THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PHILIP
11 SEPTEMBER 2005
THE REV. CANON TODD SMELSER, HOMILIST

When we caught up in an event that is beyond our control, it is very natural to have a sense of powerlessness.  Sometimes the struggle is with a managed health care company, or with a church structure or with a government which seems impersonal and impenetrable.  Sometimes it is with a fierce Hurricane which has the power to literally rip the life out of a city, or with a terrorist act which seems to have changed our sense of safety and security forever.

Like the Israelites in the text from Exodus, there are times in our lives when we feel as if we are caught between the raging sea ahead and the terrifying power of an enemy bearing down upon us.  The enemy can be a disease, a family trauma, a natural disaster or even the harsh reality that there really is a great deal to fear.  In the midst of it all we wonder where God is, and whether God is really on our side.  After all, if God were really on our side, wouldn’t God save us just as God saved the Israelites from the Egyptians?  Wound not God find a way to part the raging sea and provide safety for a faithful people?

 Biblical scholars all basically agree that in both the New and Old Testament God usually comes out on the side of the oppressed and least powerful?  Does this preferential option for those who have less always result in the destruction of those who have more?  Isn’t God just, or did we just relearn that lesson again in the Gulf? 

Being caught between the enemies and the sea, from a pastoral perspective, seems to have less to do with issues of salvation and destruction and more to do with remembering God’s presence in the midst of the struggles we experience in our living.  The call to the church is to remind one another that God is with us no matter where we are.  The God who appears to the people in a pillar of cloud is the same God who moves with us in our journey from something we know toward that which is unknown.  Caught in a swirl of unbelievable confusion, we are compelled to place our trust in the God who journeys with us.

Affirming the presence of God, even in the midst of the most horrendous national or personal tragedies, is what the mission of the Church is all about.  Much like Moses, the church acts on behalf of a community of people who feel powerless in the face of life’s experiences that are fearful and challenging.  As followers of Christ, we are not meant to be bystanders, but advocates for those whose voices have been silenced or fro those lost in the web of powerlessness.

Even as we continue to reel from the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath, we also remember today the fourth anniversary of September 11, a date, as Franklin Roosevelt said of December 7, a day that will live in infamy.  It is a moment in our history that challenged the freedom of a free people—the day a free nation became even more resolute about its desire for freedom for all. 

But September 11, 2001, was also a date that challenged the grace of forgiveness.  Jesus, in today’s Gospel answered Peter’s question, “How often should I forgive?” with “ Not seven times, but I tell you seventy times seven.”  As Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission wrote, “to forgive is a process that does not exclude hate and anger.  These emotions are all part of being human.  Tutu continues, “You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things; the depth of your loves is shown by the extent of your anger.”  And he concludes, “Until we find in ourselves the capacity to forgive, we continue to be linked to the cause of our anger and our unforgiving emotions.  Only as we forgive are we able to move on and become the more Christ-like person that God has called us to be.”

On September 11 all Americans felt the extreme sense of powerlessness as airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  On August 29, as Katrina bore down upon the Gulf Coast, we too felt powerless as the winds and waves of that Hurricane destroyed all in her path.  Violence, both human and natural, can destroy building and take life, but it cannot quench the human spirit.  It can, however, bring us together, to realize that we all share alike in these tragic actions, and we can find forgiving and cooperative ways to work together in the future.  For anger and resentment must eventually be healed, as we seek to move on, and become the more Christ-like person that God has called us to be.