(I am working on a display of chapter 9, verse 11 from the world's scriptures, to be shown at our USC Fishbowl Chapel in September. Our office will be holding a major 9/11 ten year memorial event on our campus, also serving as a kickoff for USC's response to the President's Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge for 2011-12. Attached is a first draft of some of the texts that may be included in the display. I'd love your feedback on this list - including scriptures that ought to be included - chapter 9, verse 11, chapters 9 and 11, or some related "algorithm". I propose that houses of worship around the country (and world) use a selection of these passages in worship on or near 9/11/11. Spread the word! and let me know if and how you plan to participate in this form of remembrance. Today's "musing" is an excerpt from a sermon I gave not long after 9/11/01 at College Heights United Church of Christ in San Mateo, CA, where I was the pastor.)
(excerpts from a sermon by Rev. Jim Burklo at College Heights Church, UCC, San Mateo, CA, on 3/3/02)
There are a lot of ways to read the Bible. Some like to read it from front to back, but not many of us do it that way. Almost everybody reads what I call the Good Parts Version -- the parts we find meaningful, more or less ignoring the parts that are, to put it indelicately, anesthesia in ink - or are otherwise offensive. Most of us read passages from the Bible that are important to us, or we read books of the Bible that have relevance to the circumstances of our lives in some way. But the whole thing? Reading the whole Bible cover to cover is sort of like a pizza-eating contest -- how many slices can you stuff down yourself before you can't bear it anymore? And some slices are a whole lot more nutritious and tasty than others.
But there are ways to read the Bible that give us some sense of the whole book -- if indeed it can be called a whole book at all, since really it is more of a library under one set of covers. There are ways to sample this library that give a sense of its contents, and a flavor for its many messages.
I offer you one of those ways today. It is inspired by Professor Don Knuth at Stanford, the father of computer programming (and of computer fonts), who created a book called 3:16 - each section is chapter 3, verse 16 of every book of the Bible that has a chapter 3, produced in beautiful calligraphy and followed by a commentary. It's a short book, of course, but when you are done you feel like you've experienced the whole Bible. Don tells me that 3:16 is his "algorithm" for getting a sense of the whole scripture. What would happen if we used 9:11 as our algorithm today?
All of us have been on a spiritual journey since 9:11, because the events of that day deeply disturbed our sense of security, our sense of order. 9:11 shattered our definitions of what is normal living in America and the rest of the world. What helpful perspective does the Bible have to offer us in this time of crisis? What can we see through these little windowpanes that will give us hope, or at least give us useful perspective?
Genesis 9:11: "I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
This might be the best news of all: history doesn't have to repeat itself. We really can and sometimes do learn from our mistakes and excesses. Even God, as understood by the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures, learned from his experience and chose not to do things the same way as before. This passage refers to God's rainbow covenant with Noah after the ark landed on dry ground. No more will I kill off the living beings of the world in a flood, he declared. Of course the bad news here is that he didn't swear off mass extinction in the future through some means other than flooding. Hmmmm…… But at least there is implicit in this rainbow covenant the idea of some kind of progress. Maybe it is two steps forward, one step back, three steps forward, two steps back, but still -- history is useful to remember, and awareness of it can lead us to make different choices the next time. God realized that flooding the whole planet was a bit extreme. So he cast down his bow on the ground-- an ancient gesture of peacemaking -- and it became the rainbow we see today after a rainstorm. Perhaps all of humanity can learn from what led up to 9:11, and what happened afterward, and cast down our bows and do things differently next time.
Exodus 9:11: "And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians."
This is from one of the plagues that God sent down on the Egyptians for refusing to let the people of Israel go free. God told Moses to take ashes from the kiln, toss them in the air, and the ashes then made boils break out on the skin of all the Egyptians, including Pharaoh's magicians, who were trying to undo the spells that Moses was working against them -- leaving the people of Israel alone, of course. The irony in this plague is wonderful, because the kiln was probably one of those used by the Jewish slaves to bake the bricks used to build the cities of the Egyptians. Think of the ashes raining down on New Yorkers after the collapse of the World Trade Center... I think of my next door neighbor, who is a volunteer search and rescue fireman, who went to Ground Zero to work for a couple of weeks and now has a chronic cough. Think of the way that terrorists turn the tools of civilization against itself: high-tech aircraft destroying high-tech skyscraper buildings. The ashes from the slave-operated brick kilns were turned against the slave-keepers. But what goes around can come around other ways, too. The terrorists turned civilians into targets, and in so doing turned a huge population of American civilians into a galvanized force against terrorism, instantly. When the people of this enormous and fractious nation get organized behind one clear goal, the results are truly awe-inspiring. 9:11 had the exact opposite effect of what was intended by the people who perpetrated it.
Leviticus 9:11: "The flesh and the skin he burned with fire outside the camp."
Well, this is only the third book of the Bible, and already we get a sense of just how bloody and violent the book gets. This passage is about the origins of the cult of sacrifice in the Jewish rites. The best parts of the bull were burnt on the holy altar as a sacrifice to atone for sin, but the rest of the animal was burned outside the confines of the community. This passage is at the beginning of the long biblical record of the principle of substitutionary sacrifice -- that something or somebody must die in order for things to be made right between God and humanity. In the New Testament, this practice culminates in the crucifixion of Jesus, who was understood by the early Christians to be the final and ultimate blood sacrifice to atone for the sins of humankind. While the origins of this concept, that God demands blood sacrifice, are now shrouded by the mists of history -- since this is pretty alien to our culture today -- the legacy of it lives on in our hope that there will be redemption for the death of 3,000 people on 9:11, showing that their lives were worth something, not just because they were precious human beings, but worth something that can give us redemption. Their lives were payment for a future in which terrorism will be put to an end, in which the conditions that breed terror are corrected. Our hope is that the lives lost on 9:11 ultimately will be seen as a sacrifice for a higher purpose that will ennoble humanity. This concept is a powerful one in our culture today, one that motivates our actions, hopefully not out of revenge, but out of an effort to have a positive outcome that will redeem those three thousand lives as lives not lost in vain. We now have a chance to give a new and more positive meaning to this ancient concept of sacrifice.
Deuteronomy 9:11: "And at the end of forty days and forty nights the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant."
The people of the Bible -- including you and I -- are a people to be ruled by laws, not by the whims of tyrants or mobs. Laws that have a life beyond any one generation, laws that command more respect than the fleeting urges of rulers or even of voters. Something to think about long and hard, something to remember soberly as we experience an overwhelming temptation to bend the civil rights laws of this country in our passionate rush to lock up anybody who might be suspected of involvement in terrorism. Time to remember Moses on the mountain, with those precious legal tablets that would set the people of Israel apart, and make such a precious and enduring contribution to the advancement of civilization.
1 Kings 9:11: "...and Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee."
Solomon got so carried away with building a fancy temple and capital in Jerusalem that he ran out of money and had to sell part of the country to a neighboring king to help finance his projects. Sound familiar? As we look back at recent events…. Think Enron. Think massive tax cuts for the rich at the same time that regular folks are losing their jobs and that local governments are being pinched to provide services for people in need. Think misplaced national priorities. Different millenium, same old story, eh?
Ecclesiastes 9:11: "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all."
Thank you, Ecclesiastes! For reminding us of the ancient wisdom that Jesus knew so well, too. That the rain falls on the righteous and the wicked alike. That there was a terrible but in some way reassuring equality in the way that disaster fell on the rich and poor alike on 9:11. Janitors, firefighters, secretaries, and business moguls died alike. We are all dust, and to dust we shall return. 9:11 can be a reminder to us of our humble place in the grand order of things.
Isaiah 9:11: "So the LORD raises adversaries against them, and stirs up their enemies."
Jeremiah 9:11: " I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant."
Daniel 9:11: "All Israel has transgressed thy law and turned aside, refusing to obey thy voice. And the curse and oath which are written in the law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him."
Hosea 9:11: "E'phraim's glory shall fly away like a bird--no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!"
These passages typify the woes and curses that the prophets railed against Israel and its often corrupt elites. It reminds us to ask ourselves: to what extent are we responsible for the conditions that created the terrorists? Not that we are to blame for 9:11, but certainly we need to look at our nation's contributions to the cultural and political and economic conditions that bred this awful menace to the world. And after we heed the call of the prophets, we need to take action as citizens and as a nation to deal vigorously for a peaceful resolution of the conditions that breed terror.
Amos 9:11: "In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old;"
Zechariah 9:11: "As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your captives free from the waterless pit."
There is a lot of hope in the words of the prophets, too… as the rubble is cleared in New York and Afghanistan, and hope emerges from the dust and ashes.
Matthew 9:11: "And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?""
Mark 9:11: "And they asked him, "Why do the scribes say that first Eli'jah must come?""
The disciples were trying to figure out what Jesus meant when he said that the Son of Man must die and rise from the dead. There was a tradition that the prophet Elijah, who had not exactly died but had been swept up into the sky by a whirlwind, would someday return. That's why to this day there is the Elijah cup at the Passover table, ready for him should he return for the sacred meal. The Christian religion has preserved this wonderful expectation that any time now Jesus, like Elijah, will return once more. That we need to keep a place open for him at the communion table, in case he shows up in the form we least expect. We are asked to be ready for resurrection -- for the return of the long-lost guest. This deep hospitality was one of the most distinguishing characteristics of Jesus during his life: his willingness to sit at table with anybody, rich or poor, clean or unclean, Jew or Gentile. It's a hospitality we need to practice more religiously than ever, in this time when it is so tempting to practice racial and religious profiling.
John 9:11: "He answered, "The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, 'Go to Silo'am and wash'; so I went and washed and received my sight.""
And may we receive the vision we need to rebuild our nation, and our foreign policy, and the global economic system, so that the roots of the terrible violence of 9:11 will be pulled up. May our eyes be anointed so that they aren't blinded by prejudice and rage and thirst for revenge and short-sighted solutions to long-term problems.
Hebrews 9:11: "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation),"
This passage is part of the book of Hebrews that describes the Christian culmination of the rituals described in Leviticus 9:11…. Jesus acts as a high priest, atoning for the sins of all the people. Our hope is that the deaths of all the innocent people who died will not be in vain, in the end -- that they will one day be seen as the tragic beginning of a positive process of peacemaking that will prevent further acts of violence.
Revelation 9:11: "They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abad'don, and in Greek he is called Apol'lyon."
This passage from the Apocalypse tells of the seven plagues that follow the blowing of the seven trumpets in the final drama of the cosmic story. They are reminiscent of the plagues sent on the Egyptians when they refused to set Israel free. This demonic king, Abaddon, is the ruler of an army of locusts with scorpion's tails. It is a reminder that fears of plagues, like anthrax and smallpox that might be used by terrorists, are as vivid in the human imagination today as they were in the first century.
And in that, and in so many of the other passages marked 9:11 in the Bible, I find a certain contradictory comfort. Among its very many other messages, the Bible reminds us, after all these millenia, that while there really is progress in human history, a whole lot of we call news is really very old indeed. 9:11 looks pretty tame in comparison to many of the stories recorded in the scripture. 9:11 looks like just another chapter and verse in a very long story -- a story of which you and I are a part.