Erin Mills United Church Sermons

Jeremiah 12:1-4, Romans 8:28; 31-39, Jeremiah 12:1

A sermon by Hans vanNie at EMUC, 9/16/2001

This has been a horrible week in the history of the human race and each one of us has been touched in one way or another by forces hat can only be described as the forces of evil. As we gather in worship today we cannot help but take time to reflect on the past week. We need to take time to pray and to seek the presence and purposes of God. We need to take time to look into the mirror of the bible where we see our own experience reflected in the stories, characters, and the teachings of scripture. So we see today, a scripture reading in which the prophet Jeremiah is complaining to God: "Why do the bad guys get their way? Why does their treachery and terror thrive? You put them here in this world, O God! You let them grow in their treachery and carry out their evil plans." (Jer. 12:1-2, paraphrased)

Twenty-six hundred years ago, Jeremiah raised the same cry of frustration and anger that we raise today: How can it happen? How can God allow it to happen? Human creatures, created in God's own image, have done something almost unimaginably evil, smashing aeroplanes full of people into buildings also full of people killing thousands while creating immense sorrow, grief and destruction; tearing into the hearts of millions of people worldwide, including ourselves. We too have shed tears. We too have been anxious and afraid. We have felt numb. We have felt disbelief. Surely this has not really happened? How is it possible? And in this world where all human beings are connected with no more than six degrees of separation, some of us will have friends, colleagues, perhaps family members who lost their lives in New York, Washington, or Pennsylvania this week. So it is a time of grief for everyone.

As we read in Jeremiah's complaint to God, Jeremiah wanted revenge: "Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter and set them apart for the day of slaughter." (Jeremiah 12:3) When we are hurt, it is in our nature to want revenge, to hurt back, to make the perpetrator know what the hurt feels like, and then some. And so, if the plot to destroy the World Trade Centre was hatched in Afghanistan or Iraq, we feel that we'd better make sure that we strike back over there and do at least as much damage as has been done over here on our side of the ocean. We'll teach them a lesson and they'll stop their evil ways. We want literally to beat the hell out of them.

But of course, such retaliation doesn't work. If anything, it is more likely to increase the practice of evil than to decrease it; and it will certainly not wipe evil out. Our Christian faith tells us that retaliation is not the preferred option. Jesus teaches this by the example of turning the other cheek. This dramatic and exaggerated teaching is meant to say, "Whatever you do, don't strike back." Jesus does not mean we should invite or encourage abuse. Jesus does not mean, "Alright, so they hit New York, offer them Toronto too." What Jesus does mean is to say, "I am not giving in to your methods. I cherish my vulnerability and all that goes with it, freedom, openness, integrity. I will not compromise these values of mine. If that means my other cheek is vulnerable too, I am willing to take that risk." If we translate that into our current situation we would understand that we cannot compromise the values that make us truly human in our attempt to combat terrorism and to maintain our own security.

If we fight terror with terror, we lose our essential humanity, to use an old adage: we sell our soul to the devil. Moreover, as Mohandas Ghandi has said, "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." It is also important to ask whether we in the western world have contributed in any way to the nurture of terrorism arising in other parts of the world. Don't we have to ask, for example, if the economic sanctions on a country like Iraq have fuelled the hatred felt towards the western world and especially the United States? Might it not be more important now to work hard at creating a more peaceful world than to make things even more tense by further acts of war against our sibling human beings in those countries where we think the terrorists are coming from?

I don't mean that we shouldn't do anything to protect ourselves or to make our countries safe, I am just afraid that we will be even less safe if we go on the war path. In some ways we aren't yet ready to get into a discussion of what response there should be to the terror of the past week. First we need to deal with our agony and grief. We need a sense of comfort, we need an affirmation of our faith, we need the assurance that good is greater than evil and that love is supreme.

