The Way of Peace - Worship Resources

God's love, especially as people are rallying around a national crisis like war in Iraq, will be a disturbing presence. Those who try to live by it will find the way to be a difficult one.

When I put the words "love" and "enemy" and "pray for" and "persecute you" together, they seem like opposites. They repel my sensitivities, like oil and water. But then, they don't necessarily have to be to our liking. They're not ours. They come from the very heart of the re-creative force of God. Who else, except God who is so large, would dare to suggest to us, human creatures who believe we're so large, that we must love even those who oppose us and would do us harm?

When I read these words, I’m knocked off my pins by the direction they want me to go. Wouldn't it be more satisfying to pray for a change in my enemies than to pray for them? But prayer directed by the Spirit of God isn't like that. It's intended to change me. And pretty soon in prayer I'm looking into the eyes and heart of my enemy. Instead of seeing an "enemy," I'm seeing another human being. Suddenly I realize we're all related to God, and nothing's the same ever again—unless I refuse to love, and reject my Christ.

God's love through our prayers transforms enemies into people who hurt, and who suffer. Ted Koppel's video of dead Iraqi soldiers stops being a song of victory. It now laments the death of persons who were loved by someone—someone's family member who will be missed, and mourned, and grieved, never to laugh or cry or love again. The same grief and sorrow borne for our losses and our injured troops.

These are difficult words that cast a distinctive shadow in our game of Christian shadow tag. They're part of the genius of God's redemptive activity in the world. Prayer is intended to work on us, not the other guy. Prayer is intended to help us find God by our side, not so we can be triumphant over our enemy but so we can muster the courage to change our lives and our attitudes toward them, even if they don't change.

Tag. You're it! And you can't keep quiet about it. Shout it out! In this game, the sun is shining from the cross, and the shadow comes to us in the cry of Jesus on the cross. If we humble ourselves, pray, and love, that cry will make us whole.

I believe our refusal to pray for our enemies and for those who persecute us chokes our souls and destroys our hope. It builds a roadblock against God's redemptive power. What greater testimony to our belief in resurrection is there than humbling ourselves before our God in fervent and heartfelt prayer for our enemies and those who persecute us, so our hearts become more closely aligned with the heart of our Christ?

Christ's promise is that engaging in this kind of prayer will cause the clouds of hatred and judgment to clear from our eyes and we'll see deeply into the eyes of those we fear and reject, those who also are children of God, loved by God. Christ's command to do this ridiculously naive loving of our enemies and praying for our persecutors is God's gamble that if we can get beyond all our foregone conclusions about people, if we make contact with even our enemies at the common level of our humanity, we'll find we're all small, helpless children of God who depend on God's love and grace.

God's love casts a shadow that will be met with celebration by some and rejection by others. But the message from my walk to the car that beautiful spring day is that no one can walk in the sun without casting some kind of shadow. We counted on that while playing shadow tag. We know that to be true of Christian discipleship. To be asked to pray for our enemies and for those who persecute us sounds crazy, and goes against every instinct of self-preservation. It will not always be met with open arms, even by fellow Christians.

But the proclamation from here on the way to Easter is that God's invitation remains. These words come to us already tested by Christ on the cross, and God was found to be trustworthy and gracious. God is now taking the same gamble on us that he took with Jesus. Will we trust God's graciousness and answer the call, even to the cross, so it can be Easter all over again? That kind of trust has always aroused rejection and hatred, even within the body of Christ itself. But the cross and the invitation remain. We celebrate Easter anew each year.

I pray for an end to this war, and all wars, forever. I believe the way of keeping Carl and Ryan and the rest of the world's children safe is to change our response to one another, to reject the way the world loves, and to reject wars of military power and might, replacing them with a humbling blitz of prayer and forgiveness.

