Jesus Wept - September 11
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 40, 54; PM Psalm 51; Job 29:1,31:24-40; Acts 15:12-21; John 11:30-44
I remember where I was twenty-five years ago more clearly than almost any other moment in my life. I was living on the middle floor of my fraternity house at 516 Northwestern Avenue in West Lafayette, Indiana. That house is gone now; there is a parking garage where it once stood.
A friend woke me that morning just after the first tower was struck. By midmorning, we were all huddled together in the basement, glued to the television.
About a block behind our house stood the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, the campus ministry at Purdue University. It occurred to me only last night that, although I have spent much of my life looking to the Church for answers, I did not look there for answers that day. I turned to the people around me—to my fellow human beings, to my brothers gathered in a basement. We did not know what to say or what any of it meant. We simply knew that we needed to be together.
The church that later formed me for seminary had a simple message outside its building at the corner of Walnut Grove and Perkins in Memphis that morning: “Open for prayer.” That was it.
Twenty-five years later, that response still shapes me. When we cannot make sense of the world, we can gather and turn to the Lord who met Mary in her grief. When she reaches Jesus, she says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus does not explain himself. He sees Mary and the others weeping, and he weeps with them.
Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is be present to one another, pray with one another, and simply be human with one another. We remember not to keep alive the fear and hatred of that day, but to honor those who died and to recommit ourselves to the peace God desires for all people. Our memories can become walls between us, or they can deepen our compassion. Prayer helps us choose what we will build from them.
The following prayer, written by the Diocese of New York for this day, gives words to that hope.
Collect for September 11
O Almighty God, who brings good out of evil and turns even the wrath of your children towards your promised peace: Hear our prayers this day as we remember those of many nations and differing faiths whose lives were cut short by the fierce flames of anger and hatred. Hasten the time when the menace of war shall be removed. Cleanse both us and those perceived to be our enemies of all hatred and distrust. Pour out the spirit of peace on all the rulers of our world that we may be brought through strife to the lasting peace of the kingdom of your Son; Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.