Create in me a clean heart, O God, *and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:11)
Today we remember the day, September 11, 2001. Today is the 15th anniversary of that day. Most of us can remember where we were and what we doing when we either watched with horror or heard with disbelief that two planes had flown into the World Trade Center towers. I was in Austin, Texas, working out at a gym when a news flash came on the TV about a plane crashing into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. And then with disbelief, I watched as another plane flew into the south tower. I left the gym and went straight to my church, St. David’s Episcopal Church in downtown Austin. I did not know what was happening, but I knew where I needed to be. I knew somehow that something important was being lost and I wanted to be with people of faith who would join me in my disbelief, yet knowing that we must reach out in anguish for the God of love.
Much has happened in our country and in our world since that horrible day. In fact, many believe that we have been both strengthened and upended by what we witnessed on September 11. In the months that followed this terrible tragedy we learned about the many people who reached out in heroic ways to care for their fellow human beings. We became almost immediately aware of the scores of police officers, fire fighters, and emergency workers who rushed into the smoking and burning building, sacrificing their own lives to help save others. We have heard stories of the people who died in one of the towers spending their last moments reaching out in love, comforting their family and friends. We know about the selfless flight attendants and passengers on Flight 93 whose actions prevented that plane from crashing into the Washington Mall killing many hundreds of people. And I just recently learned of a young man in a red bandana, Welles Crowther, an investment banker for Sandler O’Neill who literally carried people down eighteen flights of stairs, out of fire and choking smoke, saving their lives.
In our Gospel reading today, many people are gathering around Jesus. Many of them were “those kind of people.” The kind your parents warned you to avoid when you were younger so that you would not be “corrupted” by the wrong kind of company. The religious authorities are horrified. Jesus seems to be welcoming these tax-collectors and sinners. These sinners are said to be “hearing” Jesus which for Luke means a sign of repentance and conversion. (Luke 5:1, 15; 6:17-18, 27, 47, 49). The religious leaders begin to grumble and so Jesus responds with two short parables, which is his way of opening minds and softening hearts so God’s love can get in.
He first asks them, “Which one of you—he’s talking to us—having a hundred sheep (this indicates great wealth) and losing one of them, leaves the other ninety-nine (wait a minute, this is not about a wealthy man, but a filthy low life shepherd!) in the wilderness and goes after the one that is lost until he finds it.
Well, no one would do that! Risk losing 99 sheep? Leave them unprotected in the wilderness to go looking for one sheep? Jesus’ listeners would have expected the shepherd to protect the ninety-nine. But that is not in the story. Jesus, trusting in the infinite compassion of God, goes searching for the lost sheep, actively seeking restoration of the community. Without that one that is lost, God’s heart is broken. But God doesn’t just want to get back together with the one. God wants to get the one back with the ninety-nine so that the community can be restored to wholeness.
The story of the woman’s search for the one coin is even more dramatic. The coins represent the total security for the woman in a world of scarcity. Losing one coin could mean devastation. And this was not just her pocket change—coins represented her dowry. Losing this coin not only threatened her well-being, it brought dishonor on her character. So she wastes no time lighting lamps, sweeping the house, carefully turning over rugs and chairs and floor boards, vigorously searching for this one coin.
And then when she finds it, what does she do? She calls in all her friends and neighbors for a celebration that could have surpassed the value of the coin she lost. Surely some who witnessed this outlandish generosity clucked under their breath about her foolishness. “She is too generous for her own good” would be whispered. Again, no person would do this. But Jesus tells us, “God does!” God’s generous grace cannot be restrained. God’s grace simply overflows.
Note that the verb in this story does not reference forgiveness, but finding. The Greek word for “find” (eurisko) occurs seven times in this chapter. When the sheep or lost coin is found, no comment is made about sinful behavior, but a connection is established between God’s finding and rejoicing over what was lost.
These parables are beautiful in that every time we hear them something new arises for us. So today I invite you to consider the perspective that we are the ninety-nine sheep or the ten coins who have been found through God’s infinite compassion and generosity. We know that we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves. We are connected with all those other wooly sheep bodies or shiny silver coins. We are a part of all that is—no “us” or “them”—but each created in God’s image. And being found, our hearts have been changed. Our ways of seeing and being changed. And now we are invited to the party to dance with joy when even one is found and returned to wholeness.
