peace-making, which means force, like freezing assets and calling for international trial. But let us remember our call to peace, not war-making. There is a difference between force and violence.

So, I open this sermon up to you, to hear your comments, to speak your two cents, to ask questions of your brothers and sisters with whom you sit. We have been violated by terrorism and terroristic acts. How we respond is important. To respond best, we need to know what we are doing, or are willing to do.