So we have also read a passage from the letter to the Romans, a passage which tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God; and that God works in all things for good. Again, we have to be careful not to misinterpret this passage. (It often has been misinterpreted.) The passage does not mean that God makes everything happen for some good reason that we may not understand. That interpretation would claim that God brought about the horrors of last Tuesday morning for some good reason that we don't understand.... does not God do lots of things like that in our lives, sending us illness, adversity, even death for God's own mysterious reasons that we just have to accept. I suppose you have to think this way if you picture God as some sort of puppet master in the sky who controls everything and is in charge of everything. But I don't believe in that picture of God. Instead, I am convinced that God has determined to share control of the universe with various natural forces and also with human beings. God has given us freedom, a freedom which includes the capacity to choose between good and evil.

At the same time, one thing is certain, God continues to be the primal force of goodness and love in the universe, always working for good in all things, in everything that happens, even in the disaster of the past week. God was at work in the incredible efforts of various persons who helped each other in the evacuation. Some endangered their own lives to help others, some sacrificed their own lives. God was at work in the rescue workers, the firefighters, the volunteers who gave of themselves in New York, in Washington, in lots of other places.

All over Canada, air passengers were stranded and in lots of places where hotels were not adequate volunteers housed and fed the stranded passengers. God was at work in our own compassion, in the prayers we offered this week, in the tears we shed. And although the manifestation of evil was immense in Tuesday's disaster, the manifestation of good, prompted by the spirit of God, was far greater. In everything God works for good. When disaster strikes, when we are affected by destruction, we ultimately have a choice to make, a choice in how we are going to live with the destruction. On the one hand we can choose to live in continuing fear and bitterness. Of course we are all going to be afraid at first, but at a certain point the fear becomes a choice, a choice to fear further terror and to fear whatever we associate with the terror.

Innocent Arabs and Muslims in Canada and the United States have been beat up this week. Those beatings were done by choice. A choice was made to fear an enemy labelled as such by those who did the beatings to appease a fear they themselves chose to embrace. On the other hand we can choose to live in love. "Love your neighbour as yourself," Jesus said. Such love is a choice. At this moment it is more important than ever for us to choose to love our Muslim and Arab neighbours, here in Canada and around the world. This past week an unusual number of people took time to pray, and those of us who pray on a regular basis found ourselves praying more often and more intensely. That praying is another sign of God's spirit at work within us and it has much power to reinforce the good. Prayer decreases the distance between ourselves and God. It also decreases the distances we maintain between each other. It brings unity and a common spirit. Prayer makes us open not only to the presence of God but also to the purposes of God.

And at this time it is essential that we get ourselves in tune with God's purposes. What does God want from us? What would God have us choose? It was encouraging to see the important people of Washington together in prayer at a service of worship on Friday, including George Bush, the president. And although Mr. Bush spoke about the fierceness of America and ridding the world of evil on his terms, another powerful voice, that of Nathan Baxter, prayed for wisdom and care so that "we not become the evil we deplore."

At this moment we must hope and pray that the American response to terrorism will be in keeping with God's purposes and not add to the tears of God which flowed so copiously this week. We must also make sure that our own response to the experience of the past week will be in keeping with God's purposes. It is natural and justifiable that we are shocked, heart-broken and angry. But our sorrow and anger must not be allowed to fuel unhealthy and destructive tendencies, to which we are all susceptible. And as I said earlier, we have a choice in what we do with our anger and grief. It is important for our well-being, for the well-being of our communities, our country, our world, that we do what is right with our pain at this time. Certainly we need to place our pain and grief and anger into God's hands by sharing it with each other, by offering it up in prayer, and by allowing it to be absorbed into the great work of suffering love by Christ on the cross. Such an offering will help us then to appreciate and to live God's love more fully with each other and with our neighbours, including our Arab and Muslim neighbours. Eventually, our solidarity with the suffering love of Christ will take us through the present pain into a better world. There the impact of God's resurrection energy will bring healing and well-being here in this life and forever more.