Love or Violence? — The Choice Posed by 9/11

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A sermon delivered on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 was posted here on the 20th anniversary of that day. The dilemma posed by the 2001 attacks, and our responses to it, continues to trouble our common life. In observance of the 25th anniversary, here is that sermon once more. It still applies:

Read it here: “The only solution is love” — Remembering 9/11

3 thoughts on “Love or Violence? — The Choice Posed by 9/11”

  1. Dear Jim,

    Thank you for sharing this sermon. As is the case whenever I read your prose, I found it both powerful and deeply challenging. What struck me most was your refusal to offer an easy theological answer to the tragedy of 9/11. Instead, you allow the difficult questions about violence, grief, forgiveness, and the presence of God to remain open long enough for the Scriptures to speak into them.

    I was especially moved by the line that we can no longer simply dance with the Israelites but must also weep with the Egyptians. That seems to me an extraordinarily important Christian insight. It resists our temptation to divide the world neatly between the righteous and the wicked and reminds us that every human life remains within the mercy and mystery of God.

    Your movement toward Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness was equally compelling. The story of Dom Christian and his willingness to call his future killer “my friend of the last moment” gives flesh to a kind of forgiveness that otherwise can sound almost impossible. It reminds us that forgiveness is not weakness or sentimentality, but a costly and courageous way of following Christ.

    And I appreciated where you finally brought us: to love as the antidote to the endless cycle of violence. The image of those two people reaching for one another’s hands as they fell is heartbreaking, but also strangely sacramental. In the face of everything that seeks to diminish our humanity, they reached for one another.

    Thank you for a sermon that does not diminish the darkness, but still dares to say that love has the final word.

    Love,

    Richard

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    Reply ↓

    • Thank you, Richard, for your thoughtful response to this post. No easy answers, certainly, nor is it easy to stand firm in the open space where God’s work is done. We fail at this regularly, but even so, it is possible—and necessary—to keep our eyes on the prize, until we all come home to the blessed community for which we are made. As Rilke said,

      He is not drawn to victories;
      he grows by being defeated
      by greater and greater things.

      Reply ↓

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