Love Of Neighbor: Priceless
Children's sermon
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Dear fellow preachers,
This coming Sunday promises to be a tough one in the pulpit. Coming as it does just before the one-year anniversary of 9/11, it begs for a sermon that addresses in some way the events of that terrible day.
To provide some help in preparing your own sermon for this Sunday, The Immediate Word (TIW) -- a think tank of pastors assembled by CSS Publishing -- brings you two related pieces. The first, by TIW member Dr. Carlos Wilton, pastor of the Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church, Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, is called "Love of Neighbor: Priceless." It's based on Romans 13:8-14, which is the Epistle reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for this coming Sunday. Comments from other TIW members follow Carlos' work.
The second piece comes from TIW member Rev. Barbara G. Schmitz, an Episcopalian priest serving as assistant to the bishop of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Barb's work, "September 11, Evil and God" views 9/11 from the perspective of the biblical witness about evil, and provides excellent groundwork for your own work on that topic.
We've also included some worship resources and a children's sermon for this Sunday.
Love of Neighbor: Priceless
By Carlos Wilton
Romans 13:8-14
"Owe no one anything, except to love one another ..."
--Romans 13:8a
"There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's...." (You fill in the blank.)
I'm sure you were able to fill in the blank, for such is the power of advertising. The so-called "Priceless" ads of a certain major credit-card company have been around for years. The format's simple: a short list of goods or services, each of them accompanied by their dollar value. Then there's a final item: something intangible, to which no financial value could possibly be assigned. The value of this item is a single word, weightily intoned by the announcer: "priceless."
It's a pretty slick campaign. It's made millions for the ad agency that created it (let alone the credit-card company that commissioned the ads). One of the advertising executives handling the campaign admitted how slick it really is: "What really hit home with consumers," he said, "is that a company that is fundamentally all about money and paying for things would actually declare that the things that really count can't be bought."
So, there's a kind of sly deception going on with the "Priceless" campaign. The ad people are so certain the deception works, they don't even need to be subtle about it.
Jim Farrell is a professor at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. He writes and teaches about consumerism in America. In a recent syndicated column he wrote:
[The] "Priceless" ads are obviously designed to respond to the American public's worry that everything is being commodified, and that we're becoming too materialistic. So the ads emphasize the things money can't buy, the intangibles that make the good life really good. Most of these intangibles involve relationships, especially family relationships. It's priceless, for example, to read a book to your child, or to watch your children playing joyfully with the cardboard boxes instead of the toys under the Christmas tree.1
This, Farrell reminds us, is nothing new. Advertisers have done that for years: trying to sell our own deepest values back to us, by making us associate them with their products. "In most of these ads," he continues:
...the "priceless" moment is the direct result of a series of spending decisions. For example, you can't experience the priceless value of "your first dog" without buying it first. You can't show your daughter the place in Ireland where you first met your husband until you've paid to take her there. Often, it seems, the "priceless" moment has a considerable price.
The "bottom line" message of these ads, despite what the words say, is this: "There are some things money can't buy, but it sure helps."
In Romans, chapter 13, Paul's alerting us to the fact that some things in life truly are priceless. He does so using the analogy of debt -- which is really what credit cards are all about, despite the word "credit" in their name. "Owe no one anything," he advises, "except to love one another."
If there's anything we've learned, as a nation, since last September 11th, it's the wisdom of that statement. When the twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing down, one after another, suddenly the billions of dollars that passed through those buildings' computers every day meant little. What was truly important was the human lives lost -- and the vastly greater number of human lives touched by those losses.
One image that was burned into the consciousness of many at the scene -- and of those more distant as well, watching on TV -- was the incredible sight of a man and a woman jumping together from the burning towers, hand in hand. Something about that particular image has continued to speak to people, in a way that's hard to put into words.
Who were they? Friends? Lovers? Co-workers who barely knew each other? Or even strangers, who knew each other not at all, except for the bond of sharing a terrible death?
Then there's the odd contradiction in what they were doing. On the one hand, there's the intimacy of that simple human gesture: holding hands. On the other, there's the horror of the act those two have grimly resolved to perform: choosing quick death by jumping from a hundred stories up, rather than the slow agonies of burning or suffocation.
A documentary on the 9/11 attacks recorded the reactions of different people, recalling what they thought as they watched that anonymous pair, in person or on TV.
"To me," said novelist Ian McEwan, "it was just the bleakest possible image of the whole thing. What I saw was utter desperation ... I found no hope in that at all. If there is a God, he's a very indifferent God."
Brian Doyle, another writer and a professor of English, had a very different reaction:
They reached for each other, and their hands met, and they jumped. I keep coming back to his hand in her hand.... It's the most powerful prayer I can imagine -- the most eloquent, the most graceful.... It's what makes me believe that we're not fools to believe in God.
The 9/11 terrorists may have thought they were pulling down, before our horrified eyes, the most imposing symbol of American capitalism: but they failed. For the stories and images we Americans continue to call to mind, a year later, are not so much those of collapsing buildings and twisted steel, but the simple love of one person for another.
There's the love of a firefighter, climbing up stairs as others are going down ... the love of a heavy-equipment operator, working round the clock the following day, in hopes of finding someone still alive in the rubble ... the love of Todd Beamer from Cranbury, saying, "Let's roll," into that cell-phone, before rushing the hijackers and bringing that plane to the ground in a place where no one else could be hurt.
You and I can choose how we're going to remember 9/11. We can remember it as a horrendous, inhuman atrocity -- which it certainly was. Or, we can choose to remember it as one of those "times that try men's souls," in the words of Thomas Paine: try them and find them worthy.
"Owe no one anything, except to love one another." Paul's saying the standard by which God tries our souls is how faithfully we carry out Christ's greatest commandment, to love our neighbor as ourselves.
