Sermon:  "Are We Better Off Ten Years Later"
Date:   September 11, 2011
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson: Exodus 14:19-31

On the Fourth of July, 2001, Peggy and I were in Oklahoma City as we drove west after a cross-country trip.  We spent the morning visiting the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.  We were awed by the Field of Empty Chairs set with 168 glass chairs, lighted at night, to represent the persons killed on April 19, 1995 when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed.  Nineteen of the chairs are smaller to represent the children who lost their lives that day.  It was truly awe-inspiring to see the chairs with an American flag in the grass in front of each.  We also visited the museum which told the story of the bombing of the building, and had memorial niches with mementos for each of the persons killed.  It was alarming to see a map listing the various hate groups which exist right here in America.  And we left feeling moved and reverent after seeing the mementos for each of those killed.  If you ever have half a day in Oklahoma City, it is definitely worth visiting.

The 1995 bombing of the Federal Building was considered the greatest act of terrorism on American soil, with the exception of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Yet just two months and a week after we left Oklahoma City, thinking certainly no such act of mass killing could ever occur again, September 11, 2001 hit.  Killed in just two hours that day were Americans as well as 236 citizens from more than 90 countries;

a total of 2977 victims and 19 highjackers, among them:

• 246 people on the four planes that crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania
• 2606 in New York City in the Twin Towers and on the ground
• 125 at the Pentagon and 40 in Shanksville
• 411 emergency workers died in New York responding to the scene, including 342 firefighters, 10 paramedics, 23 New York City police officers, and 37 Port Authority officers.

And for each of the nearly 3,000 killed that day, others were affected by their death like the ripples in a pond that occur when each pebble is dropped in:  parents and grandparents, spouses and partners, children and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, people who went to school with them, friends, and on and on.  The countless people directly affected who are observing this day in a variety of ways have just as many memories and feelings of loss and sadness over what might have been.

In early July this summer we flew to New York City to attend Julia Wells’ wedding.  The first day we were there, we took the three-hour cruise around the island of Manhattan.  The first thing pointed out to us after we left the dock at 42nd Street on the Hudson River was the new One World Trade Center being built at Ground Zero.  The next thing the tour director noted between that new tower under construction, slated to reach 1776 feet, was the vacant space on the skyline between it and the buildings south of it.  “That’s where the Twin Towers stood,” he solemnly informed us—those two buildings which were icons on the skyline of lower Manhattan since the mid-1970s.

On that fateful September 11 ten years ago today, Carl Wilton, a minister in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, vividly remembers walking down to the beach after the towers fell and looking to the north.  He saw a pillar of cloud.  What he was seeing, of course, was the massive column of smoke rising from the devastated buildings.  He wondered:  Was it a sign of the Lord’s presence and power, amidst our national agony—leading us onward, to some new way of being God’s people?  Or was it merely the smoke of ruination, inciting us to vengeance?  He has a strong intuition that how we have answered that question as a nation over these last ten years say everything about how our faith intersects (or fails to intersect) with our national life, and, indeed, our individual lives as well.

What does the sight of that pillar, or the two powerful beams of light that are projected into the night sky on every anniversary of 9/11 since, represent to you?  Are they comparable to the pillar of fire and cloud that guided the ancient Israelites, protecting them and shielding them from the Egyptian army that was after them?  Or are they no more than signs of our loss, something that will never be regained, leaving us worse off rather than better ten years later?

I imagine a number of pastors, preachers, priests and rabbis this weekend are facing the dilemma of how to address this tenth anniversary of 9/11.  Falling on a Sunday, clergy have a hard time ignoring it.  The Rev. Michael Lindvall is pastor of Brick Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where several members of his congregation are involved in the National 9/11 Memorial being dedicated today.  One is a subcontractor who took his pastor on a tour last spring.  Perhaps you’ve already seen pictures of it—two giant pools, the footprint of each tower, an acre each, surrounded by the names of those who were in the towers.  The artist aptly named it “Reflecting Absence.”  Peggy and I visited the construction site in July, and stood right next to the fire station with two giant bronze plaques that cover the wall depicting the burning buildings and naming the 342 firefighters who lost their lives.

In the Christian Century (8/23/11), Rev. Lindvall writes:  “Another church member working on the memorial came through the greeting line after church not long after my tour and gave me a rubber wristband that reads ‘9/11 Memorial—United by Hope.’  I have been wearing it, and plan to do so until after church on Sunday, September 11.  I think the three words on my bracelet will serve well to direct how we shape worship that day:  memorial, united, hope.”

I shared that quote with Julie Ramsey a few weeks ago, and we decided that was how we wished to approach this tenth anniversary with our choices of hymns and anthem, scripture, sermon and prayers.

Today’s scripture from Exodus 14 reports, “The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them.  It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel.” (19-20)  God was powerfully present with the Israelite army, and in the middle of the Red Sea the Egyptians discovered that God was fighting for the Israelites. (25)  After passing on dry ground through the sea, “Israel saw the great work that the LORD did against the Egyptians.”(31).

• Where was God present on 9/11?
• Was God fighting for us, and if so, how?
• In the middle of so much loss of innocent life, what work did God do on 9/11?

