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Honorable Observance
I probably don’t have to remind you that this is September 11th. Similarly, I probably don’t have to call to mind particular images from that day, 10 years ago, when, for many of us, time stood still for a while. We held our loved ones closer. We paid less attention to the little things in life. We watched the news like we were addicted to some kind of drug. We kept asking questions like, “why?”, “how?”, and perhaps most importantly, “what’s next?”
In the days and weeks afterwards, we worried about that last question. We worried about it a lot. We worried about our water supply, our mail, our power grid, our public transportation system, our buildings, our airports, our cities. The worry only got worse as time went on, and it all was ignited by the events of this day, exactly 10 years ago. And since that time, the worry has divided us as I never would have expected.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11/01, I was touched by the unity we all had for each other, especially the support we got from around the world. It was as if, and don’t take this the wrong way, it was as if everyone became an American on 9/11. It was as if all of the hate and intolerance and fear in the world were crystalized in those four airplane crashes, and those horrible acts were perpetrated not just on the United States, but on the whole of human kind. And the whole of human kind understood that. They showed solidarity with us like never before. Even a French newspaper declared, “Nous sommes tous Américains”, We are all Americans. But that moment didn’t last.
Since that time, our national worry about security has snowballed into suspicion of anyone, anything, any nation, or any religion who might wish us ill, no matter how tenuous that connection. The worry has affected our relationships with the rest of the world, has prevented progress in the areas of racial diversity, religious diversity and diversity of national origin within the United States of America.
Our national worry took a human tragedy, an attack against civilization and basic human decency itself, and wrapped it in our national identity. More than that, to an extent, the tragedy of 9/11 has been wrapped in the Christian religion as well, so that American and Christian, for some, became identities that are akin to the unquestionable, unimpeachable ‘victim’, so that any wrong we may have done before or after that event became unimportant at best, or justified at worst, by our victimhood.
Anyone remember eating Freedom Toast or Freedom Fries?
I heard Tony Robinson say in a sermon once, “the quickest route to the moral high ground is to claim the status of ‘victim’.” And while we were most certainly victims on 9/11, this does not take away our capacity to make mistakes, and it does not make us a super-nation of perfection. This national response to the traumatic events of 9/11 has paralyzed our country.
I actually see a connection between the interpretations of this traumatic event, and the current climate of public debate in our country. I see a connection between the absolutist, black and white, ‘with us or against us’ kind of thinking, which took root among many of our fellow Americans in the wake of that day, and the severe distrust of any difference of political opinion or political criticism.
And we in this church can identify with this on a few different levels. Some of us can locate ourselves in this tension politically, others religiously.
On the religious side of things, it often feels like our church is a bit different from other Christian communities. In my conversations with many of you, we have talked about the struggles many of us have with the identify of ‘Christian’, in a world that tends to identify Christianity in a way we may not recognize. Many of us in the United Church of Christ are passionately committed to social justice, to Jesus’s vision of love, inclusion, radical hospitality; where the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the sick are cared for; believing that Christian faith is not just about faith in Christ, and loving God, but also about loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. We tend to be less concerned with agreeing with one another in our belief, and more concerned about what our faith calls us to do - to make the world a better place for the least of those among us.
This puts us in some contrast with many Christians who have very clear and very exclusive viewpoints about the right way to believe, the right way to live, the right way to be a Christian. I don’t have to tell you, that many of our sisters and brothers in our faith (and for some of you, it may be your biological sisters and brothers), but many of our fellow Christians are far more motivated toward faith by what might happen after death, than what happens in the world in which God has given us to live.
Many of our fellow Christians want to know simply one thing: “Are you saved?” (And by this they mean, have you been saved from hell.) This attitude toward faith, shared by many Christians, is understandable when put in the context of a fear-based mentality. When one begins in a place of fear, one’s first reaction is to find the place of safety. So when you start with the assumption that we’re all sinners deserving of eternal punishment, your first reaction is going to be, how can I save myself from this terrible fate? And the answer, according to a very surface level, cursory reading of some parts of Paul’s letters, is that you have to have faith in Jesus Christ.
That’s it.
Problem solved.
Similarly, if one feels our nation is under attack, and people out there hate us and want us dead, the first reaction is going to be - to find the way to be safe. So, in the pursuit of safety, we get more and more secure. We have hours-long lines at airports. We have quart-sized ziploc bags for our travel-sized liquids. We have messages on the Metra that remind us “if you see something, say something.” And because it was “Muslims [who] attacked us on 9/11”, according to Bill O’Reilly, we must be suspicious of Islam. So we burn Qur’ans. We protest the building of mosques. The idea that the President might be a Muslim is described as an “accusation”. We have racial profiling of Muslims, including national news commentators, an African American even, admitting he gets nervous if he sees a Muslim-looking person on an airplane. So the answer, according to a very surface level, cursory examination of some aspects of the 9/11 attacks, is you build a fortress of security, both physical and spiritual.
That’s it.
Problem solved.
When afraid - find the safety.
Fairly simple.
But what if fear isn’t actually the place to start? What if the baseline of human life, of religion, was not fear at all, but love?