It may very well be so for us, in the days to come. God is watching, and waiting. We, as a nation, have been sorely tested by 9/11: but we will continue to be tested in the days to come.
George Carlin is one of those comedians who's often way "over the top," as they say -- but there are times in his routines when a remarkable wisdom breaks through the smokescreen of nonsense. "I'm not worried about all hell breaking loose," he once said, "but that a part of hell will break loose. It'll be much harder to detect."
On 9/11, all hell broke loose: in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in a western Pennsylvania field. It was easy, then, for us to recognize evil in our midst: for it was snapping and snarling, daring us to defend ourselves against its obvious threat. Politicians, in those days immediately following the attacks, spoke about evil with an easy and chilling familiarity: for they had just come from staring into its blood-red eyes (as had we all).
Yet as the smoke cleared, and the earth-movers did their work at Ground Zero, and the fighting in Afghanistan wound its way, after many months, to its inevitable conclusion, we Americans have looked around and seen that those shattered shards of hell are, once again, hard to detect. Those who planned, supplied and bankrolled the 9/11 attacks have vanished. There are still many things for law-enforcement and the military to do in the aftermath, still many criminals to track down -- but ambiguity has descended like a fog. No longer is there a single, bold stroke to be taken, that all the world can clearly see is in the service of good-versus-evil.
There's always a feeling of satisfaction in taking such a stroke. Anger, when it seems to be righteous, is a temptation difficult to resist. The preacher and novelist Frederick Buechner has written:
Of all the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.2
There's an old Japanese story about an elderly monk who was sitting by the side of the road one day, meditating. His eyes were closed, so he didn't see the samurai warrior steal silently up to him, as expert warriors are trained to do.
"Old man!" the samurai cried out, in a tone of command. "Teach me about heaven and hell!"
At first, the monk just sat there, as though he had not heard. But then, gradually, he opened his eyes. The faintest hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth.
"You wish to know the secrets of heaven and hell?" he snapped. "You! You, who are so unkempt! You, whose hands and feet are covered with dirt. You, whose hair is uncombed, whose breath is foul, whose sword is rusty and neglected. You, who are ugly and whose mother dresses you funny. You would ask me of heaven and hell?"
Well, the samurai responded as you may expect. He uttered a vile curse. He unsheathed his sword and raised it high above his head. His face turned red and the veins on his neck stood out, as he prepared to sever the monk's head from its shoulders in a single stroke.
Yet before he could bring his blade down in the deadly blow, the monk said, gently but ever-so-quickly, "That is hell."
The sword remained suspended in the air for a moment, ready to strike, until the samurai brought it down slowly, and allowed it to fall to the ground. He was overcome with awe and amazement, at this gentle and compassionate being who had risked his very life so that he might taste a morsel of wisdom. The eyes of the hardened, battle-scarred warrior filled with tears.
"And that," said the monk, looking gently back into those repentant eyes, "is heaven."3
Most of what has been said, in the past twelve months, about the 9/11 attacks is true. They were an outrage, an act of war, a crime against humanity, a betrayal of the very religion out of which they were born. Thousands of innocent people lost their lives, at the hands of Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atta and their minions.
But may it not be so that the victims of 9/11 have died utterly in vain. Perhaps there is a lesson, one so painful it's hard even to utter, that you and I and all the world may wring out from these sad events. It's the lesson of love of neighbor.
"Apocalypse," writes the poet Kathleen Norris, in a recent essay
... grabs us by the shoulders and says, "Look at what matters in life." And suddenly, we see. But both common sense and the biblical narrative remind us that it is difficult to hold on to our new, unencumbered vision. On September 12th, it seemed imperative to sit in the silence of a church, or to seek the company of others to light candles and offer prayers. But as we returned to our normal routines, the imperative faded. Road rage has re-emerged, and incidents of domestic violence are said to be increasing in the face of new economic uncertainties. I suspect that we will prove ourselves to be, in the ancient biblical phrase, a "stiff-necked people," remarkably good at forgetting both our own mortality and God's eternity.4
There are still lessons to be learned from 9/11, lessons of love of neighbor. Perhaps there is no one better to turn to, in order to learn those lessons, than the victims themselves.
Garrison Keillor had a handle on this as, shortly after 9/11, he spoke in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. These are the words with which he ended his monologue that night:
...for the truth, we should look to all the men and women who saw that death was near and who called home on their cell phones, not to express anger or fear or bitterness but simply to say, "I love you," "Take care of the children," "Have a good life." In a moment of great clarity at the end, they called in the midst of smoke and confusion and panic to give us their benediction and we should accept it. "Love each other, take care of the children, have a good life, and give thanks to the Lord with our whole heart for his steadfast love and faithfulness and beseech him that we may have a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and dignity and that in every place men and women should pray lifting up holy hands without anger or argument. Amen."5
May it not be so that the victims of that dread day have died in vain. Take to heart the teachings of the scriptures: "Owe no one anything, except to love one another."
Notes
1 From a syndicated column distributed on the Internet by the Center for a New American Dream, www.newdream.org.
2 Wishful Thinking (Harper & Row, 1973), 2.
3 Adapted from John W. Groff, Jr., A Third Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
4 www.sojo.net/terror/index.cfm/action/home.html#Sept11.
5 www.gracecathedral.org/church/sermon/ser_20010923.shtml.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: I believe that preaching should, in general, be Christological. I guess Jesus doesn't have to be mentioned in every sermon but if there's no Christological centering I find myself wondering if it's proclamation of the Gospel or moral exhortation. We reflected on the fact that the crowds of people who came to churches on the couple of Sundays after 9/11 quickly left again. Maybe it's because what they often heard was moral exhortation and generic "God loves you" consolations instead of a message about a God who got nailed to a cross.