Phillip Yancy, author of Where Is God When It Hurts?, was asked after the terrorist attacks, “Where is God at a time like this?”  He answered with a question of his own, “Where is the church when it hurts?  If the church is doing its job—binding wounds, comforting the grieving, offering food to the hungry—I don’t think people will wonder so much where God is when it hurts.  They’ll know where God is:  in the presence of his people on Earth.”

Then he reflected on what our nation was taught by 9/11 (Christianity Today 10/1/01):  “We learned that even in a city known for its crusty cynicism, heroes can emerge.  We learned that at a time of crisis, we turn to our spiritual roots:  the President quoting Psalm 23, the bagpiper piping ‘Amazing Grace,’ the sanitation workers stopping by their makeshift chapel, the Salvation Army chaplains dispensing grace, the chaplains comforting the grieving loved ones.  Thanks to them, we know where God is when it hurts.”

And we experienced much the same here at our church that week ten years ago.  On the Friday, just three days after the terrorist acts, Rev. Elaine Schoepf and I hastily designed a church service here, publicized solely by word of mouth.  We were not sending out the Carillon online at that time.  This church was nearly filled, not only with regular attendees, but with lots of community people as well.  On September 18, the Sunday after the tragedy, this sanctuary was filled to overflowing, again with a wide mix of worshippers.  They depended on God and their Christian faith to see them through those difficult days, and to somehow address the unanswerable:  where is God when such things happen?

Churches, temples, mosques, houses of worship throughout this country reported record attendance that weekend.  Will it keep up, we all wondered?  Sadly, it did not.  It tapered down the next Sunday, and within a month most houses of worship resumed their regular pattern of attendance.

Yet one sterling thing that I think has come out of 9/11 is a better understanding of the Islamic faith, and our Muslim brothers and sisters who live and work and go to school not far from us.  Three examples:

First:  A month after 9/11, about 15 United Church of Christ clergy attended an already-planned clergy retreat at Pilgrim Pines Camp.  Our guest speaker was a Muslim imam, comparable to a minister or priest.  The first evening, as sundown approached, he told us it was his time to pray, and invited us to join him if we wished.  He knelt down on the floor, facing east, and began to pray aloud.  We did the same, though silently.  I did not know what he was saying in Arabic, but was confident he was praying to the same God of Abraham as we were.

Second:  In the last decade, the South Coast Ecumenical Council went through a very methodical multi-year process to become the South Coast Interfaith Council, and it was my good fortune to spend six years on their board of directors during that process.  Formerly, as an ecumenical group, it included only Protestants and Catholics.  Afterward, it included not only Protestants and Catholics, but the constituency of both the board and the wider membership included Mormons, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Baha’i, Unitarians, and several other religious groups.  I found at the board meetings and the general assemblies a delightful group of friendly and devout people committed to peace, justice, and interfaith activities.

Third:  At one such dinner that Glenn Moeller and I attended, we were seated at a dinner table with a group of men and women from a Muslim mosque.  One woman, a doctor, was receiving an award for her work offering free medical care one day a week to the homeless in Los Angeles.  Another woman seated next to me engaged me in a discussion of high school youth groups, and we discovered both our groups had the same problem getting youth to commit to a planned activity farther in advance than they were willing.

Amongst all these experiences, we discovered that there is a vast difference between Islamic terrorists and devout Muslims, especially ones in this country, who condemn the terrorists responsible for 9/11.

At the end of the Exodus, reported in the Bible in the book of the same name, the destruction of the Egyptian army was complete.  The people of God, protected by the pillar of cloud and fire, were saved.

For the past ten years, our nation has been waged in a war in Iraq and Afghanistan against the forces that threaten to destroy our country and its people.  Some progress has been made, but Al Qaeda is still active.  Both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are dead.  Yet, when you do the count, more than twice as many of our volunteer military personnel have been killed in those wars than were killed on our soil on September 11, 2001.  And the future of American soldiers who survived but struggle to recover from their wounds will haunt us till the day we and they die.

I know there are differing opinions in any group about whether we should continue conflicts in those countries or pull out, just as there are differing opinions among military leaders and the president’s own advisors.  It just goes to show it is difficult to figure out whether we are better off ten years later or not.

In some ways we are.  Going through security at the airport is a hassle, yet several dangerous persons have been apprehended.  Walking the streets of New York City two months ago, I will use the words of Mayor Michael Bloomburg last week:  we found the city and its citizens to be “resilient and vibrant.”

Ten years later, the American people are a wiser, more aware people, grateful for the blessings we have, even in the midst of an economic recession.  We have reached out to help those whose lives were torn asunder by the events of 9/11, and we have continued to reach out to those in need.  Especially I have seen that in our congregation, time and time again.  When we make you aware of the need, you respond.

There has been a saturation of newspaper articles, commentaries, editorials about this tenth anniversary.  For the past week, especially this weekend, television stations and online sites have been full of special reports and retrospective programs.

But like the Egyptians of old, we must move forward.  As people of faith we still find solace and comfort in our faith.  There are questions we will never have answered.  But we go forth a wiser, more aware people after these ten years to a new normal, and filled with hope for a better future.  May God continue to wipe the tears of the families of the 9/11 victims, and bless all of us on our journey forward.