"The Good News of Hope"
by Chris Douglas
Preached at Peoria (Ill.) Church of the Brethren
March 23, 2003

Scriptures: Daniel 3:1-30, Romans 8:35-39

Throughout this week, I have been feeling enormous sadness, despair, and hopelessness about the war in Iraq and the overall situation in the Middle East. For months now, Scott and I have prayed, we have attended prayer vigils and peace rallies, we have written our congressional representatives and the President, we have telephoned them. But this week, in spite of all of that effort from us and thousands of others in our own country and throughout the global community, it was obvious that none of it had changed the bent toward war. On Monday morning on my way to work, I heard of Rachel Corrie, a young college student who was spending the winter term in the Gaza Strip, offering herself as a human shield against the Israeli bulldozers that have been destroying the homes of Palestianians. Last weekend, she stood in front of a Palestianian house, wearing the bright orange vest of the International Solidarity Movement, talking with the driver of the bulldozer who ran her over, backed up, and ran over her again, crushing her body. Nothing will be done about it. Few news stations even carried much about the incident. I felt myself sinking into hopelessness and despair.

But I had this sermon to prepare for the Peoria Church of the Brethren. So I turned to Daniel, chapter three, and to Romans 8:35-39. And what we will talk about for the next 15 minutes will be some of my encounter with those two scriptures.

Whether it is the conflicts in the Middle East, or struggles in your own family life, your job, your other close relationships, health issues, economic stress, or something else, I am guessing that many of you might also be struggling, along with me, about issues of hope and our faith.

The book of Daniel was written about 150 years before Christ, to Jewish people whose faith was being sorely tested. They were under the vicious rule of the Selucids, who tried to destroy all Jewish religious practices. Finally the situation erupted into the famous Maccabean Revolt. But meanwhile the book of Daniel was written to give these Jewish people around 150 B.C. some measure of hope. That's why I turned there. The setting that the writer of Daniel chose to write about was an earlier period in Jewish history, sometime after 586 B.C., during the Babylonian Exile. You may remember that Babylon had defeated the Jewish people and completely destroyed the city of Jerusalem. Many of the Jewish leaders had been force-marched 900 miles to exile in Babylon. And then, Nebuchadnezzar had decreed that all should worship him and anyone who did not bow down and worship his statue would be cast into a fiery furnace.

During that time, there were some young Jewish men living in King Nebuchadnezzar's court— Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Even though they were forced into the service of the king, they were still trying to be faithful to God. So they refused to bow down and worship the statue. They were brought before Nebuchadnezzar and put all of their hope and faith in God. They said, "If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O King, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods."

They were then bound with ropes and thrown into the fiery furnace. But when the fire died down and the king looked in, he saw an angel and the three men walking around in the glowing coals. In amazement he ordered them out and decreed that no one speak against the God of the Jews, saying, "For no other God is able to deliver in this way."

By telling the story of the faith of the Jews in 500 B.C. to the Jews in 150 B.C., the writer of Daniel is attempting to give hope to his own community that is undergoing persecution. His message to his own people was the same message: "No other God can deliver in this way." And the message is still the same to us in 2003 A.D.: "No other God can deliver in this way." I don't know what kind of furnace each one of you is in right now—whether it is despair about the war, whether it is loss and grief for a loved one, brokenness in interpersonal relationships, or the loss of a job. But whatever the furnace, the message of Daniel to us is, "No other God can deliver."

Unfortunately, this does not mean that we are spared from pain. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not delivered from being sent in to the furnace—they were delivered while they were in the furnace. In the book Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton wrote, "I have never thought a Christian would be free of suffering; for our Lord suffered. And I have come to believe that He suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering."

Our faith and our hope do not take the pain away; they give us a way to cope with our pain. We don't know what will happen with this war: how many innocent civilians will be killed or maimed, how many American soldiers we may personally know who may lose their lives, whether a new round of terrorism in our own country will be unleashed by this war. We don't know if we may lose our jobs, or when a loved one may die. We don't know what may happen to this shaky economy. Nevertheless, the hope of our faith is that God is indeed our Refuge and our Strength, so that even though the earth changes, and the mountains shake, though the waters roar and foam, God still holds our future.

