Marcia Sietstra:  Pastor

This has obviously been a week like no other in our lives.  On Tuesday, nearly 5,000 lives were ended; countless others were shattered by loss.  Our feelings of safety in America crumbled; for many, the sense of control has been diminished.  By now you have seen the images on television over and over.  You have heard reporters describe the scope of a tragedy unmatched in American history. Even Pearl Harbor pales by comparison.

In terms of psychological impact, one of the reasons this attack is more unsettling than the attack of Dec. 7, 1941 , is because mostly military personnel were killed at Pearl harbor .  This time civilians died; this time we aren’t sure who the enemy is, or where the enemy is.  If you have found yourself feeling alternately numb, sad, fearful, angry, or just plain confused this week that’s normal.  Don’t be surprised if you have trouble sleeping or feel emotionally fragile.  Today we are doing two of the best things we can do at a time like this look to God for some comfort and guidance, and be together to talk about what has happened.  It will be important to continue doing these two things in the days and weeks and months ahead. 

Just a word of practical advice: it is extremely important to spend time with your natural supports church, friends and family and to talk about what is happening so you can clarify your feelings.  This actually decreases anxiety.  Also, experts are advising parents  not to share your own anxieties with younger children, but to keep your own feelings and anxieties in check in front of them.  Most of the children have seen or heard frightening things this week and their level of fear, anger or sadness is already heightened.  There is a green handout on the table near the sanctuary door which offers some advice from psychologists on how to talk to children about what has happened.  Don’t be surprised if they act up because they are under stress too.

Last Tuesday, Nancy and I changed the plans for this service quite a bit, as you can well imagine.  It was originally planned as a joyous celebration with our Ukrainian guest singers and 2 baptisms.  We considered postponing the special events but decided it was appropriate that both should occur.  After all, our Ukrainian guests know what it’s like to live in fear.  They know what it’s like to see one’s country suffer.  They witness to the strength and hope to which we cling today.  Even though they are exiles from their country, which they left because of religious persecution, they know who they are— children of God.  And that is the identity they choose to claim, wherever in the world they happen to live.  They remind me of the Israelites in the Bible, who were forced out of their country, into Babylonian exile, but it was there that they figured out who they were apart from where they happened to live.  They knew they were God’s children, made to do some good in the world, reflecting their God, regardless of where they happened to end up. 

It is also appropriate to baptize infants today.  There is an old saying that says the two most important days in a person’s life are the day you are born and the day you discover why you were born.  Today, the waters of baptism remind us of why we were born.  Baptism says, "I, God, claim you.  You are mine.

Baptism isn’t a sign of something Brett and Mara’s parents have done; it’s a sign of what God has done, claiming these children before they do anything to deserve it.  No matter where they go in life, they can remind themselves, I am God’ own.  And hopefully that will help them figure out why they were born to live like they belong to God!  To live a life that reflects God.  I wish we had a huge baptismal fount, just for today.  I’d invite everyone to take turns looking into it, to see your own reflection, so you would be reminded that it is here in the baptismal water that you can see who you are.  You are God’s own, and you are here to live like it.

It seems to me that remembering who we are and whose we are can help us tremendously in the coming days. First, it helps to calm me when I remember that this is God’s world, and no matter how messed up it is, it is not entirely up to me and you to fix it.  It is God’s creation, and that comforts me.  But here’s the thing I want to pose to you this morning:  if we’re going to live like people who know we belong to God, what’s that mean?  What is distinctive about people who live like they belong to God?

It means you don’t just react out of anger or fear. You ask yourself, instead, what would God have us do?  I participated in an internet discussion among clergy this week, and want to read to you what a pastor named Ted wrote.  He quotes Romans 12:17: Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. And then he goes on to say:  "Now that we have so dramatically tasted the bitter fruit of terrorism, we can refrain from overreaction, refrain from acting out of revenge and refrain from punishing a larger group for the actions of a few.  We can approach the subject of mid East peace as a fellow sufferer who from a similar level of pain can challenge both sides to place peace above revenge, place peace above keeping score of who has killed more of whose loved ones.[1]

Here is what another pastor shared:  I heard about the tragedy [at the World Trade Center ] as I was driving into church Tuesday morning.  The public radio station suspended its broadcast of "A Writer’s Almanac" to bring the 9:01 NPR news on the first plane rash.  In the course of that broadcast, the second plane hit.  I arrived at my office about 9:20 and turned on my radio.  I was unable to get the station I had been listening to and began trying to get an AM station.  I have no idea what talk show was on the first station I pulled in, but the first thing I heard was, ‘This is what we get for letting all those Rag Heads into our country.’  I couldn’t believe my ears!  The tragedy was only 15 minutes old and someone was spouting an anti-Muslim diatribe using racial/ethnic stereotyping."[2]

