"Faith for Times Such as These"
Jeremiah 8:18 -9:1; Matthew 5:1-9

Where were you on September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the
World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon, using passenger airplanes
like bombs?

This has already become one of those awful defining moments in the
history of our nation... and in the lives of the people. Horrendous,
like what happened at Columbine High School in Colorado. Terrifying,
like the destruction of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Moments that define us in some way, and change us, like the day when
President Kennedy was shot.

We may travel through the Holocaust Memorial Museum with horrified
wonder at the evil it is a witness to, but that was someone else's
society. We may see images of devastation wrought by natural disaster
or war in in the Middle East or Africa, but it doesn't hit close to home
for most of us us.

But this. This unspeakable horror. What happened Tuesday shatters
whatever illusions we have about being invulnerable because we live in
America. From now on, we will look at the world in a different way. We
feel vulnerable in ways we didn't before. As the prophet Jeremiah
lamented long ago, the summer is over, the harvest is in, and we are
not safe."

The feelings are still so raw for many people. Like many others, I've
been riveted to the TV. On Tuesday, news clips showed family members of
people whose loved ones worked inside the World Trade Center as they
kept vigil, and asked "What are you praying for?"

"Pray to whom?" one distraught relative asked. God took all these
people... "

Another family member of a victim was venting his rage toward the
terrorists: "I don't know what kind of a God they got, but it ain't
ours."

We lament with Jeremiah, "My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart
is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the
land: 'Is the Lord not here with us?'"

How do we respond to this terrible devastation? To the unspeakable
evil? The staggering loss of lives which are so precious to their
families and friends. What do we do with feelings of deep despair over
how people can perpetrate such acts of violence against other people?
What do we do with feelings of anger against those who committed the
atrocities? What do we do with our desire for revenge? How do we
overcome our fears and anxiety so we can go on?

How do we respond during times of national crisis? Or personal or
family crisis? What kind of faith do we need in times like these?

As we watched the news coverage, we saw that millions have been turning
to their faith to nurture and sustain them. And people are asking all
kinds of questions of faith.

A few days ago Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson were asking Rev.
Franklin Graham on national television what theologians call the
"theodicy" question. This is a question that people of faith have
struggled with since before the time of Job. Why do bad things happen
to innocent people... good people? If God is merciful and
all-powerful, how do we explain what happened Tuesday?

I don't have any simple answers for you. But I am certain that God's
love is greater than our understanding. God loves us freely and wants
us to choose to love and serve God freely, so God has given us the
gift of free will. We're not puppets being manipulated by God's
power. We have the freedom to do great things. But we are also free to
do terrible evil.

God didn't cause the terrorists to do what they did. God did not take
the people who died Tuesday. That was not God's doing. It was a deed
perpetrated by people overcome by the forces of evil. And, contrary to
what you may have heard Jerry Falwell say on TV in response to this
tragedy, God does not kill thousands of people to punish abortionists,
feminists, gays and lesbians, and the ACLU, and to bring a sinful,
secular society back to God and to punish!

The God we come together to worship is a loving God, a God to whom all
life is precious.

I believe God grieves with us, as we hear in Jeremiah: "For the hurt
of my poor people I am hurt. I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of
me." Do you hear God asking his people, "Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored? O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes
a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of
my poor people!"

One of the things we can know in times such as these is that God loves
us and weeps-- with us and for us.

Another thing we can know with certainty is that God is with us and
will give us the strength to deal with what is happening. In the
Revelation to John, we hear the risen Christ saying, "Do not be afraid.
I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I
am alive forever and ever..." [Rev. 1:17-18]

What is the message we hear from God's angelic messengers throughout
the Bible? "Fear not. Don't be afraid. God is with you."

As the apostle Paul reassures us, "Who can separate us from the love of
Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword?.... No, in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him who loved us. 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 creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord." [Romans 8:35-38]

The events of this week have been devastating... disorienting. Our
world has been changed. But the mental health professionals and
spiritual leaders we've heard part of the news coverage have agreed that
we need to find a way to put it back together and find a way to feel
safe again, and that we need to come together and share our feelings and
our faith.

Just as this attack on our life as a nation will become a test of our
national character, this week's events will become a test of our
faith. Out of the devastation and chaos, God can work in and among us
to bring about good.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we should not be surprised by evidence of
the real presence of evil in the world, or the power that sin can have
in all our lives. In the aftermath of Tuesday's devastation, we may
struggle with our own anger and a thirst for vengeance. On a
national level, we see it in the growing militarism, in the talk of
responding to the terrorist strikes with targeted attacks on countries
that are thought to harbor the terrorists. It will be a test of our
national character in how we discern or fail to discern between justice
and vengeance.

In a time such as this, we need to take a long, hard look at the root
causes of what happened Tuesday. Why do those terrorists hate the
United States so much? If we don't do something about the root causes
of the devastation, can there ever be peace? But more about that next
week.