The hope of our faith is that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God, as Romans 8: 35-39 reminds us. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." He knew the intensity of pain and loss that you and I have felt. This was not Pollyanna writing, but giving voice to the cloud of witnesses that had preceded him, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And so he makes this outrageous claim that none of the circumstances of life can sever us from God's steadfast love. Paul is saying in this text: "You can think of every terrifying thing that this world can produce. Not one of them is able to separate you from the love of God."

In another letter to the early church, 2 Corinthians 4: 8-9, Paul wrote: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."

Easter will soon be upon us. The resurrection stands as the most radical sign of hope that we have. In the resurrection we see the ultimate victory of God, a God whose love will not let us go, Who binds us with cords of compassion and ropes of love.

It's like we have been given permission to read the last page of a mystery book. As an elementary girl, I often read Nancy Drew mystery books. I recall one school night when I was particularly engrossed long after bedtime in a suspenseful, hair-raising adventure in one of those books. Finally, Mom came to my room with a last warning: the light had to be turned out. What could I do? No way could I go to sleep not knowing what would happen to my heroine! My solution? Quickly I turned to the last page of the book to see how it ended.

The Christian faith is like that. It is like we have read the last page. We know how it ends. The final victory is God's and that gives us hope even in the present difficulties. Because of faith, everything is transformed.

In World War II, American soldiers being held in a German prisoner of war camp, were somehow able to hide a small radio and on occasion secretly listen to news on it. One day they heard the news that Germany had surrendered and the war was over. However, their POW camp was so far out in nowhere and the camp communications had broken down, so that their German captors had not yet heard the news. It took nearly two days before Allied forces arrived at the camp to set the prisoners free. But during those last two days, the American prisoners faced their shortage of food and their mistreatment by the guards in a totally different way than they had earlier. Now they knew what the last page was, and they could live with their difficulties in a radical new hope. Someone wrote: "To hope is to know that the present reality is not the last word. It is to look with eyes of faith to a future not determined by the restrictions of the present realities."

In other words, we are not saved from being in the furnace, but we are given God's presence that cools, heals, and reassures us that the last page of history is indeed the ultimate triumph of God, described in the words of Revelation 21: "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God . . . and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God . . . and God himself will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.'"

This week we began having a prayer service at the General Offices every morning before work for those who wished to come. On the morning after the bombing of Baghdad began, I shared this scripture from Psalm 121: "I lift up my eyes to the hills-from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. . . ."

In the midst of my own despair this week, where does my help come from? My help comes from the God who cared for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, from the God who comforted the Apostle Paul in prison and in persecution, from the God from whose love I cannot be separated by anything in all of creation.

"Common Ground"
Sermon story idea
From Religion Press Release Services
A Press Release Distribution Service from Religion News Service
March 17, 2003

GOSHEN, Ind.—It began with an impassioned letter to the editor by a soldier's mother who was fed up with Goshen, Indiana's "local pacifist rhetoric" and the lack of support she felt for her son.

"I would ask all of you to stop and consider what your harsh words in the paper mean to a soldier who is sitting in a remote location reading his hometown newspaper and seeing such a painful lack of support for our troops... We would prefer your prayers rather than your criticism" (Nov. 7, 2002 , Goshen News).

In her peace courses at Mennonite-owned Goshen College, Associate Professor of Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies Carolyn Schrock-Shenk assigns her students the exercise of listening to "the other"—someone with opposite views as themselves. Carolyn said, "I read the letter and I just 'knew' what I had to do."

A day later, letter writer Dana Schmucker received a phone call from Carolyn, an organizer of local war protests, inviting her to meet over coffee so she could understand why the pacifist letters were so painful and to hear more about Nick, Dana's son serving in Afghanistan. Carolyn promised that she would not try to convince Dana of her viewpoint, or even share it unless she was asked. Dana agreed to meet.

