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Sunday, September 16, 2001
Rev. James A. Todhunter

Today it is important for people of faith to be clear about what we believe, who we are in our world, and who we are in our souls. Let me share these thoughts as I seek to understand my faith this afternoon.

First of all, evil is real. Who could doubt it? Evil is dehumanizing, death dealing, seeking to destroy the fabric of human society and human hope. Evil is a spiritual force. Our faith teaches that people are not evil. People are created in the image of God. But evil can take people over. Sometimes evil can so fully possess people that it would seem that they have become one with evil. And since evil is a spiritual power, the only true and lasting way to combat evil is through spiritual means, and that is, through prayer and love. Our nation’s diplomatic and military tasks are to protect the United States from people and states possessed of evil and hatred. The reality of the danger and the need for some kind of response is beyond debate. War has come. But we need to say this with the same grim and tragic tone that characterized Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, when looking back on the Civil War, he simply said, "And the war came." A tragic inevitability.

But at the same time, we need to discern our spiritual task. That task is to not allow ourselves to be possessed by evil and hatred, even as war comes. We cannot eradicate evil from the world by any human means. No crusade ever really works. It is all we can do to face evil in our own hearts. What makes people capable of great evil is the belief that their enemy is evil. The justification for the terrorist’s attempts to kill Americans and threaten our society is that they are convinced that we are the ones who are evil. They believe that. Let us pray that we don’t go there. Then evil triumphs in us.

This leads to a second point. For the person of faith, the goal is not vengeance, but justice. Jesus’ teaching of love of enemy and turning the other cheek is a clear repudiation of actions motivated by vengeance. Vengeance is universal, deeply rooted, very human, and profoundly dangerous. Vengeance is an immediate and intense reaction, and can be observed even in small children. Vengeance is a reaction to being deeply and profoundly wounded and humiliated. Vengeance teaches that "getting even" will make things better. And, in a tragic way, to act in vengeance does seem to make one feel better. Vengeance releases anger and lifts depression. With some excitement we yearn to see some Middle East city leveled or terrorists blown away. But there are two problems here, one practical and one spiritual. First, vengeance rarely makes the situation better. Since it is a reactive and angry striking back, wisdom is clouded and consequences are ignored, and innocents suffer. And second, the emotional release vengeance offers is momentary and illusory. We may briefly feel strong and walk tall, but the fact is that beneath this, the hurt and loss are still there. Beneath the surface we are just as vulnerable and afraid as we were before. I saw Senator Joseph Biden interviewed and he stressed that our response to these attacks must be wise, measured, and calm. Then he added that having lost a wife and child years before, he knew very well that nothing one can do will make that pain go away. We act out of vengeance because we have been wounded and we have been wounded because we are vulnerable. Nothing we do can heal our wounds. We may briefly get our minds off our pain, but it is always there. Yes, wounds do heal. But it is God who heals. It is love that heals.

Jesus’ teaching of turning the other cheek and loving one’s enemy helps us to not succumb to evil, which is the whole point of evil’s intent. A statement just released through the National Council of Churches is entitled "Deny Them Their Victory." It says in part, "Let us deny them (the terrorists) their victory by refusing to submit to a world created in their image…We must not allow this terror to drive us away from being the people God has called us to be." This means in addition to the use of indiscriminate and unwise force internationally, that at home we adhere to a vision of true community, and the warning that Americans who share the terrorists ethnicity, national origin or religion should be protected from reprisal or acts of violence. To attack a mosque or revile a person of Arab ethnicity betrays an ignorance of reality and the stirring of evil in one’s own soul.

But together with Jesus’ teaching is also the biblical notion of justice. Our intense desire to take eventual action need not contradict Jesus’ warnings about vengeance. In order to avoid the dangers of acting vengefully we must honor that space between the wounding and the meaningful action. We act in vengeance when we can’t stand how bad we feel. But to stay put with the pain allows us the time and space to grieve. And it is urgent that we do so. Without grieving the pain of our loss and the depth of our vulnerability, we are not allowing time for wisdom to settle in and guide us. Justice is taking all those actions to protect the safety and integrity of the community and its people. Justice is seeing to it that the guilty are held accountable. The United Church of Christ is not a pacifist church, per se. We stand for justice and peace and believe they are inseparable. Justice is addressing directly the threats from those who see us as their enemies. We all recognize that Americans, including people of faith, will differ in the matter of what policy or approach will be effective and just. My sense of the present moment is that we are experiencing both the temptation to vengeance and, at the same time, the struggle for wisdom and control of our passions, so that we can weigh consequences and not make bad mistakes. I feel that struggle in my own soul. I am encouraged that Americans have been quick to condemn those isolated hurtful attacks on fellow Americans of ethnicity. I am encouraged by Secretary of State Powell’s and President Bush’s patient building of support among our allies. And I am encouraged by the many significant voices that have been raised calling for calm. Our elected and appointed officials now deserve all the heartfelt prayers we can offer. They are now experiencing the deepest anguish of leadership and responsibility they have ever known. May God be with them. And may our society remain free and open in its debate and its pursuit of truth.

