9/11 Remembrance (2020-09-13, Sunday-24)

9/11

2020-09-13 _ 24^thSunday

● Sirach 27:30-28:7 ● Psalm 103 ● Romans 14:7-9 ● + Matthew 18:21-35  ●

Title: 9/11

[_01_]        In the Gospel parable today, Jesus paints the picture of a person with such a broken pyche or spirit, one who is unwilling to forgive a small debt even after he has been forgiven a very large debt.  In the Gospel, we read this enumerated as “a huge amount.”

          In some biblical translations, this is given as “10 thousand talents”. I know what you’re thinking: if only I had 10 thousand talents, what I could do with that money! So, yes, I also had to look up the definition. 10,000 talents = about 300 million dollars.

So, that was the huge amount of mercy and forbearance shown the man. Yet, he cannot forgive another. The scales of life can never be tipped far enough in his favor.

[*** pause ****]

[_02_]     So, what is in our nature? What is natural for you and for me? What is our calling?

          What we can say was – and is – in our nature – and I think we are called to give thanks and blessing for – is the heroic initiative and march of firefighters and police officers into the buildings which were going to fall.

          While we were stunned at the loss of life… by emergency first responders…..

343 FDNY firefighters;  37 PANYNJ PD;  23 NYPD;   8 EMT private services;  1 patrolman, NY Fire Patrol.

 

[_03_]  But, they also knew – so many of them surely knew that they were not coming back from that call. They went anyway.

          That was in their nature. And, it is in our nature to accept calls of heroism, sacrifice.

 

[_04_]       It is against our nature to undermine and destroy those sworn to protect us.

          And, in this moment of thanksgiving for every Ground Zero hero, we also give thanks for the essential workers of the 2020 pandemic.  Some of you are here right now or connected to our parish in various ways. You have worked in supermarkets, at construction sites, in kitchens, in hospitals.

          You have been digging in the pandemic rubble – putting yourselves in danger – breathing the air that we need to be protected from.

         

[_05_]  Many of the heroes of the 2020 pandemic including – not only – medical doctors, nurses and medical technicians of all types  but also those who clean the floors and surface of the hospital, disinfect the building and provide essentials of food, water, medicine.

          Among our essential workers are also the first responders – the firefighters, EMT’s and police – in West Orange and elsewhere – who have done a tremendous job to support our community, not only keeping public order and peace but also giving time to restock and organize our local food pantry down the street.

          Feeding the hungry has been – for years – the work of the West Orange Police, not only feeding us with points about safety, but also feeding us with actual calories in packaged food. The police – together with EMS and fire departments – are on our side.

                   

[_06_]      To vilify – to turn into villains – police officers – in general is contrary to our own experience wrong especially given the hours and effort they have put in during the COVID 19 pandemic.

 

[*** pause ****]

 

[_07_]       9/11 and COVID 19 – which when written out seem to be opposite numbers… they are similar in that both experiences have incited in many of us the desire to do something, to offer something – and yet, many of us have felt sidelined or restricted while others do the practical digging or healing or rescuing or rebuilding or disinfecting.

 

[_08_]       Tuesday. 9/11/01.

          My phone was ringing. It was late morning. It was a co-worker.  In the year 2001, I was employed at a bank in New York. This person was asking me about a conference call telephone number and password that we had been using at the time.  We used a common telephone number and access code for people to meet who might be in different locations, other cities or at home.

          It was like a Google Meet or Zoom video conference call without the video. Usually, these “conferences” were for about 12 people. But on the morning of 9/11, our department and bank had many, many employees who needed information and needed to be accounted for.

          So, the question to me was: “how can we have 500 people call in simultaneously?”

          Feeling helpless, I said I did not know, wished her well. Everyone I worked with – knew closely survived the day. Though they were in NYC, they were not geographically at WTC or Ground Zero but 3 miles uptown.

          I felt helpless not only because I did not have the technical answer to this, but also because I was no longer 1 of the 500.

          A month earlier – in August 2001 – I had left my job to start a new path of study at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall U. (South Orange).

          On 9/11, it was the second week of class … and I was still unsure about this path. Would I stay and last in the seminary?

          Spoiler alert. I stayed and in the end completed my studies. I’m abbreviating that whole story, of course. You’re welcome.

          But on the morning of 9/11, knowing that I had former co-workers in the middle of the action, with some serious rebuilding and digging ahead of them, I felt left out. What was my calling?

 

[_09_]    It reminded me that discovery of one’s calling does not happen in an instant…it happens over time…and sometimes after we pay some dues along the way.

          It reminded me of a conversation with 1 of my college classmates from years earlier.

          While he was working hard and doing well in school, my friends and I wondered whether his goals was really his own or those  of his father.

          He was doing well in college and in a rigorous, difficult, pre-med program so that he could go to medical school. But there were many times it seemed that he did not really want this.

          Nevertheless, he really did apply to medical school …and it was somewhat surprising to me that he absolutely excelled at medical school and did so…with even less intervention and influence by his father.

          He is now a physician/doctor.

          One day I asked him how he did it…how did he make it through?

          He said this  “I discovered that medicine – being a doctor – was my calling …. That being on call and needed by others was my calling and what I am meant to be.”

          We all have a calling. You have a calling, one that is not necessarily simultaneously marked as a career.  We all have a calling to be agents of God’s mercy as Jesus’ disicples.

          It was the calling of the man in the Gospel to be merciful – because he had already been forgiven – he could not yet hear this calling.

          It was and is the calling of police and firefighters today to be agents not only of justice but also of mercy and compassion in our community, on Main Street, no Northfield, on Pleasant Valley Way, on every street.

[_10_]  Tuesday 9.11. What was my calling?

          In the days and weeks and years since 9.11, I have often revisited that moment to recognize that my calling was simply not to be in NY that day. The world had profoundly changed that day.  Perhaps, I was not in the place I expected to be at the time.

          Perhaps, I expected the world to stay the same…while I worked on my own studies. It does not work that way.

          There is a calling for us to change, to convert, to accept God’s mercy into our “spiritual bank account” and then share that mercy with others.

          So, in fact, the world is always changing, but does not mean that we simply have to roll with the punches or go along with the crowd.

          We have a calling…to follow Jesus Christ where he leads us and recognize his mercy when it appears, to love not only our friends, but also to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, and to merciful as the parable of the steward says so that we will be shown mercy.

          O-L-Q-of-P, pray for us..

          O-L-L, pray for us.  [_fin_]