During the two-hour meeting, the women got to know each other and recognized that they are both mothers of sons, they share religious connections, and both want peace for the world. Carolyn asked Dana how she experienced the letters and the antiwar movement as a military mom, and quickly realized that the peace protests need to make the link stronger that opposition to war is actually a support of American troops abroad, not just a support of Iraqi civilians.

After talking, the women decided to write a joint letter to the editor, with the hope of encouraging others to "see that it is possible to 'agree to disagree' without disrespect or malice." The two wrote about their different views on this war, their commonalties, and how talking with each other has "stripped away layers of assumptions and stereotypes."

"We knew that we were on opposite sides when we agreed to meet for coffee, but talking felt like the right thing to both of us... What we both know... is that we want Nick, and the others like him, to come home safely... We believe that our God of love is present with each one... no matter where they are or which side of a war they are on...

"We will continue to respond to the current situation in ways that we feel called to respond, but we will do so with some differences since our meetings...

"I (Dana) will respect and understand in a new way those who want to prevent this war. I would ask them to remember our sons and daughters who are trying to do the right thing and who are risking their lives to do so. I believe our troops need to know that we love them and support them, whether or not we support the war in which they are fighting...

"I (Carolyn) will [continue to oppose this war] with a new awareness of how much pain and fear and love military members and their families experience. Nick and his family, and others like them, will be part of my awareness in a new way as I respond to my personal call to peacemaking. I understand more deeply that, at bottom, we want so many of the same things: peace, security, a world of promise for our children. It is these concerns that lead me to oppose this and other wars" (Nov. 24, 2002, Goshen News).

As Carolyn recently planned another local peace protest, she wrote Dana to ask what she would think about the wording on a sign she wanted to hold: "Support our troops, oppose this war." Dana wrote back to say it wouldn't offend her, or Nick, at all.

From Religion Press Release Services
A Press Release Distribution Service from Religion News Service
March 17, 2003

"No wrong to a neighbor"
by Daniel M. Petry
Middlebury (Ind.) Church of the Brethren
Sept. 8, 2002

Scripture: Romans 13:8-14

They were our neighbors. They lived in the apartment next door. They shopped in the same grocery store. They banked right down the street. They bought their cell phone plan from the friendly people at Centennial Wireless. They were our neighbors.

They rode the bus, took the taxi, hopped the train, drove their beater cross-country, taking advantage of the freedom of travel this great country offers to its inhabitants. They enrolled in institutions of learning, sitting side-by-side with us in the classroom, purportedly to better themselves, to participate in the American dream. They were our neighbors.

Some of us, I assume, tried to welcome them, include them, befriend them. Some of us tried to respect their differences and truly allow them freedom of religion. Some of us tried to be the neighbor. Were they surprised by our friendliness? Were they at least temporarily disarmed by our inclusiveness? Did anything they experienced during their two years among us give them pause or create a pang of conscience? They were our neighbors.

But on a beautiful bluebird of a morning, the 11th of September, 2001, these 19 neighbors climbed aboard four jetliners, freshly laden with fuel, violently took control of the aircraft and deliberately crashed them all, three striking their targets and one falling short. All aboard perished, along with thousands in the twin towers of the World Trade Center and scores in the Pentagon. Citizens of some 80 nations met their Maker on that terrible morning. It was not so much an attack on America as an attack on the world.

We still feel the shock and the horror of it. We are still sickened by the raw display of hatred. The victims were all people just like us, not soldiers primed and ready for battle, but moms and dads, day care kids, single young professionals, sight-seers, old folks, and emergency personnel who only came to save and help and comfort.

But those who created this towering, tumbling inferno? They were our neighbors. Neighbors so indoctrinated by hatred that though they pretended to sit down and share our bread, they were only awaiting the command to strike at our very heart. And now, a year later, we still live with the fear and uncertainty, still cast furtive glances over our shoulder, wondering how many more such "neighbors" remain among us.