In Carlos' piece I find myself thinking of a couple of things. First, the statement in Romans that we are to love one another surely has to be thought of in the context of the belief that Christian love is possible only because of the prevenient love of God shown to us in Christ -- "We love because he first loved us," and in view of that it's possible to think of the pricelessness of love in quite a different way. I think of Bonhoeffer's statement in The Cost of Discipleship that grace "is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'ye were bought at a price,' and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation."
And so to this quotation in the sermon -- "To me," said novelist Ian McEwan, "it was just the bleakest possible image of the whole thing. What I saw was utter desperation ... I found no hope in that at all. If there is a God, he's a very indifferent God." -- I want to point to the hope that is proclaimed in Mark 15, where a man who has just cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is recognized as the Son of God. It is not cheap hope but costly hope.
Stan Purdum responds: Carlos' discussion has focused on what is surely the lesson for us -- loving one another (interestingly, Barb Schmitz's piece on evil arrives at the same end point). My only suggestion is to delete the samurai story. Its point is a bit obscure.
Larry Hard responds: The samurai story does not strengthen the sermon, though an interesting illustration. I felt that the introduction leading into what is priceless and the scripture may have been longer than needed to make the point. I especially liked reflections on the image of the man and woman jumping from the WTC together. I'm a strong believer that it is images and pictures in sermons that stick in the mind, and have power.
Barb Schmitz responds: The quotes by Keillor and Norris, Doyle, Ferrell, Buechner, etc. are all good. I actually like the samurai story and think it is the best part. I'm not sure I follow all the transitions that are made throughout (would subheadings help?). Your ending would be strengthened, I think, if you could come back to some brief reference about the priceless advertisements -- bring it full circle so to speak. The "love one another" message comes through pretty good.
September 11, Evil, and God
By Barb Schmitz
On September 11, "all hell broke loose." The images of that day are still fresh. We still talk about where we were when we first heard the news. Some of us lost people we loved or worked with or knew. Maybe it's not of much that all hell broke loose, but that a part of hell broke loose -- and forever changed the world. (Carlin quote adapted)
If you're like me, since September 11, I've been paying more attention to the word "evil." It really wasn't in my vocabulary before then. Yes, it's there in the Lord's Prayer -- "deliver us from evil," -- but I never gave much thought to from what kind of evil I was praying to be delivered. With the one-year mark of the tragic events of September 11 upon us, I feel it is appropriate to look at evil -- what it is, and what to do about it, from the perspective of scripture.
A Christian understanding of evil
A Christian understanding of evil begins with the Bible, and scripture has a lot to say about evil. It mentions evil and wickedness over 500 times.
1. Evil has been around pretty much from the get-go. We read the creation story in Genesis 1 and we hardly turn the page and we are reading about Adam and Eve, the apple and the serpent, the knowledge of good and evil. Evil has been around for a long time. It's not some 20th-century creation of Hitler and the Holocaust; evil did not begin on September11, 2002. Evil has been characterized as "a poetic lie;" and has been around since that first set of lies in the Garden of Eden.
2. A Christian understanding of evil would have to say: Evil is pervasive. It inhabits this world at all levels. The Bible talks about this present evil age. Ephesians talks about the "forces of evil" and says the "days are evil." Jesus talked about "the evil one" and prayed that his followers would be protected from the evil one. Jesus met up with all kinds of evil spirits and demons in his ministry. Jesus also talked about evil people, and St. Paul said that they "invent ways of doing evil." Jesus taught his disciples to pray, saying, "deliver us from evil." The epistles often refer to evil behavior, evil thoughts, evil desires, and evil deeds. The author of Ephesians puts it this way: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:11-12). According to the New Testament, there's an axis of evil, all right, and it's pervasive at all levels in this world. (See Galatians 1:4; Matthew 5:37; John 17:15; Matthew 5:39; Luke 6:45.)
3. As long as we are in this world, we will be confronted with evil in one way or another. My parents' generation was acutely aware of the evil associated with the Holocaust. The past year has heightened our awareness of evil, not in a far away country, but in daily life. On the evening of September 11, President Bush said, "Today our nation saw evil." Our nation continued to see evil in the accounting scandals, the disappearance/kidnapping of young children and the crisis in the Roman Catholic Church over sexual misconduct.
4. We have to acknowledge that we are part and parcel of evil in the world. It's not "going over the top" to confess our own sins in the harsh-sounding words of the confession: "We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness...." Jesus said to his disciples, "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children...."
Unprepared for evil?
We are mesmerized by evil for a while, and then, if we haven't been directly affected, we usually move on. I was flabbergasted to hear an older gentleman say just a few months ago, "What this country needs is a big disaster to bring people back to church." I thought, where were you on September 11? What do you think that was? Yet even that did not bring people back to church. It did for a couple of Sundays. But I have not spoken to a pastor yet who can tell me of one person that became a regular attendee or member as a direct result of September 11.
The unchurched streamed to churches for comfort and assurance last year after September 11. I happened to be in England at the time. On the night of the attack, the Canterbury Cathedral choir loft was packed for Evensong. On the Friday of that week, I sat in a restaurant and watched as people streamed into the local church, filling it to capacity. I read of a church in England that used to have about 12 people for the Saturday night service. It had over 500 that first Saturday after September11. But by the time that I returned to the States, local churches were back to "business as normal." By all measures, Christians and non-Christians alike were unprepared for the stark evil of September 11.
A Christian response to evil
Scripture does not leave us without direction on how to respond to evil, whether it be evil in everyday life or evil forces in the heavenly realms.
1. Ezekiel says it very simply: "Turn back from your evil ways." That is possible only because Jesus defeated Satan on the cross. He "disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them ..." (Colossians 2:15). In the words of one eucharistic prayer: "In Him you have delivered us from evil. You have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life" (Book of Common Prayer). The author of 1 John tells us that we have overcome the evil one, and the evil one cannot touch us.
