Christ Church Cathedral

Fredericton, NB

Sermon by Dean Keith Joyce

For this reason I am speaking from down here and not from the pulpit.

I came home for lunch on Tuesday the 11^th, turned on the news and couldn't believe my eyes. No sound came with the stark pictures of the airplanes hitting the twin towers of the World Trade Center over and over again. Flames burst up from the top sections of the buildings, and then horribly, the towers imploded, crumbling to the ground with an upward burst of billowing smoke and dust. This ghastly scene of destruction looked like a scene from a movie didn't it? But it was so tragically real. No Hollywood hero was going to come and save the day.

We saw reporters scrambling to get first-hand reactions from the people on the street in their shock and disbelief. Another clip was of one woman who had received a phone call from her son just before his plane crashed in Pennsylvania - seeing her and hearing her speak was deeply moving. I thought the interviewer was quite astute when he said to her, "Despite all that has happened and given what's happened to you, that call was like a gift to you, wasn't it?" It was said kindly and one couldn't help but be moved deeply by such poignancy. Indeed, this courageous woman had received it as a gift.

Tragic reality sunk ever deeper with the announcement that schools would be closed and parents should come and get their children. For some of those children there would be no one to come and pick them up. And I understand that the police will look after these parentless children.

With this horrendous event as our backdrop we come before God to worship him today - as we did last night, on Friday, and on the Tuesday itself, each of us in the privacy of our own prayer and worship. We all have the big question - why? We know that there is evil in the world and evil gets expressed in so many tragic ways. Evil is here because God, in his love for us, decided to give us free choice. He gave us freedom to choose his way - or not to choose his way. This is the fundamental choice we have in the world today. Sadly, not choosing God's way brings broken-ness and sin and evil into our world.

The expression of this evil then becomes capricious. Why those buildings? Why those people? Why that plane? All those questions. There is no real answer to "why those." We have stories of people who for one reason or another might have been in the midst of this carnage but, instead, a flight attendant took his day off that day; two men disobeyed an order to stay where they were and descended to the street taking another man with them and so were safe. Nonetheless, we still face today the end result of the tragedy of that day, of this past week.

But now, out of our emotions begins the reaction. There are the feelings of wanting to 'get them.' We want revenge. We want justice. We want peace, certainly, and we want healing. We want as many people as possible to be discovered alive. We want our leaders to do things! We want to accuse somebody from the past. Why did they do this? Where was Intelligence? Why didn't they find out first? All of these questions come storming through!

It is a time for prayer - for the world, as well as for our own hearts; for the American people, for President Bush and his cabinet, and for those who are part of all the decisions which must be made. We cannot judge and must hold judgement on response and reaction at the emotional level, especially so soon after the events of this week. We must pray for the right reaction, so that things don't escalate. We must pray for great wisdom for the leaders of the United States and other nations.

And, we really need to pray for the Arab people, and for the Afghani's. It's assumed now that Osama bin Laden was the perpetrator behind it all. It's not been proven that this is so, but we already hear stories of people who look like Arabs being harmed and persecuted in towns and villages across the continent. There's going to be a great deal of fear amongst many people. To be Lebanese or Iraqi, or Irani, or to be of East Indian descent, Persian - everybody who looks a little different - we really need to pray for these people. Their fear is tremendous and we must pray to hold back on trying to find anyone to blame, just because we are so upset.

We need to pray continually for those who are working hard right now - for health of mind as well as for strength of body. Oh, what a job it must be to go through all that rubble, all that devastation and try to find as many people alive as possible, and then to encounter all the other things they would see. An ongoing, endless task and for those still waiting, what tremendous anxiety. It's enormous.

We read just a little while ago about Paul, who saw himself as the worst of people, but God was able to take him and make him one of the greatest Apostles in the service of God. Quite coincidently Michael (our Organist) has chosen 'Amazing Grace' for today and in many ways it is an appropriate hymn. Not only is it the best-known hymn and often sung at times like this, but it was written by John Newton. If you have had time to read the insert you will see that he was a vile man, a cruel slave trader, and God turned him right around. Out of the evil of his life God turned him into one who was a speaker and deliverer of the Gospel.

So, as we look at all the rubble, all the damage that it represents in lives and in families across the United States, we go, very humbly, into the midst of it all in our minds and hearts, knowing that there was an even greater ruin in the heart of our Heavenly Father when his Son died on the cross. We go with a God who knows and has experienced and entered into the very evil of this world and by his grace and power, and the victory of the resurrection, has brought life out of death.

While that is the truth and we believe it, we go with it humbly, because not every emotion will allow us to receive that truth right away. Nonetheless, that is the clear truth that underlies our prayers. And we pray that the work of the Spirit will make it real, living truth, to bring comfort and consolation in the midst of all the enormous unanswered questions.

We pray, as well, for ourselves. We pray that out of these ruins great healing and grace, restoration and renewal, will be found in the wounds of Christ because from them flows healing and restoration and peace. As the Holy Spirit takes that healing deep within our hearts, we continue to pray; we continue to deal with our feelings and responses and reactions, and we continue to commit our sorrows to God's mercy and grace for his strength, his wisdom and his consolation, especially for those most deeply affected in the United States.

The challenge of forgiveness that lies ahead is a big one isn't it? But, it's part of the Lord's example, this Lord Jesus whom we follow, for he said, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do." I read of a woman in Ethiopia, I believe it was, whose son was killed by an enemy soldier, and through turns of events I do not know, the one who killed her son and this woman were reconciled. She was a devout Christian and because he had nowhere to go she took him in as her son, into her home. I tell you this story both because it seems so impossible and difficult, and because it displays the power of the grace of God in the heart of tremendous evil.

So let us go with that power, humbly receiving it, so that we continue to desire and walk the way of peace, not of revenge and further evil, so that the grace of God can nurture every soul and heart to bring wholeness and restoration to this planet. That's really what we're talking about. That is our hope. Amen.