Scripture ~ Psalm 14, Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28;
I Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15: 1-10
Sermon ~ When the Worst Happens
This Tuesday, September 11, 200l, the worst happened. Horrors that are incomparable occurred at the epicenter of American commerce in New York City and at the focal point of military operations in Washington, D. C. For over a decade informed authorities have argued that our most immanent national security threat is terrorism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of diplomatic and commercial ties with the People’s Republic of China, we have felt little anxiety regarding military attacks perpetrated by a foreign nation. The Gulf War demonstrated the futility of military aggression by a hostile state against our modern, technological defense system.
But what is an adequate defense against insane demonstrations of terrorism? The explosion at the Murrow Building in Oklahoma City gave credence to the suspicion that terrorism is the enemy within. Timothy McVeigh was one of our own, trained by our military command. He was schooled in the art of terror. He was fuelled by an intense, irrational hatred for the government of this nation. He showed no mercy for his victims.
Apparently men of similar demonic intent committed this heinous crime on Tuesday. They projected all their rage toward the innocent in a suicidal act of apocalyptic dimensions. This evil deed has brought shock, disbelief, anger, and grief to all of us. Some in this congregation have lost personal friends and colleagues in business. The spider web of humanity is sensitive. The violent extinguishing of lives in New York City provokes intense grief here in Charlotte. The death toll continues to mount each day. Our greatest national tragedy since Pearl Harbor has stunned the entire world. No one anywhere is truly safe. Now that the worst has happened, what shall we do in response? How shall we who are Christian react to this catastrophe? What will sustain our faith amidst such grief, pain, anger, and fear?
The Psalter reading for this Sunday of the Pentecost season fits the mood of our moment. These lines were apparently written during the period of the Babylonian exile. The enemy had, in fact, pulverized all the buildings of Judah’s major city, Jerusalem. The poet dreamed of a time for rebuilding these destroyed structures, including the magnificent Temple of Solomon. He rote, “When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.”1 Indeed, through the inspiration of Ezra and Nehemiah, Israel restored the Temple and other shrines in their holy city. But life was never the same again after the Babylonian exile. The Psalmist’s appeal was directed toward the generation that would return to build from among the ashes. His message was this: remain faithful to Yahweh. Do not abandon your faith. “Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’”2
Many today are tempted to reject their faith in God as a result of this tragedy. Some have assumed that God is our refuge and will protect his faithful from all bodily harm. Bad things like this tragedy should not occur to good people. These are now asking: Where is God when thousands die in senseless acts of cruelty at the whim of unmerciful, demented fanatics?
The tragedy Tuesday has underscored for me the importance of asking, “What sort of God do we worship here at Providence United Methodist Church?” We have never taught in this house of worship-p a belief in a god who inoculates the faithful from physical harm. Through the ages followers of Christ have suffered horrendous injustices. Righteous people in this congregation have suffered and died in agony due to the ravages of cancer or genetic diseases. We are not naive, foolish, or blind to reality. We know that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. We have never prayed at this altar that God would divert a hurricane approaching the Outer Banks of North Carolina further north so that only Canadians suffer the consequences of natural disaster. No. We recognize that when we are born we are old enough to die. Existence is inherently vulnerable. From this pulpit we have consistently taught that we live in a cracked creation. The old sinful Adam of our weakest nature afflicts us. Many choose the way of hatred, revenge, and violence in response to personal hurt. Humanity has a propensity toward sin. We live east of Eden. Bad things often happen to good people because many other people are out there making evil choices. Moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ promised that, if we decide to follow him, we must take up our cross of suffering. To be a Christian invites more suffering, not less. After all, most of our agony this week has been vicarious. If we did not care about the fate of our fellow human beings in New York and Washington, if we only looked after our own welfare; we would experience no pain from this tragedy. So, what kind of God do we believe in here at Providence Church?
I
First and foremost, we enter these doors in order to worship today the God of mercy who never stops loving us. When the worst happens, we are met with the best of God’s steadfast love. The triple parables of Jesus in Luke’s famous fifteenth chapter solidify this image of God in our minds: the stories about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.
Perhaps on Tuesday you felt as I: alone and vulnerable. I immediately phoned Pat when I heard the news. When I reached Providence Church, I went to the chapel for prayer. I wanted to be connected with some power beyond my own sense of helplessness. I wanted to be touched by the mercy of God. I needed to talk with someone I love and who loves me. I craved to be near my household family and my faith family of fellow believers. That evening our President, George W. Bush, sensitively employed the shepherd image. He suggested that God is like the tender shepherd who goes out into the wilderness at great personal risk, seeking the lost sheep, accompanying us when we pass through the valley of the shadow of death. The Bible consistently teaches that we can never escape from the care of our compassionate God. Mercifully God draws near when the worst happens.