Any serious scholar of the Muslim faith can tell you that it is a religion of peace.  Those who masterminded this plot and those who carried it out, assuming that they were Islamic terrorists, do not represent the faith of Muhammad, any more than white supremacists hiding in the mountains of Idaho with guns and bombs represent the faith of Jesus Christ.    Unfortunately, a small minority of the world’s 1 billion Muslims have perverted its message, just as there are those who pervert Christianity’s message.  Someone like Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, might profess to be a Christian, but his faith no more represents all of Christianity than the beliefs of these terrorists represent the Muslim faith.

I have here a statement signed by more than 100 leaders of faith traditions in the U.S. , including Christians, Muslims and Jews.  It’s signatories include our UCC President John Thomas as well as conservative evangelicals, other mainline Protestants, Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox leaders, as well as Jewish and Muslim leaders. You can read it on our UCC website.  Here is part of what it says:

In the face of such a cruel catastrophe, it is time to look to God and to each other for the strength we need and the response we will make.  Our houses of worship should become public arenas for common prayer, community discussion, eventual healing…We offer a word of sober restraint as our nation discerns what its response will be.  We share the deep anger toward those who so callously and massively destroy innocent lives, no matter what the grievances or injustices invoked.  -

In the name of God, we too demand that those responsible for these utterly evil acts be found and brought to justice.  Those culpable must not escape accountability.  But we must not, out of anger and vengeance, indiscriminately retaliate in ways that bring on even more loss of innocent life.  We pray that President Bush and members of Congress will seek the wisdom of God as they decide upon the appropriate response. -

We face… profound questions of what this attack will do to us as a nation.  The terrorists have offered us a stark view of the world they would create, where the remedy to every human grievance and injustice is a resort to the random and cowardly violence of revenge—even against the most innocent… -

But we can deny them their victory by refusing to submit to a world created in their image….We must not allow this terror to drive us away from being the people God has called us to be.  We assert the vision of community, tolerance, compassion, justice and the sacredness of human life, which lies at the heart of all our religious traditions.  America must be a safe place for all our citizens in all their diversity.  It is especially important that our citizens who share national origins, ethnicity, or religion with whoever attacked us are, themselves, protected among us.[3] -

One of the things you can do right now to help yourself feel better and to help others is to go out of your way to be kind to people here in our city, particularly those of other ethnic groups and other religions.  Youth—you can make a point of smiling or offering a kind word to kids at school who look Arab.  This is not their fault.  Make a donation, give blood, pray, do your part to remind the world that there is SO MUCH goodness in people.

Finally, I would like to close with a very short story another pastor named Elmer Scofield posted on the UCC clergy discussion site:

Throughout the day and evening yesterday, I absorbed it all.  The unfolding reports on radio and tv.  Peoples’ opinions…reactions to…feelings about the indescribably horrible events in New York , the DC area, and Western Pennsylvania .  I held things in check, inside myself.  I sought with the help of the Holy Spirit, to give help, comfort, and a listening ear to those who came to the church to speak with me, or who called on the telephone.  I was asked to be at the sanctuary of our local Council of Churches to pray with, counsel, and bring some peace and hope to those who came there during the afternoon and early evening.

Before I left the Council, I called the church to check for messages.  There was one.  A couple wanted me to know that they were preparing to leave for the hospital for the birth of their twins!  I rushed over to the hospital and was with them until it was time for the babies to be delivered.  At around 8:45 pm , Robert and Eliza entered the world.  I saw them wheeled out of the delivery area, dad in tow! -

On the way home, it all came pouring out.  All the feelings that were simmering inside about the terrors of the day…but also all the feelings of joy and hope about two new lives!  For me, yesterday was a terrible day of death.  But it was also an incredibly amazing and hope-filled day of life! -

In life and in death, we belong to God.  We are God’s children—whether we come from different faiths or countries, we are God’s humanity.  Remembering who we are and whose we are can bring us calmness, hopefulness, and wisdom in the days ahead.

As you leave today, I invite you to see pictures which the youth took off the internet and put up on the bulletin board this morning.  They show people from around the world expressing their prayers and sympathy.  We will close by hearing the youth read prayers that have been sent to the national UCC website from around the world, and then singing the benediction "We Belong to God."  

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[1] http://www.ucc.org/discus/messages/787/787.html

[2] Ibid.

[3] http://www.ucc.org (follow link)