2. We claim that we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Paul tells us in Romans, "Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." On a practical level, how do we overcome evil? St. Paul's instructions are not to repay evil for evil, but to overcome evil with good. Vengeance belongs to God. Joseph in the Old Testament is a good example here. Although left for dead by his brothers years earlier, Joseph did not seek retribution. When the time came for Joseph to help them, he simply says, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good."
3. Paul writes in Romans 13, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another ... love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor...."
The attitude toward and the response that we can have as Christians to evil is exemplified by a friend of mine who lost his wife of 22 years to cancer a few weeks ago. At her funeral, he stood up and spoke about his wife's faith. He concluded with these words: "If the Enemy thought that he could use cancer and death to stop my wife from worshiping God, he was wrong. She is praising and worshiping him right now in heaven. And if the Evil One thought that he could stop me or this church from worshiping God, he was wrong. We will not stop serving and worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, we will intensify our efforts. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."
The Christian response to all evil, the evil of September 11, the evil that inhabits our daily life, is this: to put on the armor of light, which is the armor of love, and so intensify the battle whose outcome has already been determined by Christ on the cross: that life overcomes death, love overcomes hate, and ultimately, good overcomes evil.
Worship Resources
CALL TO WORSHIP
L. We are here to praise God, our help and our hope.
P. We come remembering the tragic events of last year.
L. Let us look to God, our Creator and Redeemer.
P. In worship we look for understanding and healing.
HYMN "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" or "O God, Our Help in Ages Past"
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
God, we know you have called us to love you and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We confess our anger toward those who harm our nation's people and property. We pray for grace to care not only for our nation, but for all peoples on earth. Forgive us when we see others as irredeemable when we know that in Christ you so loved the world. Be merciful to us as we try to understand who we are and what we are to do. Receive our individual prayers of confession.
SILENT CONFESSION
WORDS OF PARDON
God's love is extended to us, offering us forgiveness and new ways of seeing ourselves and others. Thanks be to God!
LITANY
L. We remember those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center.
P. We pray for comfort and strength for their families and friends.
L. We are thankful for the heroic actions of firefighters and police.
P. We honor all public servants who helped the suffering and dying.
L. We recall how tragic events brought people of our nation together.
P. We are grateful for how God's love was made known in words and actions.
L. We struggle to understand the reality of evil in terrorists and others in our world.
P. We try to understand what our reaction should be as Christians.
L. We have heard many times the singing of "God Bless America."
P. We sense our need also to sing and say, "God bless our world."
L. Jesus taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who harm us.
P. We will continue to pray for God's kingdom to come and God's will to be done.
THE LORD'S PRAYER
HYMNS
"Hope of the World"
"O God of Every Nation
"Let There Be Peace on Earth"
"This Is My Song"
A Children's Sermon
Text: Romans 13:8-14
v. 10- Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
Object: A doorbell, a letter or telephone, and a newspaper.
Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you remember 9/11? (let them answer) Do you remember where you were on that Tuesday morning? (let them answer) Who told you about it? (let them answer) Were you afraid? (let them answer)
I think everyone was afraid that day because nothing like that had ever really happened to us before. America has been in military battles between countries before but something like 9/11 was really different.
Does it make you angry when you think about it today? (let them answer) What do you think we should do about 9/11? (let them answer)
Let me ask you a couple of other questions. What do you do when someone hurts you? Do you try to hurt them the way they hurt you? (let them answer) My other question is this: What do your parents teach you to do when someone hurts you? Do they ask you to fight the people that hurt you? Do they tell you just to ignore them? Do they tell you not to have anything to do with them? (let them answer)
Finally, I have two more questions: What does your Sunday school teacher teach you about getting even or what do you think Jesus would say to you or me if someone hurt us, and we wanted to know what to do? And what would Jesus say about 9/11? (let them answer)
Thank you for answering the questions. Jesus knew what it was like to be hurt and hated. There were a lot of people who wanted to hurt not only him but also anyone who liked him or worked with him. Being a friend of Jesus took a lot of courage. Finally, they actually killed him after beating him and making fun of him. But Jesus always remained the same. He listened, he forgave, and he loved both his enemies and his friends.
This is what it is like to be a Christian. Jesus thought of everyone like his neighbor. Jesus didn't live in a nice house like you do. He didn't have a neighbor where he could ring a doorbell, but if he had lived in a town or where you live he would have rung your doorbell and told you about how much he loved you and how much he loved your neighbor. Jesus didn't have a postman, but if he did he would have sent letters to people who lived in another town and told them how much he loved them. And Jesus didn't have a newspaper or TV, but if he had one of them he would have loved the people who lived in different countries and he would have told them so.
September 11th was a horrible day and the people who did horrible things should be punished. But as Christians we are taught to love people and not hate them. Some people are really different when compared to us. They believe different things. They look different. They eat different foods and wear different clothes. Some of them do not like us and a few of them will try to harm us.
But Jesus tells us even to love people who hate us. It is a hard thing to do, but I believe in Jesus and I ask you to believe in Jesus. Love! Love! Love!
Who is our neighbor? Our neighbor is someone who lives next door, and I can tell my neighbor how much I love him/her by simply knocking on his/her door or ringing his/her doorbell. Our neighbor is someone who lives in another part of our town or somewhere in our country and I can write him/her a letter and tell him/her how much I love him/her or make a telephone call and tell him/her how much I love him/her. Our neighbor is also someone we will never meet. He or she lives in a strange country, dresses in a strange way, has a different language, a different religion, eats different food and maybe even hates us. But we must still love him/her.
Jesus teaches us that love is the only way to be to our neighbor. Not just one of the ways. It is the only way. Tough choice but it is what Jesus did and what he asks us to do.
God bless you.
The Immediate Word, September 8, 2002, issue.
