Trinity 16 Year C
11 September 2016
9/11 Anniversary
Readings: Exodus 32.7-14, 1 Tim 1.12-17; Luke 15.1-10
Probably all of us can remember what we were doing that fateful Tuesday in September one year into the new millennium. I was concentrating hard on preparing for an interview the next day. Around two, my twin sister phoned to tell me to put on the television. Being a twin, and pinned to the screen, I found myself caught up in the destruction of New York’s twin towers. Gaping at the television in disbelief, it was impossible to take in the full horror of what was happening – minute by minute. In the wake of such atrocity I wondered: would the interviews go ahead the next day? They did. Life must and does go on.
Today is the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11, An event which reaches out through the 21st century in life and death in the West and the Middle East. Though it is above all, a towering tragedy for the nations of the Middle East: Destruction of the people and cities of Syria, the terror of life under ISIL dictatorship, the rise of extremism in every quarter. Osama bin Laden it would seem, has achieved a mighty result in his desire to lure the West into revenge, into war with him and his faithful people, certain of victory and a new Muslim caliphate.
Moses implores God to relent in his anger against the people of Israel who have turned aside from Yahweh and his just commandments to make a god of their own choosing, a golden calf. Who can save them from the destruction of their own folly? Who can save us from the destruction of our folly? Our slowness to comprehend the vitality of God’s Law, and the dangers we wander blithely into as we ignore God’s Covenant of justice and mercy. Black gold has blinded our eyes, we have let the ‘genie of greed’ out of the bottle, and how hard it is to get it back in!
The roots of our western culture, Christian civilisation, are middle eastern, yet so tragically we have lost our connection to one another, the honouring of one another as God commands of us. A hundred years ago, in the aftermath of victory over the Ottoman Empire, with little regard for the peoples of Arabia – and to the chagrin of TE Lawrence – we took and divided their lands according to our own whim, and when oil was found, sought to exploit its potential. The planes may have astonished us as they flew into those twin towers, but Bin Laden had never been simply creeping up behind us! He had been shouting his self-righteous anger loud and clear for some years, shaking his fists at us in various publications. He attacked western interests elsewhere. We simply lacked imagination to foresee what he might do next. We lacked the integrity of relationship with God to stay our hand when evil came, the courage to follow the wisdom of God’s commandments rather than our gut desire to assert our power and impose retribution.
Today in the Middle East, the savagery of civil strife is intensified and compounded by the involvement of powerful others, including their own nations, in proxy war – and the mass displacement of peoples has followed. As we remember and pray for those who suffered so appallingly on that day fifteen years ago, those who continue to suffer, as we pray for the holding of a fragile peace brokered for Syria in two days time, what is a Christian response to such evil? Certainly not Christian exclusivism. For it is the humanity and dignity of every human being that matters to God, our seeking after righteousness in our dealings with one another, our respect for, our desire for the well-being of our neighbour, no matter the faith, secular or religious, to which we and they adhere. For eleven years here at home in the UK we have been spared mass atrocity precisely because our Muslim neighbours do report suspicious behaviour.
A reality not much publicised amidst other incitement to violence. I was deeply moved and heartened by what the Muslim feminist Sarah Khan had to say on the BBC’s ‘Hard Talk’ programme a week ago. And her open letter to young Muslim women pleading the counter-narrative to the distortions of Islamist idealogy. Worth watching on i-player.
We too, too easily cast aside what the Lord has commanded us, cast our own idols in his stead.
Thus says the Lord God
“Now let me alone that my wrath may be hot against you!” Who is there to plead for us as Moses pleaded for the people of Israel? Yet God has relented. In God’s grief over human capacity to make evil, his anger burns hot against our inhumanity – yet, his love is far greater than his anger is deep, and God will not, cannot, leave us helpless. For our God is, beyond all wrath, the God of mercy. In sending his Son, the extraordinary man Jesus, who will plead with us and for us with his life, God reveals the nature of divinity, the full extent of his love and mercy, his desire to save us from our pettiness and cruelty, our greed and our fear.
In the God of Christ no one is left out – not even those whom we might consider, have forfeited any right to mercy. We must halt evil, restrain those who perpetrate evil. But if we simply desire retribution can we claim to be better than those we condemn? For if God is merciful to us, God passionately calls us to be merciful to one another. Merciful such that we may find peace, enable justice. We don’t know personally, what thought processes drive individuals to mass murder; militia groups to devastate local villages, local people. Some undoubtedly simply enjoy violence, but others are idealistically motivated, mistakenly believing they serve God. The young yearn for purpose in their lives. Though they must always carry responsibility for their own horrific and tragic actions, we need to look behind such action. As we watch our televisions our anger burns against those we can see committing atrocity in Syria and Iraq, 0- in Paris and Nice, Brussels and Munich. Yet how much energy, time, money and effort are we putting in to build the Kingdom of God on earth? Jesus says: “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Mercy for all. No one is exempt. Despite all that human beings get so wrong, God remains passionately committed to our well-being, rejoices mightily when we recognise our failings, seek to change direction, put wrong right. In Christ’s infinite patience we may be certain of forgiveness. At times this can also be a hard message to swallow. Not exactly what we’re looking for, for those perpetrators of evil. The tax-collectors of Jesus’ day were probably the most hated group in Jewish society – with just cause. Jews who collected taxes for the Romans, betrayed their people for personal gain.
How many families did they reduce to subsistence living, starvation even. But Jesus loved them, enjoyed their company. And indeed, the censure and the flak it flew at him.
Yet his presence and his affirmation, his genuine love for these collaborators, brought about dramatic change: changed how they felt about themselves, how they conducted their lives. How those over whom they had power were now able to live. Jesus calls us to restorative justice – not retribution. A week or so ago, an MP from Wales muttered something about negotiating with the leaders of ISIL. A sharp intake of breath could be heard across the land. I too was shocked.
For though I want to resist war, I am not a pacifist.
Jesus has called us to resist evil. Is not Owen Smith simply presenting us with the wisdom of his revivalist Welsh valleys! Amen.