Scripture for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost includes Exodus 14:19-31; Romans 14:1-12; and Matthew 18:21-35. This Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
"O God, Our Hearts Were Shattered"
A hymn written for the tenth anniversary of 9/11
“O God, our hearts were shattered On that horrendous day;
We heard the news and gathered To grieve and then to pray.
We cried to you and wondered, "Where did the violence start?"
The world as we had known it Had just been torn apart.
We heard of those who perished — Of heroes' sacrifice.
We paused again to cherish The gifts of love and life.
We worried for the future; We hugged our loved ones then.
We cried, "Can peace be found here?" "We can't let terror win!"
Some sought to answer terror The only way they knew —
With anger toward the stranger And calls for vengeance, too.
Yet this is not your answer, Nor what you would create.
May we live toward a future Where love will conquer hate.
God, give us faith and wisdom To be your healing hands;
Give open minds that listen To truth from all your lands.
Give strength to work for justice; Grant love that casts out fear.
Then peace and not destruction Will be the victor here.”
- Carolyn Winfrey Gillette
“O God, our hearts were shattered.” They really were. In those first moments, newscasters speculated that perhaps it was a small plane that had hit the first tower, perhaps a dreadful accident. Explanation and motivation were imagined in their very simplest terms.
But as distracting moments gave way to mesmerizing endless minutes upon minutes, the enormity of that fateful morning came clearer and clearer to us. Our minds and hearts were dragged kicking and screaming to face what was unimaginable beforehand. Even battle-hardened veterans had never seen the ravages of war enacted like this on the soil of our homeland.
Metaphors never behave themselves perfectly. For a heart to shatter, it must be made of what is hard and brittle, and that’s where this metaphor falls short. Though we know that hearts break, we also know they bleed, they tear, they hurt when injured directly; and, when indirectly they experience the suffering of others, hearts move in compassion towards the injured.
We have seen such compassion recently, with residents of the North County giving generous neighbor-to-neighbor gifts to temporarily shelter homeless residents of The Spruces. People have gone far out of their way to volunteer their time, their strength, their talents to help their neighbors, here and in battered communities in Vermont and flood-soaked New York and Pennsylvania. Compassionate hearts have resulted in smalltown markets giving away their inventory rather than letting it go to waste, back-country inns putting on free community-wide meals, restaurants and food coops providing meals for shelter guests, flood victims wading over to help a neighbor whose need seems greater than their own. What a country we live in! A land of big and open hearts.
However the metaphor may work about hearts shattering, we know that Illusions shatter. What is false and inaccurate breaks under the pressures of reality, and that happened on this day, ten years ago, when a nation that assumed itself safe and unassailable discovered how vulnerable its open society is. And while we know ourselves a big-hearted people taking care of our own, what happened ten years ago today shattered the illusion that America is globally admired. We had met such hatred before, in smaller doses; but never before, such committed bitterness.
The ultimate shattering of illusions comes when we become like our worst enemies. Violence begets violence, and bitterness breeds bitterness across battlefields. Injury also triggers injury across any fault line that divides people whose calling is to be united in one body: houses of congress, religious denominations, extended families, all can have the worst brought out in them. In fact, we mark today a decade of increasingly deepening challenges to what is best in the human race: the building of peace and the practice of forbearance and the charity of generous respect.
But if we think this has been a tough ten years for us humans, this must have been a really tough decade to be God.
Each religious franchise is convinced that God is fighting for them, and they are fighting for God. I wonder if God wouldn’t like to take some white-out to some portions of the Hebrew Bible, and the Christian testament, and the Qur’an. Today’s portion from the Book of Exodus might be a candidate: how much delight do we expect God takes in being known as the clogger of chariot wheels and the tosser of soldiers into the sea?
Is it not the more consistent message of holy scripture that God is merciful and expects us to show mercy to one another? So we hear Jesus aim his parable today, when that king reminds his incorrigibly selfish servant that he who has received his master’s mercy ought to show mercy to his fellow servants.
And isn’t it the consistent theme of what we treasure in scripture that the worship God desires is neighbor loving neighbor, especially when it’s hard and costly to do so? And that we are to love, not hate, our enemies?
I know, even so we get our Lord’s parable at the cost of a tag line about this king having that wicked servant tortured until he repays every penny of what he owes. And, even worse, Matthew claims that Jesus himself then threatened his hearers, “And so my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” I fear that could be a hard and brittle heart, don’t you?
But perhaps we can hear one or two disciples suppressing laughter in the background (“Aw, go on—he doesn’t mean that!?” “Does he?”). But if you propose that we build a healthy theology on this text taken at its face value, will you forgive me if I imagine God reaching for the white-out?
Because the deepest shattering of our illusions in this past decade has revealed to us our need for the Word of God to restrain us from, not permit, torturing our adversaries as a means to a higher end.
And in the end, says St. Paul today, each of us will be accountable to God. There is another consistent message in holy scripture: each person is responsible for what he or she builds in life, creates in life, chooses in life. We can blame political parties for distorting the truth. We can blame religious traditions for distorting God’s truth; but in the end we are, each of us, responsible for our choices, accountable to God for our behavior.
And so it is mighty important to know who God is in mercy, justice, and love—and so take our bearings for the living of this next decade from the God who is.
In the long run, it is good for us to have our illusions shattered. Then what is finer and truer can take their place.
What will that be?
Perhaps a finer, truer engagement with Islam, a deepening of interfaith understanding and solidarity? I pray so.
Perhaps a humbler walk in the world for America, less the superpower harvesting the world, more the agent of change who is willing to change, ready to learn? Let’s hope so.
Perhaps an open society reclaiming the vision of being open to all who bring good will and good work to the table? Let’s help that happen.
In the long run, the illusion we most need shattered is the one that tells us repeatedly that people of another nation, another religion, another sex, another sexuality, another ethnic group, another income level, are inherently, ultimately, essentially different from us. That people from the other side of our issues, or people from another part of our globe, are really much other than we are.
“Some sought to answer terror The only way they knew —
With anger toward the stranger And calls for vengeance, too.
Yet this is not your answer, Nor what you would create.
May we live toward a future Where love will conquer hate.
God, give us faith and wisdom To be your healing hands;
Give open minds that listen To truth from all your lands.
Give strength to work for justice; Grant love that casts out fear.
Then peace and not destruction Will be the victor here.”