Copyright 2002 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
This coming Sunday promises to be a tough one in the pulpit. Coming as it does just before the one-year anniversary of 9/11, it begs for a sermon that addresses in some way the events of that terrible day.
To provide some help in preparing your own sermon for this Sunday, The Immediate Word (TIW) -- a think tank of pastors assembled by CSS Publishing -- brings you two related pieces. The first, by TIW member Dr. Carlos Wilton, pastor of the Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church, Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, is called "Love of Neighbor: Priceless." It's based on Romans 13:8-14, which is the Epistle reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for this coming Sunday. Comments from other TIW members follow Carlos' work.
The second piece comes from TIW member Rev. Barbara G. Schmitz, an Episcopalian priest serving as assistant to the bishop of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Barb's work, "September 11, Evil and God" views 9/11 from the perspective of the biblical witness about evil, and provides excellent groundwork for your own work on that topic.
We've also included some worship resources and a children's sermon for this Sunday.
Love of Neighbor: Priceless
By Carlos Wilton
Romans 13:8-14
"Owe no one anything, except to love one another ..."
--Romans 13:8a
"There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's...." (You fill in the blank.)
I'm sure you were able to fill in the blank, for such is the power of advertising. The so-called "Priceless" ads of a certain major credit-card company have been around for years. The format's simple: a short list of goods or services, each of them accompanied by their dollar value. Then there's a final item: something intangible, to which no financial value could possibly be assigned. The value of this item is a single word, weightily intoned by the announcer: "priceless."
It's a pretty slick campaign. It's made millions for the ad agency that created it (let alone the credit-card company that commissioned the ads). One of the advertising executives handling the campaign admitted how slick it really is: "What really hit home with consumers," he said, "is that a company that is fundamentally all about money and paying for things would actually declare that the things that really count can't be bought."
So, there's a kind of sly deception going on with the "Priceless" campaign. The ad people are so certain the deception works, they don't even need to be subtle about it.
Jim Farrell is a professor at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. He writes and teaches about consumerism in America. In a recent syndicated column he wrote:
[The] "Priceless" ads are obviously designed to respond to the American public's worry that everything is being commodified, and that we're becoming too materialistic. So the ads emphasize the things money can't buy, the intangibles that make the good life really good. Most of these intangibles involve relationships, especially family relationships. It's priceless, for example, to read a book to your child, or to watch your children playing joyfully with the cardboard boxes instead of the toys under the Christmas tree.1
This, Farrell reminds us, is nothing new. Advertisers have done that for years: trying to sell our own deepest values back to us, by making us associate them with their products. "In most of these ads," he continues:
...the "priceless" moment is the direct result of a series of spending decisions. For example, you can't experience the priceless value of "your first dog" without buying it first. You can't show your daughter the place in Ireland where you first met your husband until you've paid to take her there. Often, it seems, the "priceless" moment has a considerable price.
The "bottom line" message of these ads, despite what the words say, is this: "There are some things money can't buy, but it sure helps."
In Romans, chapter 13, Paul's alerting us to the fact that some things in life truly are priceless. He does so using the analogy of debt -- which is really what credit cards are all about, despite the word "credit" in their name. "Owe no one anything," he advises, "except to love one another."
If there's anything we've learned, as a nation, since last September 11th, it's the wisdom of that statement. When the twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing down, one after another, suddenly the billions of dollars that passed through those buildings' computers every day meant little. What was truly important was the human lives lost -- and the vastly greater number of human lives touched by those losses.
One image that was burned into the consciousness of many at the scene -- and of those more distant as well, watching on TV -- was the incredible sight of a man and a woman jumping together from the burning towers, hand in hand. Something about that particular image has continued to speak to people, in a way that's hard to put into words.
Who were they? Friends? Lovers? Co-workers who barely knew each other? Or even strangers, who knew each other not at all, except for the bond of sharing a terrible death?
Then there's the odd contradiction in what they were doing. On the one hand, there's the intimacy of that simple human gesture: holding hands. On the other, there's the horror of the act those two have grimly resolved to perform: choosing quick death by jumping from a hundred stories up, rather than the slow agonies of burning or suffocation.
A documentary on the 9/11 attacks recorded the reactions of different people, recalling what they thought as they watched that anonymous pair, in person or on TV.
"To me," said novelist Ian McEwan, "it was just the bleakest possible image of the whole thing. What I saw was utter desperation ... I found no hope in that at all. If there is a God, he's a very indifferent God."
Brian Doyle, another writer and a professor of English, had a very different reaction:
They reached for each other, and their hands met, and they jumped. I keep coming back to his hand in her hand.... It's the most powerful prayer I can imagine -- the most eloquent, the most graceful.... It's what makes me believe that we're not fools to believe in God.
The 9/11 terrorists may have thought they were pulling down, before our horrified eyes, the most imposing symbol of American capitalism: but they failed. For the stories and images we Americans continue to call to mind, a year later, are not so much those of collapsing buildings and twisted steel, but the simple love of one person for another.
There's the love of a firefighter, climbing up stairs as others are going down ... the love of a heavy-equipment operator, working round the clock the following day, in hopes of finding someone still alive in the rubble ... the love of Todd Beamer from Cranbury, saying, "Let's roll," into that cell-phone, before rushing the hijackers and bringing that plane to the ground in a place where no one else could be hurt.
You and I can choose how we're going to remember 9/11. We can remember it as a horrendous, inhuman atrocity -- which it certainly was. Or, we can choose to remember it as one of those "times that try men's souls," in the words of Thomas Paine: try them and find them worthy.
"Owe no one anything, except to love one another." Paul's saying the standard by which God tries our souls is how faithfully we carry out Christ's greatest commandment, to love our neighbor as ourselves.
