September 16, 2001
Psalm 23, Romans 8:31-39
It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who said, "The only thing we have to fear
is fear itself." But Franklin D. Roosevelt wasn't speaking on Tuesday morning
of last week, when hijacked airliners were bearing down on New York and Washington
at full throttle. He wasn't one of the 266 passengers or crew aboard those doomed
planes, or any of the thousands in the World Trade Center who would soon be
praying for their lives. When he said, "We have nothing to fear but fear
itself," he didn't know what we know. In the past few days we have come
to believe that there is plenty to fear, and if the truth be told many of us
are still afraid.
You know the facts:
At about 8:45 a.m. on September 11 an airplane slammed into the North Tower
of the World Trade Center. We thought it was an accident: a malfunction in a
navigational computer that had resulted in the unthinkable. But then, twenty
minutes later and while many of us were watching it live on television, a second
airplane slammed into the South Tower, erupting in a ball of flame. At that
moment we realized it couldn't be an accident. We realized that this was a deliberate
act of aggression, an attack on the United States. Thirty-five minutes later
we heard that a third plane had crashed into the Pentagon, just across the river,
and then the rumors began to fly. The telephone in my office rang with a report
that smoke was pouring out of the Old Executive Office Building. In the hallway
someone said that a car bomb had exploded outside the State Department. One
of the teachers in our Child Development Center asked, "Is it true that
the Washington Monument is . . . gone?" It seemed that the whole city,
the whole nation, was under violent attack.
When things got a little quieter we opened the church to those who might want
to pray and watched as streams of people headed up 16th Street from downtown.
Traffic was snarled, the Metro was jammed, and so they walked. Some stopped
in to say a brief prayer but most of them hurried by with their heads down,
determined to get home to their families and to get away from the threat of
danger. By 3:00 Washington looked like a ghost town. We closed the doors and
started home on empty streets, in eerie silence.
In the days since then we have been trying to assess the damage, both physical
and emotional. We know that the Pentagon has a gaping hole in its side and the
World Trade Center is gone forever. We know that thousands of people have died
in this attack, most of them horribly. And we know that we feel shaky and scared,
straining our ears for the sounds of airplanes, jumping at every strange or
sudden noise.
It is an evil thing that has happened, and it is a particular kind of evil.
Theologians speak of the suffering that human beings experience as a result
of earthquake, famine, fire, and flood as natural evil. The other kind, which
Daniel Migliore describes as "the suffering and evil that sinful human
beings inflict on each other and on the world they inhabit," is called
moral evil. The evil we have experienced in this attack on America is of that
latter, darker kind. It has been inflicted upon us. As much as we might suffer
from natural evil this other kind of evil is worse, because it comes not from
the violent yet innocent forces of nature, but from the evil intentions of the
human heart.
Some people have asked me how God could allow such a thing to happen. Why did
he not divert those planes at the last moment? It is the same sort of question
people ask when a hurricane pounds the coast but the answer is different. In
cases such as those we say that we live in a world where hurricanes happen,
and that sometimes populated coastlines get in the way. It doesn't mean that
the hurricane itself is evil but only that the meeting between high winds and
fragile buildings can produce tragic results. Houses can be flattened. Lives
can be lost. When people ask why God didn't divert the hurricane God might well
ask why they built their houses in its path.
But in cases like this one from last Tuesday we have to say that we live in
a world where God has given people freedom. The same freedom that allows us
to choose God and serve God allows others to hijack planes and bring down buildings.
The freedom itself is good. The use some make of that freedom is evil. So, why
didn't God intervene? Why didn't God divert those airplanes and save those lives?
Because freedom itself was at stake, and God cannot take away our freedom to
choose evil without also taking away our freedom to choose good. He would end
up with a world of grinning puppets, dancing dumbly at the end of their strings,
capable of neither love nor hate. God doesn't want children like that any more
than you do. And so-like a mother who sobs as her son is convicted of murder-he
watches buildings collapse while his own heart breaks, and wraps his arms around
a broken nation.
