Let Their Memory Lead Us to Peace

Twenty-five years ago today, our nation awoke to horror.

On September 11, 2001, nearly three thousand people were killed in acts of terrorism in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Thousands more carried wounds in body and spirit. Families were changed forever. First responders entered places others were fleeing. Ordinary people helped strangers. A nation grieved.

Today we remember the dead.

We remember those who went to work and never came home. We remember those aboard the planes. We remember firefighters, police officers, paramedics, clergy, workers, and volunteers. We remember those who later became sick because they entered the ruins to search, rescue, recover, and rebuild.

Memory, though, asks more of Christians than nostalgia.

We must also remember what fear did to us afterward.

In the pain following September 11, grief too often became anger. Anger became suspicion. Suspicion sought someone to blame. Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, Sikhs, immigrants, and people who simply looked like someone we had been taught to fear became targets of hatred, harassment, violence, and even murder.

This is the old human habit of scapegoating.

When communities become frightened, we look for someone upon whom we can place our fear, anger, and sin. Jesus reveals another way. Christ does not teach us to create victims. Christ stands among them.

The attacks of September 11 also became the beginning of decades of war conducted in the name of defeating terror. Thousands upon thousands of human beings died in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond. Soldiers died. Civilians died. Children died. Families were displaced. Communities were shattered. Many who returned home carried wounds no one else could see.

Their lives matter too.

To remember September 11 faithfully means refusing to divide the dead into those worthy of our tears and those whose suffering is easier to ignore.

There is enough grief for all of them.

There must also be repentance.

The Church must repent whenever we allowed fear to become hatred.

We must repent whenever nationalism became confused with the Gospel.

We must repent whenever revenge sounded more convincing to us than the words of Christ.

We must repent when Muslims were treated as enemies because of their faith.

We must repent when violence committed against innocent people was answered by accepting the suffering of other innocent people as necessary.

And we must repent for every time the Church remained silent because speaking for peace seemed unpopular.

The Gospel does not ask us to forget evil. It asks us to refuse to become possessed by it.

Jesus teaches us another way. Love of neighbor. Love of stranger. Love even of enemy. Mercy without denying justice. Peace without pretending wounds are not real.

This is where renewal must begin.

The Church does not need another revival built around power, anger, or fear. We need a revival of the Gospel.

A revival where Christians become known again by the enemies we refuse to hate.

A revival where the Church stands between the scapegoat and the crowd.

A revival where mourning leads us toward compassion rather than revenge.

A revival where peace is not treated as weakness but as the difficult work of people who believe resurrection is stronger than death.

So today we remember.

We remember September 11, 2001.

We remember those who died that morning.

We remember those who died in the wars that followed.

We remember Muslims and others who endured hatred because frightened people needed someone to blame.

We remember soldiers and civilians.

We remember the wounded, the displaced, the grieving, and those who still carry the weight of these twenty-five years.

And then we ask what kind of people their memory calls us to become.

Let us honor the dead by seeking life.

Let us answer hatred without becoming hateful.

Let us resist the demand for another scapegoat.

Let us teach our children a better way.

Let us become peacemakers.

And let the Church once again find the courage to follow the Crucified One, who entered the machinery of human violence as its victim and rose from the grave without returning violence for violence.

May the memory of all who have died be eternal.

May their memory call us to repentance.

May repentance lead us to renewal.

And may renewal send us into the world as people committed to life, reconciliation, justice, and peace.