On Sunday, September 8, 2002 most preachers should help their congregations reflect theologically on the events of September 11, 2001. From a theological point of view, what sense can we make of these events in our personal hearts and worlds and in our social worlds? In these few paragraphs, I aim only to offer some cursory thoughts about the relationship of aspects of the lections from the Revised Common Lectionary for September 8 to the events of 9/11. These comments are not comprehensive exegetical remarks, but focus only on possible points of contact with 9/11. Preachers still need to consult the standard exegetical resources (commentaries, Biblical dictionaries, monographs, lectionary helps, etc.).
Preachers frequently comment on how amazed they are that the assigned lections intersect with what is happening in congregations at the time the lections come up. Although I am often a critic of the lectionary, I am similarly struck today by the applicability of several of the readings to the task of making sense of 9/11. However, that immediate sense of relationship between the lectionary passages and the need to interpret 9/11 also prompts me to state a caution to myself as well as to other preachers. I/we need to be careful not to let my/our pre-existing need to talk about 9/11 pre-determine what I/we hear in the readings. The temptation is to drift into theological eisegesis: having in mind an important theological point that I want to make before I really begin to work with the text, and then thinking I find that point in the texts. I/we need to remember to respect the Otherness of the biblical texts. In contemporary methodological lingo, we need to practice ideology criticism on ourselves, as well as on the biblical texts and the social worlds of the congregation.
In the spirit of ideological criticism, I confess that while I am not a thorough-going pacifist, I do have a theological predilection for eschewing violence of all kinds. I understand justice to mean less people getting what they deserve (especially punishment) and more people living in relationships of mutuality, support, encouragement, and egalitarianism (per Genesis 1). Such theological themes color the ways in which I understand 9/11 and Christian witness in response to it. I want to find these themes in biblical texts, but some of my exegetically and theologically sophisticated friends point out that I sometimes "find" them in biblical passages where they are not. I need to be wary of too quickly concluding that texts manifest my theology.
Several of the texts have a prophetic edge that could lead the preacher to challenge common wisdom regarding 9/11, the terrorists, and the war against terrorism. However, a preacher needs to engage in pastoral listening in the local congregation to determine whether the preacher's particular community most needs this word, or some other.
If the texts do not lead us to what we need to say, a preacher may need to take issue with the texts, or simply to bypass the lections and to preach a topical sermon dealing with 9/11. On the latter, see Ronald J. Allen, Preaching the Topical Sermon (Westminster John Knox Press, 1992) which is available from The Bookstore at Christian Theological Seminary: www.cts.edu/bookstore/bookstoreorder.html or callen@cts.edu or 317-931-2377.
This passage is one of the series of readings that tell the story of the exodus from bondage in Egypt into the Promised Land and the first generations of residence there from Proper 16 [21] on August 25 through Proper 28 [33] on November 17. This series intends to help the congregation not only recollect the journey of the children of Israel in antiquity, but to recognize ways that God is still liberating communities from bondage and bringing them into freedom, promise, and blessing.
This reading-the story of the first Passover-functions in part as an etiology, that is, as an explanation of the origin of the practice of eating the Passover that continues in Judaism to this very day. The annual practice of Passover assures the community that God is still at work in the world to lead it into becoming a community in which all members are liberated and live together in freedom, peace, abundance, and blessing. Those who partake of the Passover commit themselves to joining God in this mission. Indeed, to be Jewish is to be committed to working for blessing of all peoples (Genesis 12:1-3) and to be a light to the nations, i.e., the gentiles (Isaiah 42:6).
The reading from Exodus is important for congregations that break the loaf on September 8-especially Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Disciples of Christ, Christian Churches, and accapella Churches of Christ. For the meaning of the Passover is key to the meaning of the Sacred Meal of the Christian community. According to earliest Christian tradition, God uses Jesus Christ as means towards God's purposes of eschatological blessing for the cosmos. Through Jesus Christ, God confirms that church partakes in God's promises, joins Israel in its fundamental understanding of the Transcendent purposes and that the church joins Israel in witnessing to God's will to bless all. God uses the breaking of the loaf and the taking of the cup to assure the congregation that the divine presence is ever at work in world to make it a place of freedom. Those who partake of the loaf and the cup commit themselves to working with God to make the world a place of freedom, peace, abundance, and blessing.
