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From September 10, 2006 Five years ago tomorrow a phone call interrupted my morning routine. Had I heard? It was a parishioner on the line. Remembering that I did not own a television, he was calling to tell me what he was certain I did not know: an airliner had just crashed into one of New York City's World Trade Towers. There was more, he said, but the longer he spoke the less sense he made. The Pentagon? Pennsylvania? His stressful life had obviously pushed him over the brink. Probably, I decided quickly, he had watched an action flick the night before and was now in some kind of delusional state, convinced that yesterday's fiction was reality. This explanation made more sense than the utterly impossible news that our country was under attack. That was nothing short of insanity. But when I got to church and wheeled a TV into my office, clearly the madness was real and it was ours. No matter how many times the networks aired their grisly footage that day, no matter how many times I watched, I simply could not believe my eyes. Or fathom how in just the matter of a few short hours, we could go from the heaven of a glorious fall morning to a searing glimpse of hell. My fears were everyone's fears. What next? What now? Was this it or was more attacks headed our way? Was this, as some said, the beginning of the end? I feared so. Almost immediately and for days following September 11th's attack, helicopters and fighter jets filled the sky above my house. Hill Air Force Base was twenty miles away. What did those pilots high above us know that those of us on the ground did not? The prospect of war had never felt this real, this imminent before. This fear was altogether new to me. In college, a professor had shown my class footage taken shortly after the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Would, could this happen here? On American soil? Would our shadows be burned into walls and left for someone with a camera to discover later? Or would we beat our enemies to the punch, whoever they were, wherever they were? Would we launch a nuclear attack? I feared so. In the days after September 11th, I feared the worst. I feared reaction would pre-empt reason. I feared our instinct for retribution would win out over our need for restraint. As the prospect of immediate retaliation diminished, my fears shifted. I worried for the safety of those in our country who were or appeared to be Middle Eastern. As people of faith around the country sought out places of worship, I feared for the safety of those entering and exiting local mosques. Several weeks passed and we bombed Afghanistan, aiming for bin Laden and his ilk. As newscasters described the damage on foreign soil, I feared for the future of newly-minted refugees and prayed America would follow through on promises to rebuild and resettle a nation that, even before our bombs hit, had already suffered tremendously. After September 11th, fear became an unwelcome companion. Like a creature in a scary movie, rarely did it stay the same. As plans were being finalized to shock and awe Baghdad, I feared the consequences of moving forward when we had so little international support. I feared the loss of lives every bit as innocent as ours two years earlier and feared the certain scars that would be left on bodies, memories, on modern cities, rustic villages and civilization's ancient landscape. When the assurance of brief intervention in Iraq turned into elaborate military strategies and protracted, complicated violence, I feared explaining to our nation's children how this conflict today will be theirs to pay for tomorrow. And their children's children, as well. When stories of the Abu-Ghraib prison scandal broke and questions were raised about those being held in Guantanamo Bay I feared what the world would make of our disinterest in abiding by the Geneva Convention. I feared also the stripping down of our liberties here at home. After bombings in Madrid and London, after Al-Qaeda plots intercepted in the nick of time, I feared that we all would settle for staying one step ahead of the terrorists, regardless of the cost, rather than investing in eliminating terrorism's breeding grounds--communities and countries riddled with poverty, injustice, and fundamentalism. As now as we pause to note the fifth anniversary of the worst event to take place on American soil, I fear that we will forever live in fear. The fears that have been my companions these past five years may be similar to yours. They may be quite different. But certainly, whatever our fears, we know that since that fateful fall day September 11th, we have become a nation well-acquainted with fear. Aware of our vulnerability like never before, our fear keeps us vulnerable in two ways. First, living in fear leaves us open to being manipulated and exploited by leaders--political, religious, economic--whose interests are best served when we are fearful. That is our first vulnerability. Our second vulnerability is spiritual. Fear can easily have us become idolatrous. We can make gods of human promises and plans. We can fall prey to the seductive notion that obtaining security is something is ours alone to accomplish. And in the process, our focus becomes ourselves and not the God whose will it is that all