9/11
2020-09-13 _ 24thSunday
●
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_]
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