People of differing views and national backgrounds have expressed their outrage in the last few days. One common theme is that the only appropriate way to deal with these events is by a military reprisal against those that planned the attack and trained the hijackers and those who gave them sanctuary to do it. Let us pray that when this reprisal comes there will be a minimum number of casualties among the innocent people who will be sucked into the vortex of violence, just like their counterparts in the offices of the World Trade Center and the police, fire fighters and emergency personnel. Let us pray that those who execute the military operation will be spared as well. But let us also pray that we as a nation will learn our lessons too. May we be as restrained by what our faith teaches us about vengeance and the need to love one another and how it warns us against arrogance. May we be as true to our faith as those who hate us believe they are being true to their faith in committing acts of terrorism.

On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln spoke a few words at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, the site of one of the most important battles of the Civil War. Speaking after Edward Everett, who gave a two-hour oration, Lincoln struck a theme that may also be appropriate for us as a nation today. He did not rail against slavery and those who sought to preserve and expand it, though he hated the despicable idea that one person could own and control another. He did not celebrate the victory of his troops in words that belied the terrible loss of life, about 48,000 casualties on both sides. Instead, he mentioned how the nation might be transformed by the sacrifices of those who gave "the last full measure of devotion." He expressed the hope that "this nation, under God," should "have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

As I have listened and watched the television coverage of what happened in Washington and New York, I have heard numerous commentators say that our country will never be the same again. Pearl Harbor made us realize that we could not live in sublime isolation from the troubles of the rest of the world. The assassination of President Kennedy made us rethink the role of our presidents and how vulnerable they might be to a lone assassin. The terrorist attacks, commentators suggest, will make us realize that despite our status as the world's only superpower, we are not really safe and secure within our borders. Because we are a free and open society, we are vulnerable to the treachery of small cadres of fanatically suicidal people that seek to inflict pain on us and possibly bring our nation to its knees.

Whether the buildings of the World Trade Center will ever be replaced is uncertain at this point. Some may hold that the land is too valuable to be transformed into a park like the one in Oklahoma City or that we must replace them because they are symbols of the power of our nation's economy and wealth. Others may disagree because they think that to rebuild is to forget the terrible loss of life and the many personal tragedies that ensued. Only time will tell if lower Manhattan can be compared to the phoenix, that mythological bird that consumed itself by fire every five hundred years. Then from its ashes sprang a new young bird to replace it.

Let the phoenix be a symbol of what can happen to us as a nation if we learn more from what has happened than the location of the headquarters of the terrorist organization behind it. If we can learn certain lessons from what has happened, then out of the ashes there will be life. Out of these ashes we can have a new birth.

One lesson we can certainly learn is that we need to have a serious national debate about the best and most cost effective ways to defend ourselves in the face of the threats posed by the technology of the 21st Century. No missile was necessary to wreak the kind of destruction we saw on TV, just some well-trained hijackers with knives aboard jet airliners. Is it really technically possible to build a workable missile defense shield? Will it protect us against the ways we are most likely to be attacked? Will it spur potentially hostile nations to develop new weapons and strategies to circumvent it, just as the Nazis developed a strategy to go around the Maginot Line and defeat France in a matter of days by invading Belgium first? If we spend the money to build it, what other worthy projects will we have to sacrifice? Can we afford it?

During our trip we visited the Ukrainian cities of Yalta and Odessa. Yalta, of course, is resort where an important conference was held near the end of World War II. Odessa is an important seaport. In both cities, when we stopped at cathedrals, beggars met us with outstretched hands. As we were driving though Odessa, the guide pointed out apartments that had been built during the Kruschev era. One could see that they were shoddily built. The concrete was crumbling, and they badly needed paint. Signs of poverty were all around us, as were advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes and youngsters smoking them. After lunch we went to the Opera House for a beautiful performance by the Odessa Ballet Company. At the end of the tour, I remarked to the tour guide how sad it was that the former Soviet Union and the United States had wasted so much money on ways to blow each other up during the Cold War. There were so many other uses to which it might have been put. She nodded in agreement even though she knew that we were still much better off than she and her fellow Ukrainians were.