In local communities, and especially in our metro Detroit community, I
am disturbed by how many people have been targeting our Arab-American
neighbors verbally... and a few by assaulting them. Many of our
Arab-American neighbors are suffering not only the pain that the rest of
us experience, but also feelings of guilt by association because the
terrorists are allegedly Arab and Muslim... and also great fear.

Bill Gepford and I have been involved in several meetings with Muslim
and Christian religious leaders this past week, and we also attended
prayer services at two Islamic houses of worship. One of the imams told
us of the bomb threat at their school, and several of the imams
described the volume of hate mail they received over the internet.

One Arab-American woman told how she went to buy gas and left without
getting it after she heard another patron shouting words of hate at
another Muslim woman.

A woman at the prayer meeting Friday told me how she and so many others
have been "sick" ever since Tuesday. She touched her stomach as she
said it. "I haven't wanted to go out since then, she said. She made
herself go to the bank, and the tellers were fine, but some of the
people in line-- that was something else.

She almost didn't come to Friday prayers, she said. She was afraid of
violence. But she made herself come to prayers, and she was glad she
had come to hear Imam Elahi's words of peace... and to see the witness
of the Christians who came to show their support and to pray
together-- Baptists, Episcopaleans, Presbyterians, and others.

Friday evening as I started out for my walk my neighbor called out to
thank me for the beans I gave her last weekend from my garden. (Some of
you have met her. She brought her kids to Peace Camp.) When I
approached her, she started crying, saying, "Oh Fran, we're all so sorry
about what happened. It's so terrible."

I had to reassure her that I knew she and our other neighbors didn't
have anything to do with what the terrorists did.

Is there a balm in Gilead? How can the health of all God's people be
restored?

One of the most hopeful, inspiring themes I've seen in all the news
coverage during the past few days are the many and various ways people
have volunteered to alleviate suffering... and the ways people have
bonded together as a national community.

People have driven and flown across the country to help with the search
and rescue operation at the World Trade Center, hoping to find more
people still alive... and to bring closure to the people whose loved
ones are missing. Mental health and religious workers have gone to
offer comfort to those who keep vigil. People have been giving blood.
Millions of dollars have been donated to the Red Cross and other relief
organizations. Truckloads of supplies are caravanning to New York.
People have bought food and water and distributed it to rescue workers.
I could go on and on....

A vitally important part of the healing process for us personally is
finding ways to help... to serve. It helps us to transcend our
individual pain and feelings of powerlessness. It helps us to find
comfort and meaning in being part of a community that's working toward
healing.

We may not be able to go to New York City or Washington, D.C. or
Pennsylvania to help, but there are ways we can help. I believe we are
called to do so.

Back in the 1970's the leaders of Littlefield Presbyterian Church
identified some needs in the local community and began a ministry to the
Arab-American neighbors. This congregation has been a leader in
interfaith relations in the metro Detroit area.

Out of the ashes of Tuesday's devastation, God seems to be bringing
about greater openness and unity between the Christians and Muslims in
our community. At the meeting Bill and I attended Wednesday at the
Institute of Knowledge on Schaefer, Imam Qazwini suggested that we need
to be visiting one another's houses of worship more than as a one-time
event during a time of crisis.

If Christians would go to Friday prayers and Muslims attend Sunday
worship as guests, we would learn to understand one another's beliefs
and traditions, and we would get to know one another as brothers and
sisters, children of Abraham together... people who worship the same
God.

It was important to have a Christian presence at the House of Wisdom to
show our support and compassion for our Muslim brothers and sisters
Friday, and it was important for the Christians present to hear Imam
Elahi say very emphatically that what the terrorists did goes against
the teachings of the Koran. It was important for us to hear how much of
what the imam said in his "lecture" could have been part of a sermon in
a mainline Christian church aimed at building understanding and unity.

Islam is currently either the second or third largest religious group
in the United States, and it is vitally important that we learn to
understand one another and cooperate with each other. I believe that
the people at Littlefield have an important leadership role to play in
pursuing ways of peace and understanding.

With this in mind, I am hoping that we can have one of our local imams
and some other muslims as our guests on Sunday during early October. I
also hope that some of you will join me to attend a prayer service at an
Islamic house of worship on a Friday in the near future.

During a time such as this, we are called to work toward the healing we
need in our community... in our nation... and the world. We are
called to be a balm... to restore our community to health and
wholeness. Tune in next week for more about how we refuse to be
overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

In the meantime, let us pray that God will bring about the healing we
need in our hearts. Let us pray that God will use us as peacemakers in
a world so filled with strife and pain. May we know how the blessings
of being God's peacemakers.

In a time such as this, may our hearts be joined in the prayer offered
by Saint Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console,
to be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love,
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

The Rev. Frances Hayes
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
September 16, 2001

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