It may very well be so for us, in the days to come. God is watching, and waiting. We, as a nation, have been sorely tested by 9/11: but we will continue to be tested in the days to come.
George Carlin is one of those comedians who's often way "over the top," as they say -- but there are times in his routines when a remarkable wisdom breaks through the smokescreen of nonsense. "I'm not worried about all hell breaking loose," he once said, "but that a part of hell will break loose. It'll be much harder to detect."
On 9/11, all hell broke loose: in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in a western Pennsylvania field. It was easy, then, for us to recognize evil in our midst: for it was snapping and snarling, daring us to defend ourselves against its obvious threat. Politicians, in those days immediately following the attacks, spoke about evil with an easy and chilling familiarity: for they had just come from staring into its blood-red eyes (as had we all).
Yet as the smoke cleared, and the earth-movers did their work at Ground Zero, and the fighting in Afghanistan wound its way, after many months, to its inevitable conclusion, we Americans have looked around and seen that those shattered shards of hell are, once again, hard to detect. Those who planned, supplied and bankrolled the 9/11 attacks have vanished. There are still many things for law-enforcement and the military to do in the aftermath, still many criminals to track down -- but ambiguity has descended like a fog. No longer is there a single, bold stroke to be taken, that all the world can clearly see is in the service of good-versus-evil.
There's always a feeling of satisfaction in taking such a stroke. Anger, when it seems to be righteous, is a temptation difficult to resist. The preacher and novelist Frederick Buechner has written:
Of all the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.2
There's an old Japanese story about an elderly monk who was sitting by the side of the road one day, meditating. His eyes were closed, so he didn't see the samurai warrior steal silently up to him, as expert warriors are trained to do.
"Old man!" the samurai cried out, in a tone of command. "Teach me about heaven and hell!"
At first, the monk just sat there, as though he had not heard. But then, gradually, he opened his eyes. The faintest hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth.
"You wish to know the secrets of heaven and hell?" he snapped. "You! You, who are so unkempt! You, whose hands and feet are covered with dirt. You, whose hair is uncombed, whose breath is foul, whose sword is rusty and neglected. You, who are ugly and whose mother dresses you funny. You would ask me of heaven and hell?"
Well, the samurai responded as you may expect. He uttered a vile curse. He unsheathed his sword and raised it high above his head. His face turned red and the veins on his neck stood out, as he prepared to sever the monk's head from its shoulders in a single stroke.
Yet before he could bring his blade down in the deadly blow, the monk said, gently but ever-so-quickly, "That is hell."
The sword remained suspended in the air for a moment, ready to strike, until the samurai brought it down slowly, and allowed it to fall to the ground. He was overcome with awe and amazement, at this gentle and compassionate being who had risked his very life so that he might taste a morsel of wisdom. The eyes of the hardened, battle-scarred warrior filled with tears.
"And that," said the monk, looking gently back into those repentant eyes, "is heaven."3
Most of what has been said, in the past twelve months, about the 9/11 attacks is true. They were an outrage, an act of war, a crime against humanity, a betrayal of the very religion out of which they were born. Thousands of innocent people lost their lives, at the hands of Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atta and their minions.
But may it not be so that the victims of 9/11 have died utterly in vain. Perhaps there is a lesson, one so painful it's hard even to utter, that you and I and all the world may wring out from these sad events. It's the lesson of love of neighbor.
"Apocalypse," writes the poet Kathleen Norris, in a recent essay
... grabs us by the shoulders and says, "Look at what matters in life." And suddenly, we see. But both common sense and the biblical narrative remind us that it is difficult to hold on to our new, unencumbered vision. On September 12th, it seemed imperative to sit in the silence of a church, or to seek the company of others to light candles and offer prayers. But as we returned to our normal routines, the imperative faded. Road rage has re-emerged, and incidents of domestic violence are said to be increasing in the face of new economic uncertainties. I suspect that we will prove ourselves to be, in the ancient biblical phrase, a "stiff-necked people," remarkably good at forgetting both our own mortality and God's eternity.4
There are still lessons to be learned from 9/11, lessons of love of neighbor. Perhaps there is no one better to turn to, in order to learn those lessons, than the victims themselves.
Garrison Keillor had a handle on this as, shortly after 9/11, he spoke in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. These are the words with which he ended his monologue that night:
...for the truth, we should look to all the men and women who saw that death was near and who called home on their cell phones, not to express anger or fear or bitterness but simply to say, "I love you," "Take care of the children," "Have a good life." In a moment of great clarity at the end, they called in the midst of smoke and confusion and panic to give us their benediction and we should accept it. "Love each other, take care of the children, have a good life, and give thanks to the Lord with our whole heart for his steadfast love and faithfulness and beseech him that we may have a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and dignity and that in every place men and women should pray lifting up holy hands without anger or argument. Amen."5
May it not be so that the victims of that dread day have died in vain. Take to heart the teachings of the scriptures: "Owe no one anything, except to love one another."
Notes
1 From a syndicated column distributed on the Internet by the Center for a New American Dream, www.newdream.org.
2 Wishful Thinking (Harper & Row, 1973), 2.
3 Adapted from John W. Groff, Jr., A Third Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
4 www.sojo.net/terror/index.cfm/action/home.html#Sept11.
5 www.gracecathedral.org/church/sermon/ser_20010923.shtml.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: I believe that preaching should, in general, be Christological. I guess Jesus doesn't have to be mentioned in every sermon but if there's no Christological centering I find myself wondering if it's proclamation of the Gospel or moral exhortation. We reflected on the fact that the crowds of people who came to churches on the couple of Sundays after 9/11 quickly left again. Maybe it's because what they often heard was moral exhortation and generic "God loves you" consolations instead of a message about a God who got nailed to a cross.
