Five years ago tomorrow, our illusions of security, our sense of safety were severely challenged.
How many times in the intervening years have we heard others say, and have said ourselves: "Since September 11th…," as if by saying those words, we could somehow control the reality of grief, loss, anger and fear; the reality that there are those in our increasingly divided world who see us differently from the way we see ourselves.
We say those words, “since September 11th", as if we could gain some understanding of their meaning. Yet as we have grieved and feared, raged and anguished about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, life goes on.
What should our aspirations be, then, on this anniversary of an event that has changed our lives in so many ways, great and small?
Should we still hope for peace?
Peace in our lives and peace in our world? Should we look for an end to grief, freedom from fear, an end to violence?
Each generation, it seems to me, has had certain significant historical events by which they can measure the passage of time and which serve as a kind of bookmark to remind them of where they were living and what they were doing at certain critical times in our nation’s and the world’s history.
No doubt many of our elders can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing that Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, when the news broke that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor; or where they were on D-Day or what they were doing on May 8, 1945 when the German Army surrendered to the West.
Others of us remember where we were on November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was shot—I was in Mr. Carlisle’s chemistry class; or on that momentous evening of July 20, 1969 when Armstrong and Aldrin stepped on the surface of the moon—I was in my first apartment watching a black and white TV screen while lying on a Murphy bed.
And there are other events, of course, personal and private that also live on in our memories as turning points in our lives.
And then there was the event that will for many of our teens and young adults be the defining moment in their lives—September 11, 2001.
Two weeks prior to that Tuesday morning when the planes flew into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, I had begun a yearlong ministerial internship at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Virginia.
On the morning of 9/11 I had left my home in Fairfax, as usual, around 8:45 to make my daily 40-minute commute into Arlington.
I hadn’t gone very far when the NPR news staff broke into the regular show “Morning Edition” with the news that there were unconfirmed reports that a plane had just crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.
As the story began to develop it quickly became apparent that the first tower had sustained significant damage. But before anyone had the chance to really process the unfolding events a second plane crashed into the South Tower.
Approximately fifteen minutes later east on Arlington Boulevard, the news broke of the second plane crashing into the South Tower.
At this point the radio commentary was all pure speculation. Was this some terrible failure of air-traffic control? Was it the work of highjackers? Understandably the story was changing by the minute.
But then the events of this day became personal. As I came over the crest of a hill I saw a plane suddenly dive below the tree line and disappeared from sight. Many mornings I saw planes approaching National Airport from this same general direction and it seemed to me that they were all flying higher and slower than this particular plane.
I remember sort of holding my breath hoping against hope that the plane had not gone down, but then there was a plume of white smoke quickly followed by billowing black clouds.
I arrived at the church office a few minutes later and reported to the staff that I thought I had just seen another plane go down.
My fear was that it had indeed struck somewhere in downtown Washington. A TV had been set up in the main office and soon CNN or whoever we were watching announced that, in fact, a third plane had struck the Pentagon.
For the rest of the day we watched the black smoke continue to rise into the air and we were aware of the heavily armed guards patrolling the grounds of the National Guard headquarters across the street.
In a church newsletter article a couple of weeks after the events of 9/11, this is how I tried to come to grips with what had happened on that day. I wrote:
Severe clear. This was the term used by aviation officials to describe the weather pattern over most of the Eastern United States on the morning of 9/11.
The term is used on days when the skies are a cloudless, crystalline blue with unlimited visibility and practically no turbulence.
September 11, 2001 began as one of those days when everything in nature seemed a little clearer, a little more beautiful, and a little more approachable.
Then as suddenly as a summer thunderstorm, came the storm clouds and in just minutes everything I knew or thought I knew about the order of things was changed.
I concluded my article with these words, “As we lit our chalice on the first Sunday after 9/11 I thought of these words, slightly amended, from a well know carol, “Yet in the darkness of our time shineth the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are reflected in thee today.”
As I re-read this material in preparation for this morning’s sermon, I thought that those words were nice enough—that there was something possibly even a little poetic about them. But then I read what else I had said; I wrote:
In the intervening weeks I have come to have an ever greater appreciation, a greater love, of my chosen Unitarian Universalist faith…I am glad for the ways the Arlington Congregation, and other UU congregations, have reached out to the Muslim community.
During these very hard days, we have demonstrated that our UU Principles and Purposes are what sustain us individually and collectively in uncertain times.”
And I wondered if, five years later, I still believed what I had written.
But first, what do I mean when I use the word faith. Often the word faith is associated with such ideas as trust, belief, confidence, conviction, credence, credibility, and reliance.
"Faith consists in believing what reason does not believe," wrote the eighteenth century French philosopher, Voltaire, who goes even further by defining faith as “believing, not what appears to be true, but what appears to our understanding to be false."
