Forgiveness and 9/11

     When I hear that powerful story of the crossing of the Red Sea by the Hebrews, with Moses stretching out his staff to part the waters, I think of Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments, and I smile to myself because it is such a wonderful image; standing above it all with his arm straight out, his beard giving him a gruff appearance, and his stentorian voice leaving no doubt that he will save his people.  Computers today would make that scene even more realistic, but what they did in that movie was enough.  It almost became  a caricature, but it certainly stuck in our minds.  I almost felt sorry for the Egyptian soldiers who were drowned in the sea, but in the biblical economy, the lives of oppressors don't have much traction, especially in the Old Testament.  God is always smiting Philistines, Edomites and others who have created havoc in the lives of those whom God loves.  Those are people we have a hard time forgiving for anything that they did.

     We are in the process of commemorating the tenth anniversary of the events of September 11, 200l, 9/11 as it has become so vividly known to all of us.  On that day airliners smashed into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and into a field in Shanksville, PA, killing over three thousand people.

     I'll never forget where I was on that day and neither will most of us.  I was returning from taking the dog for a walk.  The television set was on and the first plane had just hit the North Tower.  In that brief interval, we thought that it had been some kind of terrible accident.  In moments, the second plane hit and then there was no doubt at all about what had happened.  This was something infinitely larger.  Then the third and fourth planes crashed and we knew that there had been a monstrous attack.  None of us will ever forget that day and the feelings that mounted up inside us.  As the days went on, these became feelings of grief and anger and also gratitude for the first responders and the New York firefighters and police who gave of themselves without question.

     But for our anger, we wanted revenge.  That is what took us into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and fueled what we so blithely call the "war on terror", as if terror is an enemy that can somehow be defeated by our military.  Our reaction to this terrible day has changed all of us and has changed our country.  We have lashed out at Muslims and become paranoid about air travel and immigration.  We turned on each other and have created sometimes ridiculous scrutiny of persons entering buildings or boarding aircraft.  All of this seemed perfectly understandable, we have been under threat and our government has been trying to keep us all safe, even if in the process, it has created considerable inconvenience for us all.  How else could we have responded?  It was a horrible day for everyone.   The stories of people falling from the buildings, the charred bodies, the sifting dust all over everything.  We have carried those feelings with us every day for these past ten years, and we have hated with a passion those who created those events.

     I think that our passion has erupted in the terrible disagreements that we have had in our political system over so many things in recent times.  If we can't quite forgive the perpetrators of 9/11, can't we find a way to forgive one another?  That is what I believe lies at the heart of our problem.

     I was disturbed at the recent Republican debate when moderator Brian Williams asked Governor Rick Perry of Texas about the 234 executions in his state, that the audience erupted in spontaneous applause at the question.  Applause not for the confrontation, but for the executions!  What is the matter with us?  Have we become so callous that the deaths of so many people can be met with applause?

     Jesus has a parable for us in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel.  I am somewhat startled to see in this parable that those who don't forgive others are destined for the same fate as the Egyptian soldiers in the Red Sea.  Peter asks Jesus a question:  "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how many times should I forgive, as many as seven times?"  Jesus replies to him: "Not seven times, Peter, but seventy times seven!" An exaggeration that simply means infinity.  He tells them a story about a servant who was forgiven an enormous debt by his master who then goes out and refuses to forgive a small debt by a fellow servant.  The master hears of this and throws the first servant into prison to be tortured until he pays the whole of his debt to him.  Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that is how we will all be treated unless we learn to forgive one another.   That is a particularly difficult parable for all of us, especially in light of our feelings about 9/11.  What we are taught by this is God's absolute priority for forgiveness.  Not only does God forgive us for what we do and what we are, but he expects us also to forgive each other.  As we say in our confession, "we have not forgiven others as we have been forgiven, we are truly sorry and we humbly repent."  But forgiveness isn't easy, it is one of the hardest things that we do in our lives.  Forgiveness is most times the last thing that we want to do.

     But the truth of forgiveness is that it isn't for the person whom we forgive.  It for us.   We are the reason that we need so desperately to forgive.  If our lives are to be more free, more clear, we need to put aside those things that so terribly divide us, not only between nations and cultures, but between each other.  That is only way that we can help our God to build his Kingdom.