We, who have experienced this grace, can trust in the goodness of God. We have been searched for and retrieved with love time and time again. We have been touched by the goodness of others and saved by God’s presence that never fails us.
It can be tempting in our time of 24/7 media, that constantly bombards us with stories of chaos and violence from around the world, to believe that our world is a place of evil that permeates everything, choking out the possibility of goodness and generosity. The event we know simply as 9/11 has convinced many that danger now fills our world and that the only way to insure our safety is by removing or walling off entire groups of people. There is some fear that we are failing in the creation of moral people and again that the way to insure that the righteous are protected is to cast off “them” that falls outside the boundaries we have set around our definition of morality. But while it is true that there are plenty of examples of selfishness and me-ism in our culture, and while we know that we are fragile beings in a perilous world, by focusing exclusively on danger and a vision of fear and scarcity, the primary result is that separation is created in us.
We who have been found by a loving God know danger and fear is not the whole story. As witnesses to God who cares for the 100%–no one left behind, no one discarded or expendable; who inspires some to reach out, even sacrificing all, to care for others; who brings us almost daily experiences of kindness and affirmation that we too can share with others—we can testify to a different story.
The greater reality is that there is so much goodness in our world. Our world is abundant with beauty and courage and grace. Each of you if given even a short moment can recall times when great kindness was shown to you by friends and strangers. I have experienced time and again the amazing generosity of others– moments when people truly gave their all to make me feel welcomed or safe or comfortable. People who have little of the world’s goods, yet offered me sumptuous hospitality. People taking time from their busy lives to care for me and my family. Acts of selfless heroism. People willing to step up and stand with others who suffer.
God sees this potential and continues to seek and search with unrelenting persistence those who feel cast out or marginalized or separated in God’s community. And when each part of God’s creation is brought back into wholeness, when what has been lost has been reclaimed, like a woman and like a shepherd, God “calls together her friends and neighbors saying to them, “Rejoice with me” for I have found what was lost. God celebrates in community when that which is lost is found, when brokenness is restored to wholeness.
The parables we hear this morning break open the conventional habits of thought and heart. These parables ask us to form a heart based on trust and the true nature of reality that is love. They invite us to open our hearts to God who is the source of good for all of creation.
This is not a God of vengeance or moral authoritarianism, but a God of persuasion and joy. God who seeks justice and compassion for all, without reserve, without conditions. God invites us to open our hearts to the possibility of sharing in the joy when a person is found so that everyone has the chance to draw near and “hear” Jesus—to have their hearts turned toward God who is love.
Welles Crowther, along with many others, did not save themselves. His body was found six months later in the lobby of the south tower near a FDNY command post. He, along with Fire Chief Donald Burns, who also died, made it down to the lobby, but not before helping to evacuate thousands of people. Welles’ parents didn’t know what he had done until a New York Times report mentioned a Ms. Young who had been saved by a young man wearing a red handkerchief. The Crowthers sent them a picture of Welles. She recognized him as the one who “saved my life.”[1]
Welles somehow found great courage in seeking to help all he could. He called up a deep well of love and it filled him with courage to do what seems to be outlandish—what no one would be expected to do—and yet he did.
On this day as we stand with those who lost someone they loved, we remember with gratitude the many acts of love that filled this day and the days that followed. These are the stories to hold in our hearts. It does not remove the pain, but it reminds us how deeply we need each other. Not one of us is dispensable. God knows this and God loves us with such wild intensity that God will do anything to be with us, to find us, and to help us live lives filled with love.
15th Anniversary of September 11
Fifteen years after 9/11
what is worth remembering?
How fragile we are.
How deeply we need each other.
How little our differences matter.
That in our vulnerability
we are most human.
That we can always respond to violence
with violence or with peace.
That violence begets violence.
That in danger, chaos and trauma
we can choose to come together.
That you always have a choice
to contribute to the world’s hurt
or its healing.
That we are one.
That entering into the world’s suffering
is divine.
That the world is not ending yet.
How beautiful it is
when we care for each other.[2]
[1] Peggy Noonan, Remembering a hero, 15 years after 9/11. Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2016. http://www.wsj.com/articles/remembering-a-hero-15-years-after-9-11-1473377444.
[2] “15th Anniversary of September 11.” Steve Garnaas-Holmes. Unfolding Light. www.unfoldinglight.net