Out Of The Ashes, New Life

But go back to Ezekiel for a minute and notice something else. He says that he was among the exiles by the river Chebar, and then he exclaims, “I saw visions of God!” Everybody around him; all of his fellow Jews; all of his friends and neighbors were singing the Blues…and Ezekiel saw God! In the midst of the greatest trouble his people had known since their days as slaves in Egypt, a thousand years before this, Ezekiel had a vision of God! In the worst possible time one could ever imagine, Ezekiel saw the Lord!

This morning, right here in America, right here in Fort Wayne, right here on the banks of the St. Mary’s river…we find ourselves in a time when we desperately need a vision of God.

I bet that if I asked, every person here this morning could tell me where he or she was four years ago today on September 11, 2001. I was in my car on US 20, a few miles west of Middlebury on my way to Sturgis, Michigan to pick up the family dog from the Vet’s office. I heard a mention on the radio that there were reports that someone had flown a plane into one of the towers of the world trade center.

I remember my first reaction. I assumed that it was a small, private plane. I remember thinking to myself, “What kind of idiot would do daredevil stunts around the New York skyline and be so stupid not to see those great big buildings?”

Just then, Toni called me on my cell phone and asked me if I heard the news. It wasn’t a small plane after all, but a jetliner. I switched over to NPR just in time to hear that a second plane had crashed into the other tower. It was an incredible moment when, not long after that, I heard the reports that one tower, then the other collapsed.

That was an event…that was a day…that has gotten us to reset our clocks. We now tell time in a different way, just as Ezekiel did. We now talk about, “…since 9/11…” or “…in the days of 9/11…” or …”following the events of 9/11…” Heartache has gripped us now for four years, just as it gripped Ezekiel for the thirtieth year…the fourth month…the fifth day of the month... the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin.

Four years later, on this very day, we still grieve. Our anger, fear, and frustration still boil over. We just don’t understand. That event of September 11, 2001 may possibly be the worst thing that has ever happened to us as a nation…but it could also be the greatest opportunity that the church in America has ever had. I hope that in the time between then and now, we have not squandered that opportunity.

Jim McCord, a son of Indiana who grew up not far from here in Larwill, was pastor of Johns Street United Methodist Church, just two blocks from the World Trade Center on that day. He and other clergy of lower Manhattan threw open the doors of their churches and went out into the streets to offer comfort to people who were desperate. In the midst of the tragedy, they offered a glimpse of God and what it is that God’s people do.

Following up on the coattails of the pastors came church members with blankets, fresh water, sandwiches, and other necessities for people who had been affected…because that is what God’s people do.