Franklin D. Roosevelt said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but
he wasn't talking about what happened last Tuesday. He wasn't talking about
what happens when people use their God-given freedom to rain down horror on
others. And yet there is a sense in which he was right. Fear isn't the only
thing we have to fear but it is the most formidable of the weapons that have
been turned against us in recent days. While a terrorist might use an airplane
or a bomb to accomplish his purpose, his purpose, ultimately, is to terrify,
to bring a nation to its knees by means of fear itself. And to the extent that
we are terrified, he has succeeded.
I don't know who is behind last Tuesday's attacks, but I picture him rubbing
his hands, cackling with glee, hoping you and I will become too afraid to function.
He wants us to tremble with fear every time an airplane passes overhead. He
wants us to jump at every strange or sudden noise we hear. He wants to bring
us to that place where we will not go to work in the morning or send our children
to school. That is why I doubt that the attack on America is over. The nature
of terrorism is to keep us off balance, to make us think that death could be
waiting for us around the next corner or behind the next tree. The goal of terrorism
is to overthrow a nation by paralyzing its people with fear. When we reach that
point the terrorist has won and I, for one, don't intend to give him that satisfaction.
I refuse to be afraid.
The writer of Psalm 23 claims that even as he is walking through the valley
of the shadow of death, he will fear no evil. Not natural evil. Not moral evil.
Why? Because God is with him. In these familiar, well-worn words we have the
antidote to fear. God's presence is what will make it possible for us to walk
through this shadowy valley without being afraid. That doesn't mean we won't
listen for the sound of airplanes passing overhead. It doesn't mean we won't
jump when we hear a strange of sudden noise. It only means that we will hold
tight to God's hand and go on with our lives-that we will refuse to be afraid.
I want to suggest a strategy for retaliation but I want to be very careful about
how I do it. There is no place among Christian people for any talk of hatred,
violence, or bloodshed. We must not stoop to the level of our attackers by terrorizing
those who look "suspicious." The Lord Jesus himself commands us to
love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. And when our government
identifies those responsible for the attacks I pray that our response as a nation
will be thoughtful, measured, and just. But as for our individual response let
me suggest that:
1. We can retaliate by living fearlessly. I don't mean by this the kind of swaggering
bravado that is sometimes confused with courage. I don't mean that we should
paint a bull's-eye on the National Mall and go stand in the center of it. I
simply mean that we must not give in to the terrorists by being terrified. Courage
doesn't mean that you are never scared; it only means that even when you are
scared you do what you have to do. Perhaps the best thing we can do in a time
like this is to get up in the morning and go to our jobs, to get up in the morning
and go to school. Whoever is watching to judge the results of this terrorist
attack will see that it has been unsuccessful: we are not afraid.
2. We can retaliate by living selflessly. Part of what enables firefighters
to rush up the stairs of a burning building is the idea that someone at the
top of those stairs needs their help. By focusing on the needs of others, rather
than ourselves, we can begin to root out fearful self-obsession in favor of
service. In a time like this one we can think about those who have lost loved
ones and pray for their comfort. We can put our arms around those who are still
badly shaken by the events of last Tuesday. We can open the doors of the church
for those who need to pray. And, as long as it is needed, we can line up to
donate blood. It was this same kind of selflessness that enabled Jesus to do
what he did. He wasn't thinking about himself on that cross; he was thinking
about us.
3. We can retaliate by living faithfully. What is it we are afraid of, anyway?
Death? The idea that we or those we love will no longer exist? We have assurance
from Christ himself that those who believe will never perish. Our bodies will
die, certainly, whether in a fiery explosion or in a peaceful slumber (and,
certainly, we have a preference). But we who inhabit our bodies will live forever
and be forever in God's care. Paul, who had already faced death more times than
we can imagine, wrote in Romans 8: "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." Because
of his faith in Christ, he was able to do all things.
I won't ask you to do all things. Not now. Not when we all feel so shaken and
scared. But I will ask you to do something. In the aftermath of this terrorist
attack I urge you to retaliate against terrorism. And I urge you to do so by
living fearlessly, by living selflessly, and by living faithfully. These are
the best and surest ways I know to overcome terrorism's most formidable weapon:
Fear itself.
The First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D. C.
Dr. Jim Somerville, Pastor