"No More Terror"

Psalm 10

Luke 12:49-56

A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley

September 16, 2001

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

As I survey the news reports, the TV, the radio and the myriad of stories in the aftermath of the tragedy in New York and in Washington, words seem insufficient to address the breadth and depth of feelings. I know we have loved ones we still haven’t heard from or we have loved ones who are awaiting words of loved ones. There’s a rawness to our feelings. There’s a profound sense of vulnerability that pervades our national mood. There is the deep desire on the part of myself and other parents to protect our children, but seeing now that there may be no way to ultimately do so.

So the preacher needs to ask, "how do you preach on this?" How do we cope?

What is the word from God in the midst of this crisis? I don’t pretend to have all of the answers. But I am willing to go and look at some of the questions this raises.

Why do people hate us so much?

Why do innocent people have to die?

Why the Pentagon and the World Trade Center?

Who dunnit?

Where are they?

Are we to suspect every person of who wears traditional garb or who speaks with a Middle eastern accent?

And most importantly, what should our response be?

There are plenty of weeks, months and years ahead to address these questions and more. What we need to do as a community is to come together and support one another in our varying places of grief and anguish, knowing that we are and will be at different places. Some are angry. Some are still in shock. Some are numb. Some are avoiding this all together, playing video games or solitaire instead of looking at the news footage for hours on end.

I deal with my own feelings by trying to analyze this from a Biblical perspective. Through this lens, I can try to get a handle on the political ramifications and find not only a response of grace, but a set of insights that might be in line with God’s plan. By the way, nothing in the Bible has persuaded me that the ACLU or the feminists or pro-choice groups or even the GLBT Community has brought this on, despite the claims of Jerry Falwell, which were affirmed by Pat Robertson.

Psalm 10 has come back to me over and over again. I read it at a vigil on the steps of Northrop on Tuesday and Chea read it here at our vigil on Tuesday night. It describes the seeming mentality of the terrorists of September 11^th. "they stoop, they crouch, and the helpless fall by their might."(10:10) My mind goes to pictures of helpless people falling to their deaths like so much debris. "Their ways prosper at all times; your judgements are on high, out of their sight." (10:5) They seem so powerful, so much in control, so uncaring about God or the people they killed.

"They sit in ambush in the villages; in hiding places they murder the innocent." (10:8) Where are they? Who is the next terrorist? This gets downright alarming. God’s word that ends the psalm is this "Do justice…so that those from earth may strike terror no more."(10:18) We can all agree on that. No more terror!!

But as I looked more closely at this Psalm, I noticed that these particular enemies persecuted the poor and the oppressed. "In arrogance the wicked persecute the poor." (10:2) "Their eyes stealthily watch for the helpless…they lurk so they might seize the poor and drag them off in their net."(10:9) "O Lord, you will hear the desire of the meek, you will strengthen their heart and incline your ear to do justice FOR THE ORPHAN AND THE OPPRESSED, so that those from earth may strike terror no more."(10:17, 18)

Now it takes on a different flavor.

Those in the Trade Center and the Pentagon were not by and large the poor or the oppressed. In the eyes of the terrorists, they seemed to be or at least represented the rich and dare we say the oppressors. They chose to strike the most visible signs of capitalism and the military complex that supports and defends it. I’m not defending them, I’m trying to get inside their minds. We are the richest nation in the world, controlling the greatest amount of wealth and the securest army. What the terrorists did was to show us that those institutions do not save us.

What does save us? What saves us is the way of Jesus. I’m not talking so much about taking him as your own personal private savior as much as I’m talking about taking on the ethics and prerogatives of Jesus. Jesus was always saying, "put your faith in God, not in impersonal institutions that exist to make money or keep control.

Put your faith in God who makes all things new.

Put your faith in God who keeps God’s eye on the sparrow.

Put your faith in God who knows and cares about the oppressed and the oppressor alike."

Jesus gives us some hard words in today’s gospel reading. He says we ought to be able to read the signs of the times. He says "you know when it’s going to rain, how is it you can’t read the signs of the times?" If we export terrorism to other soils, by our tax dollars, our military machine or our training bases, why does it surprise us that we are subject to attack? Ken Sehested of the Baptist Peace Fellowship wrote this past week,

"Even if someone the caliber of Osama bin Laden, whose name has frequently been mentioned as a suspect behind the simultaneous, bloody attacks on the market-military monuments, is found to be responsible, the believing community needs to recall an embarrassing bit of history. It was the U.S. who originally recruited, trained and supplied bin Laden and his colleagues for guerrilla warfare. Back then, his services were as a "hot" proxy agent in our "cold" war with the Soviet Union. He has since

found a more lucrative offer on the "free market" of global political violence.