In the aftermath of 9/11, we need the assurance of mediated through the experience of taking the bread and the cup. We also need to re-dedicate ourselves to the commitment that participation represents.
However, I believe we must engage in theological criticism both of the text itself and of prevailing U.S. policy with respect to terrorism and world safety in the wake of 9/11.
The story of the Exodus assured a community that has experienced powerlessness and brutality that God is able to free them and to set in motion social forces that aim towards community blessing. Israel continued to retell this story, especially at times when the people were powerless and doubted God's power and promises (e.g., during the exile and still later during Roman domination). When we use this story in the United States, we need to recognize that our social situation is not analogous to that of ancient Israel. We are not powerless and oppressed. We are powerful. We do not need to be assured of our own power, but we need to be reminded of how to use power in accordance with God's purposes of freedom, peace, abundance, and blessing.
Slavery, exile, and Roman oppression were brutal conditions that denied God's purposes for human community. However, the plagues that God visited upon the Egyptians, especially murdering the first-born of the Egyptian households, and drowning Pharaoh's army in the sea are at least as brutal.
If God's love is truly unconditional, and if God's will for blessing is truly universal, then we must conclude that murder and drowning of the kind depicted in this text go against God's purposes, even when they are in the service of liberation for a part of the human family. We must also conclude that any community (including any governmental policy) that licenses brutality against others is itself a violation of divine intention for human community. This line of theological thinking presses us to explore ways other than brute violence to promote world security. How can we enter into relationship with other peoples of the world to encourage freedom, peace, mutuality, respect, encouragement, and abundance?
There may be times when evil is so entrenched that it seems it can only be rooted out with more powerful violence. However, such counter-violence should only be used as a last resort, and should never be celebrated with brass bands and flag-waving and talk if glory. Communities that set down the path of violence to end violence should do so in constant confession of their sin through complicity in violence. A community must decide, often painfully and uncertainly, when to move in this direction.
When we take the loaf and the cup, we commit ourselves to work towards a new world order-one which promises peace, blessing, respect, and abundance for all, and which comes about through means that are consistent with its end. The bread and the cup promise us that God is with us even when our commitment to pursue justice by justice means brings us into conflict with those who glorify violence.
Although the psalms are primarily appointed for liturgical use, they can be the basis for preaching. In view of a theological problem in this psalm in vss. 5b-9 (discussed below), I cannot recommend the use of the whole psalm in a simple liturgical way. The latter vss. In the psalm articulate a theological viewpoint that I find reprehensible. When that part of the text is simply sung, chanted, recited, or otherwise used in the service without interpretation, the psalm itself seems to license attitudes and behaviors that are counter to the news of God's unconditional love for all and God's will for all to live in relationships of mutuality and support.
This song celebrates God saving a community that is faithful and humble. It recalls either the exodus itself or events similar to the exodus when God has acted mightily in Israel's behalf. Vss. 1-5a are multi-media worship in thanksgiving to God.
Speaking psycho-theologically for myself, I have to say that as I anticipate the somber mood of events commemorating 9/11, the overflowing ebullience of vss. 1-5 seems a little much for the feeling of the occasion. We do need to recognize God's presence through the events of 9/11 and their aftermath, but it is a sober praise.
Beyond the reservation just set forth, vss. 5b-9 are theologically problematic. This part of the psalm assumes that God desires for the community to take two-edged swords and execute vengeance on the gentiles. To be sure, the psalm envisions the community's use of the sword as part of holy war, and not as simple vigilante action. However, the psalm claims "this (wreaking violence on the nations) is glory for the faithful." This kind of thinking only fuels the war-mongering mentality and unbridled use of violence that characterize both side in the current "war on terrorism."
While vss. 5b-9 imply holy war, it is sinfully easy for people today to assume that these materials, and other similar to them, authorize people to engage in formal and informal vendettas against others. "After all," someone can misspeak, "by taking the sword in hand against evildoers, we are simply executing on them the judgment decreed by God."