When an individual has been betrayed and deceived and grievously injured, it is quite natural to react first with shock and disbelief and profound sadness. It is then quite natural for a new emotion to bubble to the surface—anger, and the desire for justice or at least revenge.

When an entire nation has been thus deceived and injured, the emotions are largely the same. Patti, Russell and I were all working in the office, going about our regular routines on the beautiful morning of Sept. 11, 2001. A phone call alerted us to something going on in New York City, so we got out one of the television monitors, plugged it in and managed to get a snowy picture of the black smoke billowing from the first tower. While we watched, we actually saw the second jetliner slam into the second tower in real time. It was only then that we began to understand this was not just a horrible, tragic accident, but a diabolical plot, an attack. We were dumbfounded, heartsick, tears rimming our eyes as we watched one of the greatest catastrophes of all time unfold on the screen before us.

You all remember those first hours, those first days. The skies were quiet; the flags were lowered to half-staff; a pall of grief and sadness settled over this land; and in a very real sense the whole earth was in mourning. People of every nation were shocked that human beings could do such things to each other. Words of sympathy and consolation poured to us from every corner of the globe, including many Arab and Muslim countries.

As a nation we were socked in the stomach, and it took us a few days to even catch our breath. But when we finally did, we came up fighting mad. "How dare these neighbors whom we have welcomed and nurtured betray us so? Who were they? Where are the rest of them? Let's find them, catch them, kill them."

And thus began the War on Terrorism. With very few dissenting voices, our nation embraced the principle of The Leaden Rule. The Leaden Rule sounds very much like The Golden Rule that Jesus taught, except that it is exactly the opposite. The Leaden Rule says, "Do unto others as they have done unto you." We posted the pictures of the 19 dead terrorists on the saloon doors of the world and said, "Any friend of theirs is an enemy of ours." Living by The Leaden Rule, we looked for a place to start shooting, to spray lead, to vent our national anger.

The terrorist training camps of Afghanistan were chosen as an easy place to start. I say easy because we already knew where they were located. That's not because our spy satellites are so good, but because we, the United States of America, built many of them. They were originally run by the CIA, which trained Afghanis and others in the art of insurgency and deceit and terrorism so that they could harass and hopefully drive out the Russians who were at that time occupying the land. The rebels were eventually successful at beating back the Russian Bear, and after a time the Americans left; but the camps lived on. Certain disaffected persons got their heads together and decided, "If we can beat back one imperialist, why not another?" And so they set their sights on the American Eagle. Eventually, Al Qaeda was born.

This whole story is a classic example, a fulfillment of Jesus' dire prophecy, "All who take the sword will perish by the sword." It was easy to find and bomb the terrorists' camps because many of them were our own creation (Lee Griffith, The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Preface, pp. x-xi).

This has been a horribly difficult year for all of us, whether pacifist or militarist or anywhere in between. We all realize intrinsically we cannot just let such evil be. We have to address it; we have to take action; we must seek justice or we would dishonor the memory of those who died and turn our backs on our countrymen who were injured or bereaved.

The national debate, if there has been one, has been about the best way to find and kill the terrorists. Very few have questioned the principle of The Leaden Rule—"Do unto others as they have done unto you." It seems to be a foregone conclusion in most Americans' minds that the terrorists and those who support them deserve everything they've got coming. And, according to the principles of this world, they do. They took the sword; now they'll perish by the sword.

But the debate for the Christian, the debate for those of us raised up or adopted into the historic peace church tradition, is on a whole different level. We are not asking, "What's the best way to find and kill terrorists?" We are asking, "Who is my neighbor?" and "How has Christ commanded me to treat him?"

Now, most certainly, some neighbors don't act neighborly. Some are cantankerous and spiteful and we wish they didn't live on the other side of the fence. Some are deceitful; some are dishonest; some of them break into our homes and steal; some of them kidnap our children; some of them shoot up our schools. How do we deal with our neighbors when they don't act neighborly?