people on earth live in security. "The Security of God's People." This is the heading that appears with Psalm 125 in my study Bible, the reading Margaret shared with us earlier. What is the security of God's people? Is it found in having an army of its strongest? Is it calculated in shekels or dollars, in economic strength? Is it determined by having a bank of the nation's keenest strategic minds? It is none of these. Security for God's people is the consequence of trust in the Lord. A kind of trust that is so substantial that it stands out like Mount Zion itself. Rising up high into the sky, this trust, like that mighty mountain, is strong, sure, and immovable. Certainly the tiny and relatively young nation of Israel, God's chosen people, knew what it meant to live in fear. On all sides they were surrounded by greater nations, more powerful nations, ones with bigger armies and more resources at their disposal. And yet wisdom told them, relationship with God told them, the promises of God assured them that safety and security was not founded on the things of this world. Security's roots were grounded elsewhere. The Hebrew people knew that the antidote to fear, the prescription for security was first and foremost trust in God. It was what allowed them to be fearless, not fearful people. This is not an idea, this trust. It is not some abstract concept, not something we say but something we have, something we experience. Like a strong solid mountain, this trust rises up out of God's promises of love and faithfulness and is profoundly related to our obedience, our willingness to do as God commands. This is what gives us the security we seek. This is what drives our fear away. But before I say more, let's get clear about something. Security is not God's reward. Security is the consequence of living as God calls us to live. The psalm today makes it clear that trust and goodness are bound together. Security is the result, not as a reward--remember--but as a consequence. But what kind of goodness are we talking about here? Tithing? Praying on a regular basis? Worshipping weekly? Such things may increase an individual's sense of security, what the psalmist suggests is that our security as a people, as a whole people of God, is inextricably linked to our willingness to do good and be good. But what is good? Running deep in Judaism is the understanding that a good society is a just society. A society of shalom, of wholeness. A good community is a godly community, one that gives full expression to God's priorities, God's politics if you will, expressed so beautifully and consistently by the Hebrew prophets and embodied in Jesus of Nazareth. It is a society, a world, in which the needs of the least are not just taken seriously but are systematically addressed. It is a society, a world, in which barriers that separate are replaced with bridges. It is a society, a world, in which God's shalom is not a dream but a fuller and fuller reality. Please do not misunderstand. We live in a world with very real threats. I am not advocating that we take an ostrich-in-the-sand approach. I am not arguing that we all become Pollyannas and pretend that we do not inhabit dangerous times. But we cannot place our ultimate trust in a strong Department of Defense or a well-funded Department of Homeland Security. To do so is, spiritually speaking, folly. There is no country on earth that God loves more than the United States. No country, no people that God loves more. And no country, no people that God loves less. Our security is derived from seeing that Africa's extreme poverty endangers us all and then working to eliminate that poverty. To do that work, to have it be a priority, is to do good. And the consequence is shalom and shalom is security. Similarly security, shalom, comes when we recognize that the oppressive and hopeless conditions faced by Palestinians living in modern-day Israel breeds and feeds those who would see terrorism as their only viable option. To call Israel to account for its unjust treatment of this majority of its citizenry and to put an end to our disproportionate financial support of Israel so that it can no longer bear the cost of oppressing Palestinians, this is not only in keeping with the challenge of the prophets and the call extended to us by a courageous and compassionate Christ, it is what ultimately builds a safer, more secure world. We are called to more than the creation of an increasingly fearful world. We are called to more than security based on reducing our insecurities. We are called to "trust God's way, trust in the power of love, of God's shalom," trust that the prophets and wisdom teachers and Jesus our Savior had it right: that either everyone shares in shalom, God's social wholeness, or no one does. (James McGinnis, And Justice will Bring Lasting Security, Weavings--Sept/Oct 2006, p. 45.) Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but which abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time on and forevermore. (Psalm 125: 1-2) May all God's people know the security of this holy embrace. May it be by our choices, our actions, our fearless pursuits that the world experiences Go's shalom. Amen. ©
Rev. Karen Winkel |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie Allen
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