 | The New England Church PulpitNew England Congregational Church UCC |
NAMING THE TERROR | Jeremiah 29.4-7 | October 14, 2001 |
Naming the terror, giving it meaning, and otherwise domesticating it into the narrative of our lives is the process by which we cope and try to move forward. Now a month since the tragedy of 9/11, we find that the events of that day resist our attempts at interpretation because their magnitude represents an intersecting of innumerable histories unique to each person involved–victim, mourner, defender, fireman, nurse, onlooker, government official, and yes, even perpetrator. (Jon Gunnemann) We must name the terror of that day, and also the terror that life must go on in the midst of a very precarious world.
Noted theologian Martin Marty comments that the time seems ripe to assess one’s life, and to move forward in our personal and common lives. A man who lectures extensively around the world, Marty says his travel agent reminded him that in the next 36 days he’ll be in the air 22 times. He is past the usual retirement age, and friends keep persuading him that in retirement he wouldn’t have to touch the anxiety of traveling so much in these precarious times. “I have a calling,” he says, “and this calling takes me to distant places while I still have life, limb and energy to fulfill it.”
Quoting blind pianist George Shearing, who, when asked, “Have you been blind all your life?” answered “not yet,” Marty assesses the situation: my last will and testament are in order; my organs, if any survive, are ready for life-giving transplant; my family knows what texts and hymns to use at my funeral. When asked if he’s done all the seeking and aspiring, enjoying and loving, greeting and cherishing of family and friends whose paths cross his, he answers “not yet.” (The Christian Century, Oct 10, 2001) Life goes on, even in the threat of imminent danger. Life must go on, especially in the threat of danger. We must continue to be involved in those things that make life meaningful and significant.
These words of Jeremiah 29 are instructive:
This is what the God of Israel says to all those carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find mates for your children. Increase in number; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to God for it, for if it prospers, you too will prosper.
Rainer Maria Rilke’s puts his proverbial finger on the core of the issue in his poem ‘Evening’:
The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient tress;
you watch; and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;
and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;
and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternately stone in you and star.
Going forward to live life will mean having one foot in the reality of the present and one foot in hope. ‘It is alternately stone in you and star.’ It will mean naming the terror. It will involve the difficult task of understanding why people in part of the world hate the USA so much. Could it be our hell-bent desire to extract the last barrel of oil from under the mid-eastern desert floor to feed our voracious appetites that supports our rugged individualism of going when and where we want and demanding the cheapest price for doing so?
It will be equally as difficult for the foot in hope: are we willing to cast our lot with the whole of humanity and the whole of God’s creation? Might our hearts be shaped in such a way that, whatever we do, we come to understand that our destiny is intimately bound up with the destiny of the whole of creation–Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists, and humanists? ‘It is alternately stone in you and star.’
We must name the terror. When we name the terror, we diminish it’s ability to control us. When we name the terror, and stare it in the face, we don’t have to run from it, or worry about when it will rear its ugly head. We must name the terror within that will demand a change in the way we think of ourselves–not us against them, but we together who breathe the same breath of the same God. We must name the terror that life is fragile. We must name the terror that we are not in control; the terror that we deserve no special protection from God, more than anyone else; the terror that prayers are not strings on a puppet-god that ensure our mastery over life. Poet William Ramsey likens prayers to wild horses:
Wild horses
Prayers are not predictions.
They are hardly contracts
binding gods and events
to the tether of our will.
They are wild horses.
The cures to our pains
and soothing of our losses
graze with unconcern on slopes in the distance.
Some are spotted,
others solid bright or dark–
all free as ragged wind
on an upland range.
As we near them
they raise their head,
catching scent of our desire,
deciding whether to run,
whether to await us.
William M. Ramsey (The Christian Century, Sept 26-Oct 3, 2001)
Luke’s gospel tells of ten lepers who were told to go to the priest to be declared socially clean, and on the way they were cured of their disease. The story is not so much about being cured as it is about going forward in thanksgiving for each day’s gift of life. Regardless of its devastations, in spite of its unpredictability, even in the shadow of terrors and terrorists, each day is a gift from God to be lived to the fullest. Life is too precarious and too delicious to do otherwise. Life is too glorious to be held hostage by the terror of disease, hijacked planes, anthrax, death, or any other fear.
As the choir sang today:
A rose touched by the sun’s warm rays
All its petals gently does unfold;
So you, when touched by God’s great mercy,
Let joy and gladness win your soul.
Amen. –Gary L. McCann
| Copyright © 2001 by Gary L. McCann. All rights reserved. |