Father Gary’s Sermon

Inspired from Luke 15:1-10

Proclaimed on 12 September 2004

This past Tuesday three years ago our nation was fiercely and savagely attacked. At first this event did not seem real. This was certainly true for me as I watched the incidents unfold on the television. I was doing my morning exercises as the news commentator reported that a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center’s towers. Discussion was being shared among pundits as to whether this was some sort of weird accident or even possibly the act of terrorists. Suddenly across the screen, as they were showing the burning tower, a large and fast object plunged into the other tower. For a second I stood there in stunned disbelief. There was a brief spell of silence from the TV, which was soon interrupted by an anchorman’s outburst, confirming my worst suspicions. As the events of the morning unfolded with a similar attack being made upon the Pentagon, as well as another plane downed in Pennsylvania not far from where I had just returned from sabbatical, it almost seemed to me that I was viewing an action-packed movie, which was rapidly becoming a long miniseries, or a continuing reality show not unlike Survivor.

As that week progressed, the reality had begun to sink in that something truly terrible had occurred. Thousands of people had died! Our nation, yes, even the world, was reeling. As Mort Kondracky on Fox News so aptly expressed it, the savage attack took place on the eleventh day of the ninth month, a day when our nation collectively called 911.

1Comparisons were being made to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, an event that only two living generations could recall. The three other living generations who did not have this memory, were beginning to hear words used such as “evil” and “Satan” in unabtract ways in political speeches, news stories, prayer services, and funeral orations. They are words which clearly denote acts which are clearly out of our control, events which are savage and destructive, and know no bounds for bringing about the worst of human suffering. Into the midst of this darkness, we were being warned of telemarketers calling around and asking for donations that would not be used for their stated purposes. Other similar acts of those seeking gain through the losses of others experiencing tragedies were daily being brought to light.

Just when it seemed that all goodness was gone we began seeing many great acts of kindness, bravery and courage, and vast outpourings of love and support. Workers in New York were laboring around the clock, digging through the debris, desperately seeking for those who were still alive. As they did so, many were losing fingers and toes as the serrated steel cut them off. Yet, after receiving medical aid they returned once again to continue their relentless work. Stories of miracles were coming in. One about a rescued person who was allegedly on the eighty-second floor of one of the towers when it fell, who somehow survived after riding the falling tower to the ground.

The whole thing seemed surreal, an event unfolding in such biblical proportions. A nation, which only the previous week, was marked by many deep divisions, was suddenly being united. A war was proclaimed, which congress quickly funded, and our military reserves were called up. We were being told every day that nothing was no longer the same; that everything was going to change. What did this mean? We were left with only uncertainty. We were now staring into abyss of insecurity. It was as though that Tuesday, as the nation saw that plane plunge into the World Trade Center, we saw a stone thrown into a cosmic pond, and we waited as the ripples went out and they came our way to shake our personal worlds.

That was three years ago. Since then, we all have experienced other things. For instance, many of us have experienced the loss of a parent or a loved one. I experienced a stroke that has literally rocked the foundations of my life. Now this area of the nation is under possible threat of a hurricane, after just recently experiencing two others! What are we to make of all of this?! It is like we are living the story of a man named Joe, who worked in the coal mines of Kentucky. One day, the unthinkable happened. There was a cave-in. Hundreds of tons of rock and coal buried Joe and four other workers in the cave. They had enough oxygen to last awhile, so they could breath. But after the batteries in the lights on their hard hats wore down they were in total darkness.

Could this be the world that we are about to enter? If so, than Joe’s experience may have some meaning for us. Later on, after Joe and his comrades had been rescued, Joe said that the hardest thing was waiting for the return of the light. He had sat there in pitch blackness, unable to make out even the slightest image with his eyes, and as he recalled the thing he looked forward to with the most anticipation was light -- just to be able once again to see the light. His eyes filled with tears as he recalled what it felt like when the first light finally broke in. He said, “It felt like I was dead and that God had come to invite me back to life.”

This is where the Good News of our Gospel reading today becomes even more relevant, and even more hopeful. In this Gospel Jesus tells two stories; stories about how things get lost -- stories about sheep and coins. In each of these the loss was very real, the loss was of something most valuable, and when the lost was found there was great rejoicing. But what is most important about these stories is not about that which is lost, but rather is about how God responds to the lost. These stories proclaim loud and clear that God loves the lost, and seeks after the lost.

Perhaps we are entering into a world that feels like a dark cave, not unlike that which that Kentucky miner was trapped in. But if we can grab hold of today’s Gospel, Jesus is proclaiming that that which seems like a cave is really a tunnel. At the end of that tunnel is God, providing us with the light of Christ. You see, on the Cross our Lord entered what seemed a dark cave, indeed the whole world turned dark that day. He suffered real pain; he endured betrayal, denial, and the loss of all his friends. He experienced the terrific anger of humanity, as well as the ferocious wrath of God, and he died a very real death. In this darkness what seemed him to be a great cave, was soon to be discovered a tunnel. For God came and found him who had been lost, rescued him from the darkness of the abyss, and then brought him into the glorious light of resurrection bliss. Jesus is our hope. For he not only tells us of a God who seeks the lost, but experienced it as well. Indeed, he shows us the way through it.

Who knows where these events will take us? Indeed, even now we may feel as though we are the debris of the fallen towers. But the Church is like the priest that offered the sacraments to others as the towers burned, only to become a victim as well when the towers collapsed. Even now the Church ministers to us in the midst of the threatening unknown, ministering through its sacraments the reality of God’s love. Though we are being told every day now that nothing is no longer the same, that everything is going to change, the Scriptures give us a different message, that while the world may change around us, our loving God remains always the same. So today, when we come to the Table of the Lord, remember, this is a sign that he has already gone before us! What may seem to be a large cave is in reality only a long tunnel at whose end is the light of the Resurrected Christ.

If you doubt that you now have the faith to make it through the tunnel, consider this story of Corrie Ten Boom, who as a child went to her father and said, “Papa, I don't think I have the faith that some people have to face trouble.” Corrie’s father looked at her tenderly and said, “Corrie, dear, when your father says he will send you to the store tomorrow, does he give you the money today? No, he gives it to you when you are ready to go to the store. Corrie, God treats us the same way. [God] doesn't give you the faith until you need it.” It is this same woman, who after surviving the most despicable humiliations of the German concentration camps of World War II, came out with the message, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.”

These are the same words of Christ in the Gospel this morning, as well as those of the Apostle Paul, when he proclaimed, “I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor life, neither messenger of heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” As God is unchanging, so are God’s promises, and so is the security of our destiny.