In personal terms, our faith speaks to us today in our individual journeys of the soul. The hardest things for us to live with are our wounds and our vulnerabilities. It is our natural human inclination to construct our lives in such ways that we try and deny this. We accumulate wealth and possessions in the hope that they will make us secure. We establish routines in our lives believing that in day-to-day predictability there is a kind of security. We form loving relationships in the hope that family and home will provide shelter from the storms that rage outside of us. And we may succeed in these efforts for long stretches of time. But then something happens and the world is forever changed. In my lifetime the first atomic bombs were dropped, which I don’t remember. But I remember the Cuban missile crisis; I remember the assassination of President Kennedy; I remember the assassinations of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy in 1968; I remember the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. And our lives are changed dramatically by deeply personal events as well. Each time this happens we are pulled out of ordinary reality. Suddenly we are living in another emotional and spiritual zone. We say it all seems unreal. We long for things to get back to normal. But the truth is that what we are experiencing now is real. What is real is our direct contact with the terror of our wounding and of our vulnerability. No protection.

My wife Lois told me that a young woman in her twenties who works in her office did what she always did when something frightening happened in her life. She called her father. Every time she had called her father saying she was scared, she could be sure that he would say, "That’s alright, Darling. Everything will be alright." Just the reassurance the frightened little girl needed. She called last Tuesday and said "Daddy, I’m really scared." And his answer was "Honey, I am, too." Her world had changed forever.

Do we dare offer our children, let alone each other, that kind of confession? Unless we are to be dishonest, I think the answer has to be yes. We are wounded and we are vulnerable and nothing can change that in life. But as people of faith, we don’t have to stop there. We have more to say. Somehow what we need to say is that "God is God." There are people possessed by evil in the world. And not just terrorists. And we must do everything we can to protect ourselves from the dangers they pose and seek justice in the wake of the pain that they cause. A nation and a world which is peaceful and just and caring, leaders that are wise and dependable, all this is indeed part of God’s plan for us – that we might have life and have it in abundance. But as people of faith we ultimately believe "God is God." As people of faith we simply believe that "God is our refuge and our strength." And our deepest sorrows come when we reject the security and comfort that only God can provide.

"God is our refuge and our strength." What ultimately comforts and heals is not of this world, but from God alone. And it is in those moments of extraordinary reality that this becomes clear. The Psalmist says that though the ocean roars and the earth shakes beneath our feet, and we know in our hearts that nothing will ever be the same again, God is still God.

You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust."

These are not just idle words of comfort during hard times. This is the very core of what it means to be people of faith.

What it means to "be" people of faith is that we courageously face our wounds, our sorrows, and our vulnerabilities, not yielding to vengeance, but placing our lives and our beings into the hands of God. Moments of crisis seize us and, if we are open to God in the midst of them, can deepen our faith. And what then do we "do" as people of faith? We pray. We are honest with ourselves and one another. We honor our need to grieve. Here I will add something about our need to be aware of our anger. Anger is absolutely part of grief. And anger is the hardest feeling for Christians to deal with. Either we get caught in our anger – which is the danger in yielding to a reactive vengeance; or we deny our anger, which may be largely unconscious. But anger is a door you have to go through. Anger doesn’t always come out right away. But trust me. You may be far angrier right now than you realize. And it must be dealt with or it will get you. Dealing with your anger may not involve hurling objects or smashing the wall with you fist or screaming at the top of your lungs. Simply venting may not be helpful. A psychiatrist I saw interviewed said that he worries about the collective anger beneath the surface that may soon explode. He was asked for advice. First, he said, talk about it. Just keep talking to one another. Keep the tears flowing and feelings coming. Talk, talk, talk. Friends, families. Parents and children, talk to each other. If you as parents don’t talk about this, your children may conclude that you don’t care. Secondly, he said, do something helpful. We have been inspired by the thousands of volunteers who have come forward. We have been moved by the long lines of people waiting to give blood. Doing something may mean doing your job with a deeper sense of its importance and your place in our community. And take care of yourself by doing something that has hope and beauty in it. Yesterday Lois and I bought six trays of vinca ground cover and planted them in our back yard. We worked on our hands and knees for several hours mostly in silence. It felt good.

This tragedy has come home to our congregation in the most painful way imaginable. Bill Caswell grew up in this church. He and his wife Jean and daughter Jennifer attended here last Christmas Eve. He helped his dad haul furniture out of our building over to 9601 Colesville Rd. Randy and Jean have suffered the most hideous of heart-breaks, yet again. They are ours. They belong to us. Mother Teresa once said that the only way to love in the world is one person at a time. There are limits to what any of us can do for the friends and families of the five thousand people who died last week. But there certainly are things you can do for this family. Pray for them. Our faith teaches that prayers have power. Come to the service for Bill next Sunday. Your presence, even if wordless, will make a tremendous difference. You could offer to help the Referral and Service folks with the reception that day. Write to the Caswells. Do something in Bill’s memory: a donation, a service to other victims, and let them know you are doing it to honor Bill. Make a donation to "Hope from the Rubble" the special fund set up by the National Disaster Ministries of the United Church of Christ. And pray.

Let me close with this prayer which I received from a friend this week.

Dig down, gentle God,
through the layers of pain
inside us, the layers
of sadness and pain that,
waking or sleeping,
weigh on us in these days,
and unlock our hearts
so you can enter in.

Dig down, gentle God,
through the layers of
hate and anger, the bitterness
that wants revenge, the outrage
that screams out for violence,
and uncover the compassion
that lies beneath.

Fill us, gentle God,
with your wisdom–
to find ways to tame
savageness, to bring
violence to justice,
to ‘make gentle the life of
this world.’

Fill us, gentle God,
with your presence
so that, even now,
we can be filled with your joy
and shine your radiance
even in this hurting world.

Wash away our despair
and replace it with
that wisdom that only
comes from your grace.

Amen

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