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SERMONS

Day of Horror
Tuesday of Constance and Her Companions
September 11, 2001

By John Sewell

Yesterday on my off day I watched the movie Independence Day. The special effects were incredible as the aliens destroyed New York and Washington. I awakened this morning to a scene eerily like the movie only the special effects were the work of human beings.

What can one say on a day like this? It's the sort of day that forever after you remember where you were when you learned of the event. Millions of lives will never be the same again. We react in horror that someone could do such a thing. This is the sort of hatred that takes one's breath. The human heart is capable of love but also unspeakable evil. When confronted with such a spectacle of carnage we feel the deep need we have for each other. So we gather as Christians always to tell the story, to quiet the fear in our hearts and to speak to the hope that is in us.

The readings chosen for tonight are the propers for peace from the prayer book. Let us look at them together. The prophet Micah looks into the distant future to a time when Jerusalem is not a place of conflict but the fountainhead of grace with people streaming to it for justice and peace. "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not life up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." These words adore the United Nations building in New York City.

Paul writing to the Church at Colossae reminds them to "above all, clothe themselves with love" a message that is hard to hear on this day when our hearts are troubled and our minds turn toward vengeance. Our Lord is even clearer when he tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you. But we don't want to.

Above all brothers and sisters we must not allow those who have attacked our nation to reduce us, in our anger and grief, to become like them. That is not our way. We pray for justice yes, vengeance no.

Today we make our prayers together for those who have died, for their families and those who care for them. We pray for the President, the Congress, the Cabinet and all those in authority that they may make wise decisions for the protection of our nation. We pray for the men and women of the armed forces, those in law enforcement and those of the healing arts that they will have stamina and skill in ministry.

We come to communion this night encountering the risen Jesus in bread and wine, the same Jesus who forgave his those who killed him. Let us pray for grace to do the same. Amen.

John Sewell
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi