There was a picture on one of the front pages of the Courier-Journal yesterday of a man from Louisville who had been in New York City on September 11, 2001. The picture showed him standing in a cathedral sanctuary holding a pair of dress shoes. The shoes were covered in dust. They were, of course, the shoes he was wearing on that day ten years ago and the dust was the debris of the events of that day. For a few moments before heading to church I sat with that picture in my lap and listened as on the television family members read the names of husbands and wives, sons and daughters - the names of people who had died that day read by those who live with the memory.
And I got to thinking about those shoes covered in dust. Those shoes are all of us. We are all covered in the dust of the debris of that day. I love that, at our August Session meeting, one of our elders asked if we would be touching on the events of 9/11 in our September 11 worship service. I love it because I think it's a great question coming from one of the folks providing spiritual leadership for the congregation - expressing concern for the need for our worship to speak to the world where we live. I don't know how we would have worshiped yesterday and not acknowledge the dust that has settled on our national psyche post 9/11/01.
The lectionary for the week demonstrated the uncanny ability of ancient scripture to speak a compelling, challenging, contemporary word to every moment in life. From Matthew's gospel we read of Jesus instruction to forgive seventy times seven times, or seventy-seven times or basically as many times as we have the opportunity to forgive. Jesus clearly knows forgiveness is not an easy task, understands that and asks for it anyway. It's what we have received and now it's what we are to practice. From Romans we were reminded that the judgment seat doesn't have our name on it - we don't get to sit there. Our energy is not well spent judging others, far more productive is the time we spend asking how we are doing in terms of how we might face such an accounting at this very moment.
The anniversary of September 11 is a day that I don't believe will ever slip quietly by. There is just all that dust. Thanks be to God who walks with us to meet the most unspeakable of challenges and grants us the resources - the love, the compassion, the forgiveness - that allow us to live in ways that do not ignore the dust,but rather enable us, day by day, to polish, to shine, to live towards God's better tomorrow.
(The man in the picture is Sean Higgins. To read the C-J piece on Sean Higgins, click on or cut and paste the following...)