But," someone shoots back, "these terrorists were no neighbors; they were foreigners, enemies."

Jesus will not let us draw that distinction. When a man, seeking to justify himself, asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus responded with the story of the Good Samaritan. And by that story, Jesus was telling us that even the foreigner, even the sworn national enemy, even the person of a different faith is our neighbor.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said,

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?" (Matt. 5:43-46a).

In today's passage from Romans, Paul echoes the ethic of his Lord. With this expanded, world-wide understanding of neighbor, Paul says, "Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor" (Rom. 13:9b-10a).

Even when wronged, Jesus does not allow us to respond in kind. He rejects The Leaden Rule and imposes The Golden Rule: "As you would have others do to you, do so to them." Be proactive in what is good and right and loving. Spread the seeds of love, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness around the world. Be the neighbor even when others chose to be the enemy.

The national debate about a war in Iraq is beginning to ring in the halls of Congress as well as on every street corner. But much of the debate rages about whether this is the best way to pursue the War on Terrorism. The questions seem to be: "Will there be too many American lives lost? Will it be too lengthy, too expensive? Is a preemptive war of self-defense justifiable under the circumstances? Where does self-defense end and aggression begin?

But the question you hardly hear being raised at all is this: "Is a war on Iraq wrong because it's wrong? Is war itself inherently and intrinsically wrong? Jesus has shown that even the Afghanis and the Iraqis are our neighbors. Isn't it wrong to lock 1,000 Taliban in metal containers and allow them to bake to death in the desert sun? Isn't it wrong to bomb Iraqi towns and cities into piles of bloody rubble on the chance that they might not act neighborly toward us at some point in the future? "Love does no wrong to a neighbor." Isn't war itself the most horrendous wrong that we can perpetrate upon our neighbors?

The pain within us cries out, "Why do we owe these people one bit of compassion, one ounce of forgiveness? They had neither for us."And the concerns are legitimate. Neighbors who don't act neighborly do not deserve our kindness. They have done nothing to earn our forgiveness and restraint. On the human scales of justice, we owe them nothing; they are deserving of punishment.

But it is the divine scales of justice which are to guide the lives of God's people. "Owe no one anything, except to love one another..." Why must we love one another? Not because we're deserving; not because we are worthy; not because we have maintained faith with one another. We must love one another because Christ first loved us. The debt of love that we owe is to Jesus, because though we rejected him, beat him, pressed the crown of thorns into his brow, laid a cross upon his back, forced him up the hill of Golgotha and pounded the nails into his hands and feet, he still loved us and forgave us and died for us.

One of his last commandments to us, just before his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, was to love one another. He knew it would not be easy. He sweated blood over his own decision to love his neighbors-turned-enemies. He knew it would take superhuman resources for us to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him. And yet he thus commanded: "...love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12).

A young man was interviewed on channel 22 after attending the recent presidential rally in South Bend. He said that what he found most valuable was that the president defined evil for us. He described what we should hate and then he told us what we should do about it.

I challenge the members and friends of this congregation, I challenge the Brethren, Mennonites and Quakers, I challenge Christians of every stripe around this nation to weigh that approach against the one commanded by our heavenly Lord. Jesus defined evil as something that is within us, all of us. Evil is not just resident in the hearts of foreign dictators. It is resident in our hearts as well. Jesus taught us not to hate each other but to hate the evil that is within us. Jesus' proposed solution is to love that evil out of each other rather than try to destroy it by destroying each others' bodies. Jesus challenges us to defeat our enemies by making them our friends.

But—and here's where the cross comes in—even if that attempt fails, Jesus teaches us to endure evil and violence rather than to inflict it. When Jesus bids us take up our cross and follow him, he was not calling us to arms, to swing that cross like a battle axe to crush the heads of the infidels. The cross is the symbol of self-denial, self-sacrifice, the nonviolent response to evil. It is the symbol of the world's hatred and violence absorbed and defeated by forgiveness and love. We may not owe a hateful neighbor, a sworn blood enemy, anything. But we owe Jesus everything. It is a debt of love we can never repay. And Jesus has clearly said that the way to love Him is to love one another, love our neighbor, and love our enemy.

