September 11, 2011
What Now? - Romans 13:1-7
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadI will never forget the fall of 2001. That summer was unusually hot, but that fall was splendid. 2001 had the greatest World Series in baseball that I have ever seen. The Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the New York Yankees in game seven, after trailing for nine innings. There was no such thing as Republicans and Democrats. E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. It’s our national motto, and it was actually true in this country that fall. People were actually nice to each other on Interstate 35. It was the strangest thing I have ever seen. Churches were jam packed that entire fall. I remember that I cried during the children’s sermon on September 15. And not only nationally, the world showed more goodwill towards America than it ever has before or since. The fall of 2001, as horrifying and scary and mournful as it was, was also holy.
Yet, it did not take long for the partisan rancor and international scorn to return. The country’s most obvious responses to September 11 were heightened security here at home and two wars abroad. We invaded Afghanistan in search of the Taliban in the spring of 2002. We then invaded Iraq in March of 2003. Most Christians supported the war in Afghanistan, although with reservations. I remember vividly after 9-11 that this email got passed around that had a map of the Middle East, and for Afghanistan, it had written “Newly Proposed US Parking Lot.” That hasn’t happened, has it? Instead, we have lost 1,762 troops over there, and we still don’t know whether we’re winning or losing. We invaded Iraq with the assumption that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he had clear links to Osama Bin Laden. Neither reason turned out to be true. Needless to say, Iraq hasn’t been a cake walk, either. We’ve lost 4,282 troops there.
So, looking back, what should we have done? First of all, Afghanistan is not an easy place to win a war. Just ask the Soviets. They got crushed there. From what I can tell, it’s a decentralized society, and the tribalism there is very difficult for us to understand. So figuring out who the bad guy is can be hard. And, with Iraq, everybody said that toppling Saddam Hussein would be easy, but establishing something after him would be brutal. We clearly didn’t pay much attention to that idea, and we should have. None of that even mentions either the economic or security issues brought about as a rusult of 9-11. How much is security worth? I heard on the radio that the average length of time to get through security on an Israeli airline is something like three hours. Are we willing to wait that long? Our deacons right now are responsible for ushering in worship. They hand our bulletins and take people to their seats. What if they started patting people down as they walked in for security purposes? Central Steele Creek would be a really good place for a terrorist to do a lot of damage. So do ya’ll want start getting patted down, or should we just risk it? How much is security worth?
In case you haven’t noticed, I have not mentioned God yet. You may wonder why I’m taking on so much about secular issues. Like it or not, Paul writes exclusively about secular stuff in Romans 13. Many people have read Romans 13 to mean that we as Christians should pretty much let governing authorities do whatever they want to do. They are, after all according to Paul, appointed by God. Once upon a time, there was something called the Divine Right of Kings, which was an idea, based solely off Romans 13, that kings were placed in power by none less than God. Therefore, to disobey the king was to disobey God. In fact, the German Christian Party was a political party in Germany in the 1920s and 30s that supported Adolph Hitler, based off of Christian views, which were based almost solely off Romans 13. Hitler ended up in power, they said, only because God put him there. Had God not wanted him there, then God would never have put him power. Is that right?
Actually, however, that’s not what Romans 13 means at all, nor is that what Paul believed. Paul was most likely executed because he opposed to the Romans. Paul clearly places civil authority under God’s authority. So, at the end of the day, civil authority answers to God. And when civil authority goes against God, then Christians should speak up. Civil authority is part of God’s created order, which is true. In that sense, it is instituted by God. We should be grateful to our system of governance, for those who enforce it and for those who defend it. But we should also love that same system enough to criticize it when it’s wrong and hold it accountable. It’s perfectly appropriate for the Church to talk about what’s going on “out there.”
If September 11 taught us anything, it’s that we cannot take things for granted. We were guilty of that before September 11. To think that for months before then, the biggest piece of news was Gary Condit. Do you remember him? There is no guarantee that the unthinkable will not happen. There’s no guarantee that the longest and most successful constitution in human history will survive. The only guarantee is God. But sometimes we forget that, and we get tangled up in things that don’t matter. I think the biggest mistake that we’ve made in the last ten years is that we’ve forgotten who we are. How did we possibly go from the unity of the fall of 2001 to last debt debacle of 2011? We need good Christian people to remind us of who and whose we are. If we don’t step up, then who will?
I read a letter in last Sunday’s paper of a family who was going on vacation on September 11, 2001. “Consider the simple postcard, written by Georgetown economist, Leslie Wittington, to her sister and brother-in-law, as Wittington, her husband and their eight and three-year-old daughters headed off to Australia for her sabbatical. The card, postmarked September 12 at Dulles Airport, must have been mailed just before the family boarded American Flight 77. The note says, in its entirety, ‘Dear Sara & Jay, well, we’re off to Australia. When we return we will have a new address. We don’t k now our phone number yet. While we are away in “Oz”, email will work best for contacting us. Love, Leslie, Chas, Zoe, & Dana.” The entire family was killed when their plane was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon.
Now consider this story. The Smiths are a family of four. The father, a college graduate, has been out of work for two years. He has become hopeless and depressed. The mother has been working two jobs, but it’s impossible to support a family making $10 an hour. The daughter, like many Steele Creek High School students, is about to drop out of high school. The little boy is in third grade. He’s a smart child, but is falling behind in school simply because he can’t see well and can’t afford glasses. Now I completely made the Smith family up, but we all know that there are thousands of such families right here in Steele Creek. And while the death for the “Smiths’ may not be as sudden and unexpected as the Wittington’s death, killed on 9-11, it is every bit as tragic and senseless. Well, God has put Central Steele Creek here to do something about that. God has also put the governments of the US, NC, Mecklenburg County and Charlotte to do something, too. They are all, lock, stock, & barrel, accountable to God. So what are you going to do? What now? Whatever it is, in whatever realm it’s in, it must be that God’s work becomes our own.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
