Sermon for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
Nothing can separate us from God’s love
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
Everyone watching this service over the age of 30 can probably tell us where they were when they first heard the news of the hijacked airplanes hitting the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001.
As I have shared with some of you previously, my wife, Kris, and I were both working that day at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s churchwide office, an 11-story office building located near the O’Hare airport in Chicago.
As those of you old enough to remember will attest, it was a surreal day – at first, it was unclear if there would be other attacks in other cities. The Sears Tower in downtown Chicago,,now called the Willis Tower, I believe, the Sears Tower was evacuated twice that day. I understand there were evacuations even here in the Los Angeles area.
Many of us working at the ELCA offices that day wondered if the ELCA office tower where we were working could be a possible target – a tall building near the O’Hare airport? Who knew? Presiding Bishop Anderson quickly announced that anyone who wished to leave was welcome to do so, but those who wished to stay - it was only 9am in the morning in Chicago - those who wished to stay could do so also. Kris and I decided that, if we were to be killed that day, we’d rather be among our friends and colleagues, rather than home alone with just each other.
Sharing this now, it sounds a bit overwrought - I assure you that at the time, it was not.
I spent much of that day on the telephone with the Rev. Dr. Stephen Bouman, who was then the Bishop of our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Metropolitan New York Synod. Bouman’s office, though miles away, Bouman’s office faced the World Trade Center and he saw both towers fall. As we spoke, Bouman was frantically trying to find his wife and daughter who both worked at Lutheran Social Services whose offices were located near the Twin Towers. They were both later found and were safe, although one of the plane engines had fallen through the roof of their office building.
Several weeks later, Kris and I were able to accompany the ELCA’s Presiding Bishop on a visit to New York City. At that time, the World Trade Center site, by then called “Ground Zero,” the Grond Zero site was still an active crime scene and not open to the public. Because we were with the Presiding Bishop, Bishop Bouman, and other officials of the ELCA and the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, we got into the site and were able to view Ground Zero from the Mayor’s viewing platform already constructed near the hole in the ground where once the towers stood. The earth still smoked and smelled of burning flesh. Flag draped bodies continued to be brought out. We were looking into a very large cemetery. I remember returning to our hotel room that night and trying to write reflections of that day. All I could do was weep.
What I also remember well was that the area around the “Ground Zero” site was surrounded with reminders of all those who had been lost that day. In those early days after 9/11 in lower Manhattan every open wall space seemed to be filled with photos and stories of loved ones who had been lost in these attacks. Initially, the photos were posted in a frantic search – “Could my loved one still be alive” – Now they are filled with tributes and messages of love and care for always.
I recently interviewed Bishop Bouman for our Hope Matters video series. You can find his interview on Mt. Olive’s YouTube site.
In that interview, Bouman reflected with pride that, within days of these attacks, Lutheran Disaster Response New York was founded with seed funds from the ELCA. Over time, with the help of tens of thousands of donations from Lutherans and others all over the world and the strong support of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, that fund grew to more than $10 million. LDR New York focused its help on the most vulnerable people after the attacks, those who worked in the hotels and businesses now closed down or destroyed, those on the margins of society whose lives had been made even harder following these attacks.
Bouman also remembered the kindness showed to many after the attacks, including New York’s Arab community. Yes, the Bishop stated, horrible things were done after 9/11 to Muslim people in the USA, people who had absolutely nothing to do with these attacks, but for every incident of hate, there were what Bouman called “100 flowers,” hundreds of incidents and examples of love. What we have learned from 9/11, Bouman added, is that compassion and justice are the only way to live and that we continue to be called to do all that we can to welcome the stranger in our midst, to listen, to find commonality, and to recognize each other’s humanity.
I then asked Bouman to repeat a story he had told me from that day, one I have also shared with some of you previously.
Hearing the news of the Twin Towers being attacked, one ELCA pastor grabbed his anointing oil and headed to the Ground Zero site. At the site, while the towers were still standing, this pastor began to anoint the fire fighters with oil and the sign of the cross on their foreheads as the fire fighters entered both buildings. As the office workers came down the stairs, fleeing the towers, the firefighters went up the stairs to what we now know for many were their certain deaths, their anointed foreheads glistening with the mark of the cross.
Bishop Bouman told me that this moving story reminds him of the Old Testament story of Jacob’s Ladder, with the angels of God ascending and descending. Japanese Christian artist Sadao Wantanabe has done a wonderful artistic envisioning of Jacob’s Ladder which hangs in my office here at Mt. Olive.
The lesson from Jacob’s Ladder, Bouman reminded me, the lesson from Jacob’s Ladder for those fire fighters going up the stairs and for those office workers coming down the stairs is that God is on BOTH ends of the ladder, God was on both ends of those Twin Towers stairs.
Those fire fighters may have been heading to their deaths, but they were not lost to God.
Reflecting on this anniversary, my thoughts come back again and again to my favorite verses from Romans 8:
31What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor 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.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing.
At the close of my Hope Matters with Bishop Bouman interview, I asked Bishop Bouman where he finds hope today as he reflects on that terrible day 20 years ago.
Bouman responded that the 9/11 attacks reminded all of us in the church that the Christian church needs to be a place where people can find sanctuary in the midst of any and all times, a place where people can share their laments, their pain and be lifted up. And the attacks also reminded us, once again, that people are the same everywhere in the world, we all have the same hopes and needs. That leads, or should lead, the church to be that place of sanctuary.
Most importantly, Bouman stated that he finds hope in the Christian church because even in the midst of horrific times, the Christian community always points to resurrection, not death. We live in the presence of the Risen Christ and that is where our hope must be.
We have hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And nothing can separate us from that hope and God’s love. Whatever paths we take in our lives, whatever ladders we climb, God is always at both ends of those paths and ladders.
Amen.
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
September 12, 2021