And so I challenge this congregation to press the attack of love. Chase the terrorism of hatred and violence to the mean streets of Chicago and the slums of San Juan and St. Croix. Hunt it down in East L.A., Tijuana, Mexico, and the forests of Guatemala. Smoke it out of the caves of Afghanistan and the cities of Iraq and the alleyways of Palestine. Hunt down hatred and violence and eradicate it with love.

Take risks for your faith. Send your young men and women and your most beloved senior citizens into the battle. Put them on buses and planes and ferry them to the front lines. Be not ashamed that their only uniform is the armor of light and their flag the banner of love.

Understand that lives may be lost. But let no lives be taken. Do not lower yourself to the tactics of the Enemy. For after the cross comes a crown. After the suffering comes the glory! Even now, Jesus' cross stands empty to the skies. The stone has been rolled back; the tomb has given up its dead; and he has promised, "Because I live, you will live also!" (John 14:19).

And from the mountaintop he declares,

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."

(Matt. 5:4,5,7,9)

Guided meditation
by Liz Bidgood Enders
Sept. 11, 2002

In your hands, you each hold a piece of plaster. It is a symbol of the crumbling of lives and buildings, a tangible way to remember the pain we felt as our world's perspective change before our eyes. Unthinkable acts of violence, of terror, stopped us wherever we were, drawing us into watching or hearing about hijacked planes crashing into the twin towers, to the Pentagon, into a small town in Pennsylvania. Some of us felt a closer connection than others. We may have lost loved ones, family and friends who had no preparation for what would happen to them. Others may be connected in less concrete ways, feeling a sense of empathy for lives we never knew.

Many asked why, and a year later the answers are still not satisfying. Some of us still feel sharp pain, both for the losses and for the senseless violence. We are not as naive or innocent as we were 366 days ago. Now we live with an ongoing war on terrorism, with wars and rumors of wars in multiple parts of the world. We long for peace, yet we live with brokenness.

For a moment, close your fingers around the piece of rubble. Feel its sharp edges and be aware of the discomfort it brings if you squeeze too tightly. Our pain is bound up in pieces of rubble such as these. Each one of our individual pains, when experienced alone, seems unbearable, in surmountable.

Now slowly, open your hands, and allow the pressure of the plaster to ease. It is for this reason that we join together in worship on this day of remembrance. We come, carrying whatever burdens or pain remain with us, knowing that what we cannot bear alone, we are able to share with God in the presence of others. It is here that we can find comfort in knowing that our struggles and concerns are not meaningless. It is here that we remember that God is ever-present and ever longing to bring comfort in the midst of fear and sorrow. It is here that we are able to see the strength of communities who dare to hope in the midst of destruction. Finally, by opening ourselves to the Spirit, we are freed from the sting of the symbol in our hands. We still feel its pressure and weight, but by refusing to shut ourselves up in our own worlds, we do not need to suffer the full burden of events before us.

Beyond this measure of comfort, we are further invited by our faith to lay our burden at the feet of the cross. We worship one for whom not even death could overpower. Christ remains in us, leading us into the future, even when we are uncertain of what that future may contain. By the promises of abundant life that Jesus offers, we find the strength to pick up the pieces of our pain and hand them over, knowing that we cannot fix the brokenness on our own. Christ, who binds all things together through his love, reminds us that destruction and pain are not the final answers Even as we come to remember horrific events, we are looking ahead with vision to rise above sadness and to proclaim good news In the next moments, I invite you to bring your piece of rubble and place it at the cross. Your hands may still feel the memory of its weight and pressure, but it can no longer threaten or hurt you.