During the days of the prophet Jeremiah the land of Judah faced the threat of an invasion by the Babylonians. The kings of Judah tried different approaches to secure their land from attack. They even made an alliance with Egypt to help them. Jeremiah insisted that steadfast loyalty to God was the one thing they lacked and the one thing that could save them. Unless they returned to the worship of God, they were doomed to fall. Once he exhorted them,

This is what the Lord declares:

"Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom

or the strong man boast of his strength

or the rich man of his riches,

but let him who boasts boast about this:

that he understands and knows me,

that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,

justice and righteousness on earth,

for in these I delight."

From the ashes of New York, there will be life as we come to grips with what really makes us strong as a nation.

Another reason life will come out of the ashes is that this tragedy has shown the possibilities for heroism in the kind of people we often take for granted and seldom highly reward.

One of the comedians aboard our ship was talking about healthcare and doctors and how we love to hate them. However, she also noted that if we are having a heart attack, we don't call for a herbalist to give us a dose of echinacea. Instead we call for a real doctor to do what is necessary to treat us and save us.

I suppose the same is true when disaster strikes a nation. We don't want seductively clothed Hollywood stars advising us how to conceal our wrinkles as we age. We don't want heavy metal musicians twanging on their guitars yelling at us to tell how they "love you, baby." We don't want rapsters telling us about "the Man." We don't want professional athletes who earn millions because they can hit home runs or run through an opposing team's tacklers or because they can put a basketball through a hoop from thirty feet away. We don't want TV network executives trying to find new ways to shock us by their so-called "reality TV." We don't want talk show hosts telling us how we are over-taxed or offering their own brand of morality to people who call them. We don't want lawyers telling us whom to sue. We may not even want preachers saying glibly that all this is God's will.

We want people like those aboard one of the airliners who decided to resist the hijackers and keep their plane from killing those on the ground. We need people like the police and fire fighters and emergency medical personnel who entered the buildings to save others and didn't come out alive. We need people like the iron workers and search- and-rescue teams working around the clock to save one human life.

Out of the ashes may there come a new respect for the contributions so many simple yet heroic people make to our safety and well being. Let us thank God for them every day.

Life will come out of the ashes of New York and Washington for still another reason. The tragic events have united our nation in emotions of grief and outrage that transcend almost all other means of dividing us. When you saw the bloody survivors or the grim faces of the rescue workers, you did not care if they were Republicans or Democrats, Irish Americans or Latinos, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, or atheists. They were common people like each one of us. They were scared. They were filled with sorrow because their coworkers had not escaped safely. When you saw those people trying to escape from thousand-degree heat by jumping to their deaths from the upper stories, you did not care if their skin was a different color from yours. And when you saw the family members of those on the doomed airliners, you saw the depth of sorrow that makes us all human beings.

In the 17th century, the City of London was infected by the plague. Because people lived so closely on the narrow streets of the city, the disease reached epidemic proportions. People were dying every day, and the parish church bells were ringing from sunrise to sunset to signify that a man, a woman, or a child had died. John Donne was the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, and he wrote a series of Meditations to address the needs of his congregation. In the midst of our anger and grief and outrage let us listen to his words written so long ago:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

This week the bell is tolling once again. It tolls for those in New York and Washington. It tolls for those who have been made widows and widowers and orphans. It tolls for those heroes that gave their lives to save others. It tolls for the victims of bombings in Jerusalem. It tolls for the Arabs who are being driven from their homes by the encroachments of Israeli settlements. It tolls for the children of the world who face starvation daily. It tolls for those with AIDS in Africa and at home. It tolls even for those responsible for the misery because in their hatred they have lost part of their humanity as well.

Our country will survive this attack, I have no doubt. My deepest hope and most solemn prayer is that out of the ashes there will be life, a resurrection that will transform us as a nation into a nobler, kindlier, and gentler people.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

.

 ©2001 by Kenneth E. Williams

Rev. Kenneth E. Williams is a Presbyterian minister as well as a retired professor of English at The College of New Jersey. This sermon was preached at the Wissahickon Presbyterian Church, where he serves as one of the pastors, on September 16, 2001.

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