Between Terror and Text
by John
Gibbs, PhD
At the start of the Third Millennium
one date stands out above all others. You and I will never forget
where we were when first we learned about the shattering events
of that day. The watershed terrorist attacks on September 11,
2001 now dominate consciousness worldwide. They are so fateful
that especially we Americans bring them with us every time we
come to worship, whether at Church or Synagogue or Mosque. We
cannot pray, we Christians cannot partake of Eucharist, we cannot
read and hear Scripture as if those events had never happened,
for they are always present with us.
Accordingly, we approach today’s
lectionary texts from within this terrible situation. Half a
dozen main themes have emerged for me out of confrontations
between that terror and these texts. I share them with you as
encouragement for discussing whatever themes may have come to
surface among us:
First, after that
terror nothing will be the same. Everything has changed.
The word “normal” has been redefined, though we do not yet comprehend
what the new definition is, or what all its implications may
be. The ashes that fell on Ground Zero fell on the landscape
of world history, and changed it. The fires that still
burn there at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit continue to attack the
civilized world. That terror has a Before and an After. Collectively
we all know that our days after September 11 are radically different
from all our days and years before September 11. Change is upon
us.
Second, we need
one another. Now we know it for sure. All of us with our bare
hands collectively would have pushed those hijacked planes away
from their targets, if only we could have. But when terror struck,
it did not tear us apart. It welded us together.
Nobel Prize recipient Elie Wiesel
was in New York City on September 11. Soon thereafter he wrote
this about the American people:“Never have they been more motivated,
more generous. Their behavior was praised the world over. Instead
of trying to save themselves, men and women, young and old,
ran to Ground Zero to offer assistance. Some stood in line for
hours to donate blood. Hundreds of thousands of sandwiches,
sodas and mineral waters were distributed. Those who were evacuated
from their buildings were offered food and shelter by neighbors
and strangers alike.…Americans have never been as united. Nor
has our hope been as profound and as irresistibly contagious.”
So I say: terror tore into us, and unearthed the roots that
bind us together.
Third, listening
is top priority among people who need one another. During the
first days after September 11 we saw that within our House and
Senate. Earnest and accurate listening was noticeable there
to a degree that none could have forecast up through September
10. Knowing that they needed one another, our leaders really
tried, at least for a few weeks, to listen fairly and hopefully
to one another.
As a nation, moreover, we must
have friends among other nations. This country cannot go it
alone unilaterally. We the people need to listen with care to
other governments and other cultures. National security requires
that we listen more carefully so that we can understand why
some peoples hate us, and then we can take steps to accommodate
what we can, change what we must, and defend what we must. Some
Muslims and certain nations say that we neither listen to, nor
care about, their concerns. For instance, as our Episcopal bishops
wrote on September 26, “The affluence of nations such as our
own stands in stark contrast to other parts of the world wracked
by the crushing poverty which causes the death of 6,000 children
in the course of a morning.”
We need to be sure that we are
listening and are caring. Otherwise we might hear from God what
the psalmist heard:“Do not be like a horse or a mule, without
understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,
else it will not stay near you.” We do well instead to listen
with the psalmist for God’s counsel and instruction about how
Israel and we may be good neighbors in the world community.
A fourth theme
in the confrontation between terror and text is this: we
must make choices, and we can make them. Some change
has been forced upon us. But other change comes because we choose
it. There has been much talk about bringing terrorists to justice,
and self-defense requires us to do that. Beyond that emergency
stopgap measure, however, the question arises: “What is justice,
and what choices does it require of us?”
We have heard from Isaiah: “Zion
shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by
righteousness.” What does that mean? What is God’s kind of justice?
What does God’s justice have to do with the USA? When this text
confronts that terror, what light of justice does it bring to
American strategic and tactical choices?
What is a just way of coping
with terror? Should we build a $60 billion missile defense (against
box cutters and knives)? Will our national destiny be decided
only by the flow of today’s body politic toward reaction, revenge,
and the consuming quest for retribution?
Or, on the other hand, should
we initiate an international policy that strongly supports human
rights, protects the global environment, develops economic justice
no less than democratic rights to vote, and wages a war against
poverty wherever it exists (and not only within the USA)? What
choices might move us closer to God’s justice?
Fifth, as
a people thinks, so are they. Our vision directs our choices.
Our self-definition as a nation, our picture of our history,
our view of this nation’s future, all these guide our votes.
They shape the choices we make in domestic and foreign affairs.
Vision directs choices, and
so it was for Isaiah.“Instead of perpetuating a world of violence,
Isaiah proposes a vision that demands another reality” (Christian
Century, Oct. 17, 2001, p. 14). Isaiah had to tell his people
that they were part of the problem in the world of violence:
“When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands
are full of blood.” The counteracting vision that Isaiah proposed
is this: “seek justice [which means], rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” Set the vision of Justice
before you, and let “vengeance” as just recompense belong only
to God. Let “ultimate justice” be reserved, as the second letter
of Thessalonians says, for “that day” at the end of time. In
the meantime let your nation “seek justice” for the oppressed.
What vision dominates choices
in the United States? It is not partisan politics to talk about
the two opposite visions that are at work across the political
spectrum. On one hand, the vision of invulnerable fortress
America would lead us to erect an impregnable missile “shield”
over us. This vision says that we cannot afford to choose justice
for the oppressed, either here or abroad. But if the imploding
twin towers of the World Trade Center have taught us anything,
it surely is this, as Miroslav Wolf at Yale has written:
“Without justice for all, there can be no lasting peace, not
even for the powerful” (Christian Century, Oct. 10, 2001,
p. 32)
On the other hand, if
we adopt as national policy the vision of Zacchaeus, we discover
that “salvation” as wholeness of life comes to those who redistribute
their wealth on behalf of “the poor.” That is not “bottom-line”
thinking. It is the commitment of a “rich” man to be accountable
to “the poor.” That, according to Jesus’ radical social vision,
is what “salvation” means. Saving the lost means giving to the
poor, so says our gospel text.
A last theme emerges
when these texts confront that terror. Into the horror at Ground
Zero, in Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon come ancient words
that remind us Whose we are: “Be glad in the Lord and
rejoice…, and shout for joy.” Within that terror, why,
why joy? Because God is still God. Because the dwelling of God
remains with all humanity. Because to praise God is to destabilize
all false gods and unjust worlds. (See Theology Today,
Oct. 2000, p.383.)
We are “glad in the Lord,” aren’t
we, when God enables ordinary unassuming people (firemen, policemen,
and later musicians and poets) to hope and sacrifice for the
new creation that is God’s answer to the aftermath of terror.
Imagine it: We take the sacrificial generosity of ordinary Americans,
and export it. We give it foreign policy expression. We take
their hope, and it becomes contagious around the globe.
Between that terror and these texts, I begin to hear a familiar
echo calling us again to sacrificial holiness: “With malice
toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right,
as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish
the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; …to do all
which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among
ourselves, and with all nations.” (Lincoln’s Second Inaugural)
|
.