From rubble, Christ builds a new creation, restoring wholeness to the emptiness in lives, offering peace that the world cannot give or even fully understand. Let us, as individuals and as a worshiping community, offer both our pain and our faith in a God who blesses all nations as we pray for healing.

Copyright © Liz Bidgood Enders. Bidgood Enders is co-pastor of the Mack Memorial Church of the Brethren. This meditation was part of a worship service planned by Amy Messler, Ron McAdams, Steve Bollinger, and Liz and Greg Bidgood Enders, and held Sept. 11, 2002, at the Trotwood Church of the Brethren and open to the entire Southern Ohio District.

Interfaith service
Meditation by Erin Matteson
Sept. 11, 2002

In my tradition, the Christian tradition, there are stories of two different women. One, Lot's wife, was called, while her homeland was being devastated and destroyed, to move on, to flee to a new place. She was told not to look back, but to focus forward, toward where she was going. But she could not do it. She looked back, transfixed on the images there, paralyzed by fear. The story says, she turned into a pillar of salt.

The other woman, Ruth, was in a foreign land with her mother-in-law, Naomi, and two other sisters-in-law, when suddenly all their men died. Grief-stricken, confused, even devastated, the sisters-in-law went back to their homeland. But Ruth resolved to stay with Naomi, and the two of them, leaning on one another, walked forward, eyes fixed on the future, living to create that future—a future as God always promises and desires for us, filled with healing, hope, and new life.

I said right after 9/11 that there were two images that day, one of selfless service toward others, even the stranger, kindness and love, and one of evil and violence. And we had to choose which one we wanted to build on in our families, our neighborhoods, our community, and even the world.

But we Americans can tend to have a short memory—attention deficit disorder—and fear is hard to overcome. I wonder what we are committed to still today, and how we are doing a year later. It is a time to remember and even shed some more tears—but a time to remember backward, as we clearly look and remain focused forward toward what is possible, lest we get transfixed on the images of our grief, get paralyzed by the realities of our fears, and turn into a pillar of salt.

A lot died that day a year ago, but a lot of opportunity was also birthed: The opportunity for relationship-building across local community and even national lines. The opportunity for greater understanding of our differences and a greater commitment to mutual respect and the building of bridges toward a genuine and lasting peace. A new vision of people's capacity for good and kindness and mercy and what that could mean.

Friends, we can no longer afford to teach our children the importance of such things and hold them accountable, only to confuse them as youth and young adults with a "yeah, but this situation is different." It is not enough to hope for love to win out or to hope for peace. Our community and the world is a stage, and we are the players! We are each writing the entrances and exits and chapters with our very lives everyday, with situations that occur in our schools and workplaces, and homes and neighborhoods and the ways we choose to respond in them. And together, we do have the capacity to make better choices toward a future with hope, greater respect for others, and real peace. Together, we do have the power to overcome poverty and injustice, fertile ground for violence. Together we do have the capacity to save the thousands of lives still being lost daily—whether or not the names are read—to starvation, environmental issues, lack of education, or AIDS.

If 9/11 is to be a day America, and the world, was changed, we must each continue to make a decision for what that will mean, everyday.

Let today be a time of great remembrance, but also of great recommitment. Out of your convictions as a person of faith, or as a human being, choose this day one thing that you will do to actively work for hope and peace in your home, school, this community, or the world. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with you and me.

If we are going to have any vengeance, let it be a vengeance for peace, knowing it is possible, and making it so everyday. If each one did only one thing, worked at one intentional choice, imagine the ripples it could have. Let us lean on one another and make a choice beyond fear or violence, to walk looking and working toward a better future for our world.

Copyright © 2002 Erin Matteson. These remarks were part of a community interfaith service held at the Riverwalk in Batavia, Ill., where Matteson pastors Faith Church of the Brethren. At the end of the service, participants lit thousands of luminaria—one for each life lost on Sept. 11, 2001—and floated them down the Fox River.


By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79