I simply cannot imagine how a person can have the "high praises of God" in their throats and "a two-edged sword in their hands."
The general criticisms of Exodus 14 (set out above) apply to the latter part of Psalm 149.
In view of 9/11, this passage particularly puts the preacher and congregation on the spot. In Ezekiel 33, the prophet takes up the military image of a sentinel to describe the work of the prophet and of prophetic community. A sentinel's job is to keep watch over the terrain and to report and interpret what the sentinel sees so that the military force and its leadership can act appropriately.
Some preachers on the political right may take this passage as a call to military watchfulness and action. Our culture needs to be vigilant against terrorism, they say, by enhancing our military preparedness and military presence at airports and other public places. We need to eradicate evil by use of military means, lest our civilization die. God uses our military action to enact the divine will.
Most preachers who read this publication are theologically skeptical of such perspectives. We see a different analogy in which the preacher-prophet functions as a sentinel for the congregation in the world after 9/11, and the prophetic congregation functions as a sentinel in the larger social world.
The mission of the prophet is to alert the community to what is happening in its world so that the community act and react appropriately (33:7). If the prophet hears a warning from God that the community is being unfaithful and will be destroyed, but the prophet does not speak, not only will the people die but God will require the blood of the prophet (33:8). However, if the prophet hears the divine warning and communicates it to the community, and they do not repent, the community dies but the prophet lives (38:9).
According to vs. 10, God instructs the prophet to help the community confess their transgressions. The people say, laconically, "We waste away because of [our transgressions]." God wants the people to repent and be restored (vs. 11).
The preacher (and the prophetic congregation) needs to discern the sentinelic/prophetic word. In regard to 9/11, where is faithfulness? Where is transgression? To be sure, the acts of terrorism violate God's purposes. Actions such as flying planes into buildings are simply inexcusable. We rightly lament the suffering wrought by these unjust and inhumane actions.
Yet, several contemporary prophets point out that we need to understand the intensity of frustration that leads to such horrific actions. The preacher may need to be a sentinel who tries to help the congregation understand that these frustrations arise from the economic exploitation, complicity with repressive regime, and cultural and religious imperialism practiced or supported by the U.S. in so many parts of the world. We may hunt down and "eliminate" many terrorists, but as long as we fuel these systems of injustice in our own land and across the world, we can expect similar "attacks upon America."
A reverse analogy is helpful here. No amount of Babylonian force could quench the hope of the Jewish exiles that God would restore their situation. (Standing in the smoking ruins of his world, Ezekiel generates 48 chapters intended to give the people reason to forge ahead). Likewise, no amount of flexing of U.S. military muscle in other parts of the world will quench the confidence of other peoples that the predatory U.S. presence can be ended.
As I noted in connection with Exodus 12 above, some people may be convinced that the threat of violence is so massive and urgent that we must take dramatic military action immediately. However, we should not fool ourselves by believing that military actions will provide a long-term solution. True international security will come about only with the growth of true international community.
According to 33:7-9, the prophet (and the prophetic congregation) that discerns such a word but does not speak it will be destroyed, along with the larger social world. The voice of genuine hope will itself die. Even if we are not literally destroyed, we would know within ourselves that our integrity and moral authority have been compromised. (Maybe such prophetic reticence is part of the reason the long established churches are in such decline.). However, if the prophet speaks but the people do not repent, at least the prophet will live so that the voice of hope will continue in the land.
In view of 33:10-11, the preacher may be obliged to call the congregation to repent of its complicity in police and military solutions to the deeper conditions that bred 9/11. As long as we continue the path of injustice, exploitation, and domination, "we waste away." Instead, the preacher could call the community to take steps towards regenerating world community as community.
I have found Jon L. Berquist, Surprises by the River: The Prophecy of Ezekiel (Chalice Press, 1993) to be a provocative guide to this prophetic priest. It is available from The Bookstore at Christian Theological Seminary: www.cts.edu/bookstore/bookstoreorder.html, or callen@cts.edu, or 317-931-2377.
This reading is theologically trouble free when compared with Psalm 149, and would serve well a liturgical purposes or as the basis for a sermon. Psalm 119, the longest of the Psalms, celebrates the gift of the Torah (instruction, guide, law).
While the relationship between this text and 9/11 is not as striking as in the case of the previously mentioned readings, a preacher could still set the sermon in such a direction based on the overriding aim of Torah.
This lection expresses a yearning of many Jewish and Christian congregations: to learn how to live in response to God's presence and expectations in this difficult time ("Teach me . . . your statutes etc."). We want to know, "What are we to do to be faithful to God as we reconstruct our world after 9/11?"
This psalm answers: follow Torah. The psalm makes it clear that the community does not obey Torah in order to earn God's grace (works-righteousness) but that God freely bestows grace on the community and gives Torah to guide the community in how to live in response to that grace.
The stipulations of Torah give the community practical ways to put that grace into everyday practice so that all in the community can be blessed. Those who heard this psalm would remember that Torah provides for all in the community to treat one another justly and to provide abundantly for all, including widows, orphans, and strangers. If our churches, and our nation, lived according to the community vision of Torah, we would relate to other peoples in the world in such a way as to ameliorate the conditions that gave rise to 9/11.
The church reads much of the Book of Romans in lectio continua for about sixteen weeks. did not envision "Christianity" as a new religion, but as a form of Judaism designed to carry gentiles through the last days of history (in which the apostle believed they were living) until the apocalypse. Some scholars refer to Christianity at this point in history as "Christian Judaism."
I follow a revised understanding of the purpose of Romans that sees this book addressed to gentile Christians in Rome who have a negative few of Judaism and the Jewish people. Paul encourages gentile Christians not only to respect Judaism but to adopt essential attitudes and qualities of Judaism. In the positive sense, Paul seeks modestly to "judaize" the gentile Christians. In this spirit, I sometimes speak of early Christianity as "Judaism lite."
This theme in today's lection cuts to the heart of the church's responses to 9/11. This passage exhorts gentiles to manifest one of the core values of Judaism: practicing love for one another. This passage, following an impulse already in Judaism and also in the Jesus tradition, claims that a community fulfills Torah by expressing love for one another. According to Paul, this behavior is not a new thing, but is a form of continuity between traditional Judaism and Christian Judaism.
In the Jewish context, "love" refers not to fuzzy emotional feeling but to attitudes and actions that a person or community takes for the good of the other and of all. Love may or may not include cozy feelings. Love means doing what is necessary to bring about blessing for all.
Love fulfills Torah. The specific commandments of the Torah are but specific expressions of how to practice for the benefit of the community. All of the commandments that Paul uses as illustrations in 13:9 deal with relationship and community. By avoiding things that undermine community (such as adultery, murder, and covetousness) and by engaging in actions that build up community (loving your neighbor as yourself) the congregation fulfills the purpose of Torah.
David Noel Freedman proposes an interpretation of Leviticus 19:18 ("Love your neighbor as yourself") that makes good Jewish sense and that adds a significant dimension of meaning to the Pauline context as well as to our appropriation of Romans 13:8-10 for the post 9/11 world. Freedman stresses that the term "neighbor" in Jewish thought includes the stranger, the person who resides in the covenantal community but is not a full member of that community. Our scholarly guide recalls that most preachers take the phrase "as yourself" as referring to self-love, that is, care for one's own self. However, this scholar notes that such "self-love" is an almost imperceptible theme in Jewish life. Freedman instead reads "as yourself" from the perspective of corporate personality that permeates both testaments. To love your neighbor (which includes the stranger) as yourself is to love your neighbor as you do your own kin and your own community, that is, to body forth attitudes and actions that bring about blessing for all. The Roman Christian Jewish community is to embody such love for all its neighbors. (D.N. Freedman, "The Hebrew Old Testament and the Minister Today: An Exegetical Study of Leviticus 19:18," Pittsburgh Perspective, vol. 5, no. 1 [1964], pp. 5-8).