And of course there's the recent demonization of Saddam Hussein, whose original chemical weapons arsenal was supplied by the U.S. back when he was still our ally against the Iranian Ayatollah.

To our shame, and our peril, we have little knowledge of a millennium of Western meddling in Arab affairs, deposing this ruler, propping up that one, with no criteria other than cost/benefit calculations. Few in the U.S. realize that our nation, aided by Great Britain, has waged the longest bombing campaign in human history against Iraq. Since the formal end of the Gulf War—and without even the semblance of United Nations' authority—we have over the past decade, on a weekly, sometimes daily

basis, continued to rain death from the skies.

UNICEF, the U.N.'s own child-welfare agency, has indicated that at least a half-million Iraqi children have died since the end of Desert Storm from causes directly related to the international economic sanctions. When former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Madeleine Albright was asked point-blank on national television if the death of half a million children was worth the price of opposing Hussein, she said yes. We say no. The competition of loyalty is that stark. Choose this day whom you will serve. "

Of course these people will feel desperate. Of course they will be enraged. And without repentance from us, they seek retaliation. As we seek to match their might, my fear is that we will continue down this road of violence without asking the hard questions of justice behind it all.

The time has come to end the cycle. Until we do so, there will be more terror, more warfare, more bloodshed. We are called to put an end to this carnage once and for all.

We have the capacity as people of faith to stand up in the face of patriotism and blood-rage which we share. And we have the responsibility to look to the scriptures and see if the Jesus we follow has another way out. He does.

It is the way of nonviolence.

It is the way of standing up to the powers of evil and saying, "enough injustice. Don’t you see what this is bringing us?"

Jesus said in Matthew 5 that we should "not return evil for evil but love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us,"

Saint Paul said in Romans 12: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Quoting Proverbs 25 it continues, "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and God will reward you."

Retaliation leads to more retaliation, fighting fire with fire only creates a larger fire and an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

"Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord."

Martin Luther King said it so eloquently: "The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate...Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that."

Mahatma Gandhi noted, "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end they always fail. Think of it, ALWAYS."

Sisters and brothers, as we grieve, lift up names, listen to news of family, friends and co-workers, let us listen to Jesus as well.

Let us cling to his mercy.

Let us remember the words of American Baptist Pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick who wrote these words during World War II when he served as pastor Of Riverside Church in New York City:

God of grace and God of glory, on thy people pour thy power.

Crown thy ancient church’s story bring it’s bud to glorious flower.

Grant us wisdom grant us courage for the facing of this hour.

Lo the hosts of evil round us scorn thy Christ, assail Christ’s ways!

From the fears that long have bound us free our hearts to faith and praise.

Grant us wisdom grant us courage for the living of these days.

Cure thy children’s warring madness. Bend our pride to thy control.

Shame our wanton selfless gladness, rich in things but poor in soul.

Grant us wisdom grant us courage lest we miss thy promised goal.

Set our feet on lofty places. Gird our lives that they may be

Armored with all Christ-like graces in the fight for liberty

Grant us wisdom grant us courage that we fail not all nor thee.

Save us from weak resignation to the evils we deplore.

Let the search for thy salvation be our glory evermore.

Grant us wisdom grant us courage serving thee whom we adore.

Grant us the courage, wisdom and patience to seek the truth in the midst of these confusing weeks while never losing our compassion for those suffering.

Grant us the courage and wisdom to focus our anger on the actions of the perpetrators and not on their religion, their race or even the poor people surrounding them who rightfully fear more innocent bloodshed in our own retaliation.

Grant us the wisdom and courage to talk about our fears and our misgivings, but never losing the capacity to seek love, mercy, justice and holy love that is the hallmark of true religion.

Let us find a new way to awaken to the reality of what we have sown in this world these past many years. May God have mercy on us and all those people who see further violence as the only solution.

Let us sow new seeds of justice, mercy, and peace so that the people of the earth may strike terror no more.

Back to Recent Sermon Page