Religious faith in the historical Judaeo-Christian context means belief and trust in an invisible God and the essential truth of the bible as God's revelation to humankind.
In the New Testament book of Hebrews the author says that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen”.
When we speak of having blind faith in something or someone we seem to be saying that we have unconditional trust in whatever that person may say or do.
When we do something in “good faith” we seem to be saying that I trust the other person to do their part to complete whatever arrangement we may have.
When I say that I have complete faith in another I am saying that I have trust and the conviction that the other will act in congruence with my stated beliefs.
I believe that faith is our individual and collective effort to realize the goodness in each person and to be aware of those around us and to work for justice and equity when we believe that there are abuses of class, and race and age and gender.
I believe, that it is the tools of reason—our use of science and technology—that will make the world a better place.
I have faith, not in the intervention of a supreme deity, but in the ability of humankind to solve the issues of a torn and broken world.
And when I say I am on a faith-based journey, what I am saying is that I trust that if I live by the precepts of our Unitarian Universalist principles—the inherent worth and dignity of all; the democratic process; acceptance of the religious and spiritual journeys of others, and the practice of responsible stewardship--will help sustain me and motivate me to live a life that is focused on the other and not always on myself.
I can think of no better statement of what I call faith than these words from the writings of Ann Frank:
In spite of everything, I still believe
That people are really good at heart.
I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation
Consisting of confusion, misery and death.
I see the world gradually turned into a wilderness,
I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us, too,
I can feel the suffering of millions, and yet,
If I look up into the heavens,
I think it will all come out right,
That this cruelly will end,
And that peace and tranquility will return again.
In the meantime I must uphold my ideals,
For perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.”
In this time of global and national uncertainty, I, too, believe that people are basically good at heart.
Do I believe there are people who wish to do evil, to destroy the good that is our collective humanity?
Yes, indeed. But my faith in what our Unitarian Universalist principles urge each of us to do gives me hope that “it will all come out right, that this cruelty will end, and peace and tranquility will return again.”
And how does my faith affect my life and my world view?
My belief in the dignity and inherent worth of each person and my faith in the promise of each person gives me hope.
My belief in the sacredness of each person means that I must take seriously the suffering of others.
My belief that life is good and worth living inspires me to work for justice and equality. It also helps to keep me from becoming too bitter, too cynical and too overwhelmed by the events of the day.
My belief in personal responsibility and the individual search for truth and meaning helps me to work with those whose suffering is beyond understanding.
My belief in the use of reason and the science helps me to have faith that in time there will be treatments for many of the diseases that bring so much suffering to our families and friends.
My belief in the work of social scientists—therapists, educators, sociologists—helps me to believe that in time we may understand why some are driven to act in ways that will harm others. Perhaps a time will come when we can understand the causes of evil actions and perhaps we can examine our own behaviors that lessen the significance of others.
Scott Alexander, my friend and the minister of the River Road Unitarian Universalist church in Rockville, Maryland has written:
In a world with so much hatred and violence,
We need a religion that proclaims the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
In a world with so much brutality and fear,
We need a religion that seeks justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.
In a world with so many persons abused and neglected,
We need a religion that calls us to accept one another and encourage one another to spiritual growth.
In a world with so much tyranny and oppression,
We need a religion that affirms the right and conscience and the use of the democratic process.
In a world with so much inequity and strife,
We need a religion that strives toward the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
In a world with so much environmental degradation,
We need a religion that advocates respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
In a world with so much uncertainty and despair,
We need a religion that teaches our hearts to hope, and our hands to care.
September 11, 2001, made it clear that globalization, is not just economic initiatives; it also requires increased moral scrutiny.
In a world where one-fifth of the population survives on less than a dollar a day; where some twenty countries are involved in major armed conflicts, and where poverty, corruption, and repressive regimes bring suffering to untold millions, we simply cannot remain indifferent.
“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world,” writes the poet Wendell Berry. “And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and our greed the standard of our behavior toward the world—to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it.
And now, perhaps, very close to too late, our great error has become clear…. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us.
And that requires we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for us. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits…For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.”
I think if we boil down our UU Principles to their very basic essence what we have is humility and reverence.
Humility and reverence—they may be two of the most universal values held by peoples around the world.
So, to answer my question posed at the beginning of this sermon. After five years of living in a post 9/11 world do I still believe that our UU Principles and Purposes are what sustain us individually and collectively in uncertain times?
I do. In a world with so much uncertainty and despair we also need to have a kind of basic faith that encourages us to look through the darkness of our time and see there the everlasting light of hope.
We can each find our own ways to remain resilient; to keep from falling into complete despair. But I also believe that our coming together in this community of shared hopes, shared dreams and shared visions sustains us and nurtures us the most during these uncertain times.
Amen