In Carlos' piece I find myself thinking of a couple of things. First, the statement in Romans that we are to love one another surely has to be thought of in the context of the belief that Christian love is possible only because of the prevenient love of God shown to us in Christ -- "We love because he first loved us," and in view of that it's possible to think of the pricelessness of love in quite a different way. I think of Bonhoeffer's statement in The Cost of Discipleship that grace "is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'ye were bought at a price,' and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation."
And so to this quotation in the sermon -- "To me," said novelist Ian McEwan, "it was just the bleakest possible image of the whole thing. What I saw was utter desperation ... I found no hope in that at all. If there is a God, he's a very indifferent God." -- I want to point to the hope that is proclaimed in Mark 15, where a man who has just cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is recognized as the Son of God. It is not cheap hope but costly hope.
Stan Purdum responds: Carlos' discussion has focused on what is surely the lesson for us -- loving one another (interestingly, Barb Schmitz's piece on evil arrives at the same end point). My only suggestion is to delete the samurai story. Its point is a bit obscure.
Larry Hard responds: The samurai story does not strengthen the sermon, though an interesting illustration. I felt that the introduction leading into what is priceless and the scripture may have been longer than needed to make the point. I especially liked reflections on the image of the man and woman jumping from the WTC together. I'm a strong believer that it is images and pictures in sermons that stick in the mind, and have power.
Barb Schmitz responds: The quotes by Keillor and Norris, Doyle, Ferrell, Buechner, etc. are all good. I actually like the samurai story and think it is the best part. I'm not sure I follow all the transitions that are made throughout (would subheadings help?). Your ending would be strengthened, I think, if you could come back to some brief reference about the priceless advertisements -- bring it full circle so to speak. The "love one another" message comes through pretty good.
September 11, Evil, and God
By Barb Schmitz
On September 11, "all hell broke loose." The images of that day are still fresh. We still talk about where we were when we first heard the news. Some of us lost people we loved or worked with or knew. Maybe it's not of much that all hell broke loose, but that a part of hell broke loose -- and forever changed the world. (Carlin quote adapted)
If you're like me, since September 11, I've been paying more attention to the word "evil." It really wasn't in my vocabulary before then. Yes, it's there in the Lord's Prayer -- "deliver us from evil," -- but I never gave much thought to from what kind of evil I was praying to be delivered. With the one-year mark of the tragic events of September 11 upon us, I feel it is appropriate to look at evil -- what it is, and what to do about it, from the perspective of scripture.
A Christian understanding of evil
A Christian understanding of evil begins with the Bible, and scripture has a lot to say about evil. It mentions evil and wickedness over 500 times.
1. Evil has been around pretty much from the get-go. We read the creation story in Genesis 1 and we hardly turn the page and we are reading about Adam and Eve, the apple and the serpent, the knowledge of good and evil. Evil has been around for a long time. It's not some 20th-century creation of Hitler and the Holocaust; evil did not begin on September11, 2002. Evil has been characterized as "a poetic lie;" and has been around since that first set of lies in the Garden of Eden.
2. A Christian understanding of evil would have to say: Evil is pervasive. It inhabits this world at all levels. The Bible talks about this present evil age. Ephesians talks about the "forces of evil" and says the "days are evil." Jesus talked about "the evil one" and prayed that his followers would be protected from the evil one. Jesus met up with all kinds of evil spirits and demons in his ministry. Jesus also talked about evil people, and St. Paul said that they "invent ways of doing evil." Jesus taught his disciples to pray, saying, "deliver us from evil." The epistles often refer to evil behavior, evil thoughts, evil desires, and evil deeds. The author of Ephesians puts it this way: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:11-12). According to the New Testament, there's an axis of evil, all right, and it's pervasive at all levels in this world. (See Galatians 1:4; Matthew 5:37; John 17:15; Matthew 5:39; Luke 6:45.)
3. As long as we are in this world, we will be confronted with evil in one way or another. My parents' generation was acutely aware of the evil associated with the Holocaust. The past year has heightened our awareness of evil, not in a far away country, but in daily life. On the evening of September 11, President Bush said, "Today our nation saw evil." Our nation continued to see evil in the accounting scandals, the disappearance/kidnapping of young children and the crisis in the Roman Catholic Church over sexual misconduct.
4. We have to acknowledge that we are part and parcel of evil in the world. It's not "going over the top" to confess our own sins in the harsh-sounding words of the confession: "We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness...." Jesus said to his disciples, "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children...."
Unprepared for evil?
We are mesmerized by evil for a while, and then, if we haven't been directly affected, we usually move on. I was flabbergasted to hear an older gentleman say just a few months ago, "What this country needs is a big disaster to bring people back to church." I thought, where were you on September 11? What do you think that was? Yet even that did not bring people back to church. It did for a couple of Sundays. But I have not spoken to a pastor yet who can tell me of one person that became a regular attendee or member as a direct result of September 11.
The unchurched streamed to churches for comfort and assurance last year after September 11. I happened to be in England at the time. On the night of the attack, the Canterbury Cathedral choir loft was packed for Evensong. On the Friday of that week, I sat in a restaurant and watched as people streamed into the local church, filling it to capacity. I read of a church in England that used to have about 12 people for the Saturday night service. It had over 500 that first Saturday after September11. But by the time that I returned to the States, local churches were back to "business as normal." By all measures, Christians and non-Christians alike were unprepared for the stark evil of September 11.
A Christian response to evil
Scripture does not leave us without direction on how to respond to evil, whether it be evil in everyday life or evil forces in the heavenly realms.
1. Ezekiel says it very simply: "Turn back from your evil ways." That is possible only because Jesus defeated Satan on the cross. He "disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them ..." (Colossians 2:15). In the words of one eucharistic prayer: "In Him you have delivered us from evil. You have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life" (Book of Common Prayer). The author of 1 John tells us that we have overcome the evil one, and the evil one cannot touch us.