I understand that this commandment is also important to Islam. However, I do not know enough about its place in that religion to comment intelligibly. It may well be that the mosque would find basis here for co-operating with church and synagogue in attempting to manifest love for neighbor through just community.
Paul then stresses an idea that is especially pertinent to today's community as we contemplate how to relate to others in the world after 9/11. "Love does no wrong to a neighbor" (13:10). In other words, the loving community will not engage in activities that disrupt the possibility of blessing.
It is easy to see that the implication of this text for families and communities who lost loved ones on 9/11 and for others whose lives have been profoundly disrupted by the events of that day. The church is to take a lead in manifesting covenantal care so that they can experience as much blessing as is possible in view of their changed circumstances. How easy it is for a preacher to tell stories that demonstrate this kind of out-community-based love in action at the time of the terrible events and even now. At least as reported in the Midwest (where I live), such love is being expressed regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, social class and other marks of difference and otherness. (I am sure there complicating situations about which I do not know. After all, we live in a sin-fractured world in which even our most noble efforts to do good are always compromised).
Church, synagogue, and mosque also need to take a lead in thinking about how our part of the world relates with other parts. The expression "global village" is not just a cliché. Given the immediacy of communication and knowledge of persons in other parts of the globe today, we must regard persons in other parts of the world as "neighbors" in the biblical sense. As pointed out in connection with Exodus 12 (previously), Europe and North America often relate to developing nations (and even to racial/ethnic, and other minority groups within our own cultures) in ways that do wrong to them: economic exploitation, support of repressive political regimes, cultural and imperial domination. Church, synagogue and mosque can help our culture envision more just and loving ways of expressing neighborliness.
Furthermore, the events of 9/11, combined with the current economic downtown, have affected the whole fabric of life in North America. We are currently in defensive, reactive, and fearful mode of reorganizing aspects of our community life in the name of security. Many aspects of the current reconception of life in our culture are on the order of "Protect your blessings for ourselves and keep others out." This attitude is directly opposite the spirit of Romans 13:8-10. Mosque and church need to take a lead in helping our culture think about the character of community of community life that will have the best chances of helping develop blessing by seeking ways to express neighbor-love for all.
Even more strongly than the other lections for today, this one calls into question the U.S. policy of military recrimination against Afghanis and others who participated in, or supported, the attack on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. Indeed, our policies aim to do as much wrong as possible to our neighbors who conspired in the attacks. Just last night, for instance, I heard on National Public Radio that our allies in Afghanistan asphyxiated hundreds of prisoners of war by locking the prisoners in closed vans. Such behavior is a long way from loving our neighbors as ourselves. If we truly want a world community, Romans 13:8-10 points us in more promising directions.
This text seems to me the least promising of the readings for preaching on September 8. However, it does pose an intriguing (if difficult) possibility that I mention towards the end of this mini-exegesis.
The leading theme of the gospel of Matthew is that the final manifestation of the realm of God (an unending time and place of freedom, peace, justice, mutuality, abundance, and love) is about to come about through the apocalypse of Jesus Christ. The earthly ministry of Jesus proleptically demonstrated aspects of that realm. Matthew 5:14-16 uses an image from the life of Israel to define the mission of the Matthean community: to be a light to the world (Isaiah 42:6), i.e., to embody the realm of God in its own life, to witness to that realm among the peoples of the world, and to invite the peoples to repent and become a part of the movement towards that realm.
The church to which Matthew addressed the first gospel was experiencing internal conflict. Some members were relating with one another in ways that contradicted the divine realm. We do not know the members' specific attitudes and actions that abnegated the divine realm, but they were serious enough that Matthew devotes chapter 18 setting forth a series of steps to help the congregation deal with the situation.
What is at stake here is the life of the community as community whose very quality of daily relationships witness to the realm of God. That witness is undercut when some in the group act out values and behaviors that contravene the divine realm and that create tension in the community. Such presence distracts the community from its mission, and by so doing, takes away from the community's power to help the wider world become aware of the blessing of God for them. A group of people preoccupied with internal conflicts does not have the energy to carry out their work beyond.