God does not, however, retract his original decision to make this a created order based upon human freedom. God allows evil to happen. God allows human beings to choose to do good or evil. Thus, men of evil intent chose to perpetrate this unprecedented crime.
Was this tragedy an expression of God’s will? Were these victims inflicted with such terror in order to teach humanity some eternal lesson? No. By no means! God allowed this evil to occur because God does not thwart the evil choices of human beings. But we can count on this: the evil act of Tuesday will not have the last word. Moreover, God is constantly seeking all of us who are lost in fear, consumed with anger, or tempted by despair. This week I have been engulfed by each of these emotions. But God has pursued me when I have gone astray into the ravines of despair. God has lifted me above the fires of vengeance. God has reminded me of the parting promise of a merciful Christ when he spoke to his disciples on a mountaintop in Galilee: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”3
II
A second attribute of the God to whom we turn when the worst happens is God’s proclivity toward compassion and loving-kindness.
There are those among us who want revenge and instant recrimination. I can understand this natural and immediate response. I am pulled strongly by these emotions as well. But Palestinian Arabs reside in the city of Charlotte who are equally horrified by this violent action. Some of these are Christians. Animosity will be directed toward them. They have known nothing but a war zone in their homeland since their birth. But they are not our enemy. Likewise, one of Charlotte’s fastest growing ethnic minorities is Moslem. These too will be the blunt of much animosity. The local mosque has already received several bomb threats. But remember this: all authentic, orthodox Moslems are scandalized by the rhetoric and actions of Osama bin Laden. He no more represents the faith of Islam than did David Koresh represent orthodox Christianity. Violence is not the message of Islam. Moreover, we deny Christ if we foster a righteous crusade against the nations of Islam. Now that the worst has happened, let us rise to the best within us. When we experience the worst and continue to be our very best, following the example of Jesus who prayed for his enemies, then the Kingdom of God surges forward!
III
Finally, the God to whom we turn when the worst happens is the God of hope. Nothing can defeat this God of the open horizon. No tragedy, no act of evil intent, not even death by violence. This is the God whom we meet through the risen Christ.
New York City was attacked in a twenty-minute period. For over two years, London was the object of nightly bombings by Nazi Germany. On one of those nights, a bomb fell upon the City Temple in London—the largest of our Methodist houses of worship. The parishioners that week walked helplessly amidst the rubble looking for charred artifacts of their beloved, historic church. Their thirty-year renovation debt had just been paid off. The worst had happened on that dark, dreary night. Only the blackened walls and the tottering tower remained standing. That week the pastor of the City Temple, Leslie Weatherhead, exhorted his congregation through the church’s newsletter: “[The Church of Jesus Christ] is invisible and invincible, indestructible and indissoluble. Smash the form of its expression here and it breaks out there. Burn its local habitation to the ground one day and it has found another the next…. So, resolute and determined, with quiet hearts and steady nerves, and with no bitterness, remembering the thousands of our fellow Christians who through the ages have been driven from pillar to post for Christ’s sake, the City Temple goes forward into its fourth century.”4
At the heart of the gospel is the message that no situation is ever hopeless. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. No natural disaster. No human evil. Even as I witnessed the video of the World Trade Center towers falling, I whispered the lines of our creed: “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.”5
A biography of Michelangelo tells about the dying moments of the great artistic genius. He spoke to his friends about his love for them and his love for the God whom he had served. He affirmed his great devotion to painting and working with marble. But he said that he also greeted death after the long, arduous struggle. “God did not create me to abandon me,” he asserted. “The forces of destruction have never overcome creativity.”
God is the God of creativity. All things are moving toward the completion of God’s great masterpiece—the Kingdom of God. In all things God is working to accomplish his good purpose “for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”6
Footnotes:
1. Psalm 14:7 NRSV
2. Psalm 14:1 NRSV
3. Matthew 28:20 b NRSV
4. A Kingsley Weatherhead, Leslie Weatherhead: A Personal Portrait (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1975), pp. 177-8.
5. Creed of the United Church of Canada, The United Methodist Hymnal
6. Romans 8:28 b NRSV