Anyone who takes my Confirmation class will tell you that I blame a lot of Christianity’s issues on the Roman Emperor Constantine. It was Constantine who took what was a diverse, ramshackle peasant movement, and turned it into a state religion. Constantine moved all the emphasis in our faith from what a Christian needed to do, and placed it on what a Christian needed to believe. Since his goal was not the Kingdom of God, but the Empire of Caesar, he lessened the emphasis on relationships and justice, and raised the emphasis on correctness of belief. So we have Constantine to thank for the traditional Christian emphasis on agreement and unity, over diversity and justice. Before that time however, there was quite a lot of theological diversity within Christianity. And we can see evidence of this throughout much of the New Testament, and certainly in other contemporary texts from that time.
In the text we heard this morning, from Romans 14, Paul is very clearly welcoming all people into the community of Christ. He says, “Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.” Or put in modern terms, “Welcome people who have no faith history, but not so you can tell them where they’ve gone wrong.” He talks later about other things - saying some people celebrate special days, and others don’t. Some people eat certain foods, others don’t. Whatever you do, says Paul, do it in honor of God. One translation reads, “What’s important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God’s sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli.”
Differences may sound obvious with this modern translation, but in the original context, Paul is talking directly about specific faith practices that some early Christians did, and others did not. Paul is describing a diversity of belief, and unequivocally saying that so long as God is the center of your practice, the way in which you practice is essentially irrelevant. In our context, it would be similar to saying, ‘whether you celebrate communion once a month, or every Sunday, whether you use leavened or unleavened bread, grape juice or wine, so long as the focus of communion is God’s love and grace, the means and methods are less significant.
Paul is affirming and uplifting a diversity of faithful, Christian expression, and saying that in the end, we all stand equal before God. Paul encouraged the beginning of a diverse religious tradition, open to old timers and newcomers, open to people of diverse theological expression and different ritual practices, a tradition based solely in the love of God as expressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.
While modern Christians may try to unite in our fear of damnation at the end of existence, and thus assume that we all must agree on every bit of doctrine in the spirit of emperor Constantine, Paul describes a church that is not united in belief or religious dogma, but a church united in mutual respect and regard for each other, a church united in love, not fear or judgment or division or exclusivity; a church open to all, regardless of who we are, or where we are on life’s journey. It would not be too far of a stretch to say that the current plurality of belief among Christians is certainly affirmed by Paul’s words in this letter. It would also not be too far of a stretch to find hope in this text - that whether we agree on the details of our faith, we can affirm the oneness of God, and that if we are to be accountable for our faith practices, it is not to each other, but to a God that is big enough to love all of us and incorporate the whole diversity of belief in the human family.
“Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?,” writes Paul, “Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.”
It seems that both within our faith, and our country, there is far too much passing judgment on our brothers and sisters. Far too much despising of our brothers and sisters.
I want to return to a more specific question in the text, that which relates to proper observance of holy days.
Paul writes,
“Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord.”
Let all be convinced in their own minds - let each of us come to understanding and acceptance in our own minds - this is not a coercive, dogmatic, my-way-or-the-highway kind of theology being described here.
As we as a country discern how to deal with this anniversary, however, I find this passage about holidays to be intriguing. It seems to me that a lot of us aren’t really sure what the appropriate response is - what would be an appropriate way to honor this day as we move forward? I’m happy to see that many of us seem to still recognize the need to keep the integrity of the anniversary, marking it with programs of remembrance, solemnity, honoring the dead, honoring first responders who became the most visible symbol of that day. I would hate to see a national holiday on 9/11, complete with department store sales, as seems to have happened with many other holidays.
Here in Naperville, there are two public ceremonies I’m aware of - one at the Shanower memorial, where our own Ron Keller will be leading the Community Band as the City officially recognizes the events of 9/11. The other ceremony will be a commemoration of the events of this day ten years ago, but it’s also a recognition of the pain and hatred from whence this day had its genesis. It’s a recognition that it was hatred and intolerance that caused the violence and pain of ten years ago, and in order to prevent it happening again, we must build relationships and understanding among diverse traditions and faiths.
Paul recognized that the same day may have different meanings for different people. Some may think today should be a religious holiday, others a federal holiday with time off from work or school. Some may see parades of remembrance, others may see interfaith dialogue and experiences of diversity as more appropriate commemorations of the 9/11 anniversary. The point is, all are valid if done in honor of the events and in sincerity of heart.
Coming back to my comparison between fear and love, and Paul’s description of the beginning of Christian faith in love and acceptance of diversity, what if our reaction to the events of 9/11 were not fear for our own security, but love for each other and our fellow human beings? What if we reacted to the hate, intolerance and anger that caused those tragic events not with more hate, intolerance and anger, but with love? What if we reached out to those who were different from us with compassion and a desire to understand, rather than assuming they wish us harm, and closing ranks on ourselves?
My hope would be that we, as Christians, can, like Paul, affirm the beauty and diversity of faithful expression - that we can affirm the diversity of political expression, and realize that whatever our practices may be, whatever confessions of faith or expressions of patriotism we may have, the reality of the divine, and all that the Almighty God encompasses is sufficient to embrace us all - believer or not, American or not, Christian or Muslim, Democrat or Republican, no matter what race or gender or sexuality defines our identity - and, paraphrasing Paul, all will be upheld - for the Lord is able to make us stand.
Then, however we mark this anniversary, however we understand or worship the Divine, or whatever ways we express our theology or our opinions about public policy - we will be truly participating in honorable observance of this day; observance worthy of a God who is big enough to embrace us all, this day, and every day.
Amen.