Scholars often refer to Matthew18 as a manual of church discipline. These materials are designed to help the community preserve its own life as a community of witness to the divine realm while helping errant members come to their senses and begin behaving in ways that support the community mission. When those who have gone astray realign their lives with the purpose of the community, the community is to welcome them. If they do not do so, they community is to excommunicate the offending members.
Matthew prescribes three steps that the community is to take to try to reclaim aberrant persons. The church is thus to go to great lengths to recover the lost. However, the mission of the community is so important that if the errant do not respond, the church is to cut them off so that the community can get on with its purpose.
Step one (vs. 15) indicates that when someone sins against you, you are to go to that person and point out their fault. The text does not name the specific circumstances of this sin, but presumably it is something that works against the church's witness to the realm of God by destroying the community as community. Upon your visit, that person is to repent of the offending behavior. At that point, the community can welcome the former offender and reintegrate that person into community life.
In step two (vs. 16); if the vagrant does not listen to you when you go by yourself, then the community is to send two or three representatives who become a mini-community-of-counsel. In the background is the Jewish legal precept that testimony in a legal proceeding must be confirmed by two witnesses. This precept is itself a statement of confidence in community.
If the lost soul has not responded to the pastoral visit of step two, then in step three (vs. 17), the case goes to the church as a whole. If the violator does not accept the invitation of the assembly to repent and rejoin, then the community is to treat that person as a gentile, i.e., to deny them participation in covenantal community. (A person so excommunicated could presumably later repent and return to the fold).
Given today's emphasis on the positive values of diversity, on inclusivity as a social axiom, and on Otherness as a sacred norm, I feel compelled to point out that Matthew does not prescribe these steps for the sake of enforcing community Sameness (Levinas), but regards the mission of the community to witness to the divine realm (which is the epitome inclusivity and celebration of Otherness) as so important that the community must set aside impediments to that mission.
Identity and consciousness in the ancient world were fundamentally communal. To be was to be a part of a community. Hence, to be excommunicated was extremely serious. It dislocated a person from primary points of social location and self understanding. Vss. 18-20 make use of a rabbinic principle that assumes that God moves through the actions of the community. Indeed, the famous assertion of divine presence in vs. 20 ("Where two or three are gathered in my mine . . . .") is made here for the sake of assuring the community that is present and approving when they excommunicate recalcitrant members! These vss. are intended to assure the community that their action is not arbitrary but takes place under divine leading. Given our awareness today of the relativity of human perception, and the permeating presence of sin in all human interpretation, I do not share Matthew's confidence that community decisions always mirror divine will.
This passage raises an intriguing possibility for the church in the post 9/11 world. If the gist of the previous exegeses is theologically correct, then the church is called to encourage the peoples of the world to seek solutions to the tensions that led to the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. that are consistent with the realm of God. Indeed, the church is to try to help the world institute practices that embody as much of the divine realm as possible given the sin-limitations of the present cosmos. However, many Christians have allied themselves with military actions and with attitudes that multiply alienation and the propensity for violence. On Sunday morning, at least in Indiana, not only is the U.S. flag in the sanctuary, but bumpers of the cars in the parking lot are veritable sea of U.S. flag stickers. This text suggests that the congregation needs to confront such persons with ways that their thoughts, feelings, and actions go against the deepest values of the realm of God, and disrupt the church's capacity to witness to that realm. The congregation could invite them to repent or face excommunication.
Such a proposal, of course, goes against the grain of one of the most cherished values of the current church-namely bringing people of diverse viewpoints together so that they can talk with one another. Certainly keeping alive such a community of conversation is itself a witness in the midst of our fractious, polarized world. But the church must face the question of when maintaining such conversation consumes so much community energy, and comes to so little conclusion that the community fails to make a meaningful witness. (On the question of the limits of diversity in community, see Michael K. Kinnamon, Truth and Community: Diversity and its Limits in the Ecumenical Movement (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988), which is available from The Bookstore at Christian Theological Seminary: www.cts.edu/bookstore/bookstoreorder.html, or callen@cts.edu, or 317-931-2377.