2. We claim that we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Paul tells us in Romans, "Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." On a practical level, how do we overcome evil? St. Paul's instructions are not to repay evil for evil, but to overcome evil with good. Vengeance belongs to God. Joseph in the Old Testament is a good example here. Although left for dead by his brothers years earlier, Joseph did not seek retribution. When the time came for Joseph to help them, he simply says, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good."
3. Paul writes in Romans 13, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another ... love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor...."
The attitude toward and the response that we can have as Christians to evil is exemplified by a friend of mine who lost his wife of 22 years to cancer a few weeks ago. At her funeral, he stood up and spoke about his wife's faith. He concluded with these words: "If the Enemy thought that he could use cancer and death to stop my wife from worshiping God, he was wrong. She is praising and worshiping him right now in heaven. And if the Evil One thought that he could stop me or this church from worshiping God, he was wrong. We will not stop serving and worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, we will intensify our efforts. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."
The Christian response to all evil, the evil of September 11, the evil that inhabits our daily life, is this: to put on the armor of light, which is the armor of love, and so intensify the battle whose outcome has already been determined by Christ on the cross: that life overcomes death, love overcomes hate, and ultimately, good overcomes evil.
Worship Resources
CALL TO WORSHIP
L. We are here to praise God, our help and our hope.
P. We come remembering the tragic events of last year.
L. Let us look to God, our Creator and Redeemer.
P. In worship we look for understanding and healing.
HYMN "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" or "O God, Our Help in Ages Past"
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
God, we know you have called us to love you and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We confess our anger toward those who harm our nation's people and property. We pray for grace to care not only for our nation, but for all peoples on earth. Forgive us when we see others as irredeemable when we know that in Christ you so loved the world. Be merciful to us as we try to understand who we are and what we are to do. Receive our individual prayers of confession.
SILENT CONFESSION
WORDS OF PARDON
God's love is extended to us, offering us forgiveness and new ways of seeing ourselves and others. Thanks be to God!
LITANY
L. We remember those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center.
P. We pray for comfort and strength for their families and friends.
L. We are thankful for the heroic actions of firefighters and police.
P. We honor all public servants who helped the suffering and dying.
L. We recall how tragic events brought people of our nation together.
P. We are grateful for how God's love was made known in words and actions.
L. We struggle to understand the reality of evil in terrorists and others in our world.
P. We try to understand what our reaction should be as Christians.
L. We have heard many times the singing of "God Bless America."
P. We sense our need also to sing and say, "God bless our world."
L. Jesus taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who harm us.
P. We will continue to pray for God's kingdom to come and God's will to be done.
THE LORD'S PRAYER
HYMNS
"Hope of the World"
"O God of Every Nation
"Let There Be Peace on Earth"
"This Is My Song"
A Children's Sermon
Text: Romans 13:8-14
v. 10- Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
Object: A doorbell, a letter or telephone, and a newspaper.
Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you remember 9/11? (let them answer) Do you remember where you were on that Tuesday morning? (let them answer) Who told you about it? (let them answer) Were you afraid? (let them answer)
I think everyone was afraid that day because nothing like that had ever really happened to us before. America has been in military battles between countries before but something like 9/11 was really different.
Does it make you angry when you think about it today? (let them answer) What do you think we should do about 9/11? (let them answer)
Let me ask you a couple of other questions. What do you do when someone hurts you? Do you try to hurt them the way they hurt you? (let them answer) My other question is this: What do your parents teach you to do when someone hurts you? Do they ask you to fight the people that hurt you? Do they tell you just to ignore them? Do they tell you not to have anything to do with them? (let them answer)
Finally, I have two more questions: What does your Sunday school teacher teach you about getting even or what do you think Jesus would say to you or me if someone hurt us, and we wanted to know what to do? And what would Jesus say about 9/11? (let them answer)
Thank you for answering the questions. Jesus knew what it was like to be hurt and hated. There were a lot of people who wanted to hurt not only him but also anyone who liked him or worked with him. Being a friend of Jesus took a lot of courage. Finally, they actually killed him after beating him and making fun of him. But Jesus always remained the same. He listened, he forgave, and he loved both his enemies and his friends.
This is what it is like to be a Christian. Jesus thought of everyone like his neighbor. Jesus didn't live in a nice house like you do. He didn't have a neighbor where he could ring a doorbell, but if he had lived in a town or where you live he would have rung your doorbell and told you about how much he loved you and how much he loved your neighbor. Jesus didn't have a postman, but if he did he would have sent letters to people who lived in another town and told them how much he loved them. And Jesus didn't have a newspaper or TV, but if he had one of them he would have loved the people who lived in different countries and he would have told them so.
September 11th was a horrible day and the people who did horrible things should be punished. But as Christians we are taught to love people and not hate them. Some people are really different when compared to us. They believe different things. They look different. They eat different foods and wear different clothes. Some of them do not like us and a few of them will try to harm us.
But Jesus tells us even to love people who hate us. It is a hard thing to do, but I believe in Jesus and I ask you to believe in Jesus. Love! Love! Love!
Who is our neighbor? Our neighbor is someone who lives next door, and I can tell my neighbor how much I love him/her by simply knocking on his/her door or ringing his/her doorbell. Our neighbor is someone who lives in another part of our town or somewhere in our country and I can write him/her a letter and tell him/her how much I love him/her or make a telephone call and tell him/her how much I love him/her. Our neighbor is also someone we will never meet. He or she lives in a strange country, dresses in a strange way, has a different language, a different religion, eats different food and maybe even hates us. But we must still love him/her.
Jesus teaches us that love is the only way to be to our neighbor. Not just one of the ways. It is the only way. Tough choice but it is what Jesus did and what he asks us to do.
God bless you.
The Immediate Word, September 8, 2002, issue.
Copyright 2002 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
