Rector’s Note: Justice and Peace shall Kiss-9.10.26

We remember where we were on Sept. 11, 2001.

Jess and the kids and I lived in Cleveland Heights, OH, at the time.  My friend Pat called to tell me to turn on the television. How did he know I hadn’t yet tuned in? On every station were the images of the burning buildings in New York City, the news just starting to unfold.

I watched in horror as I waited for my ministry partner Bob to pick me up. We were headed to a local school to offer storytelling and music for a back-to-school program.

As we made our way on the highway,  we noticed jet planes making emergency landings at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. We arrived at a school that was carefully shepherding the news as the assembly gathered. We could see televisions on in some classrooms. The children sitting on the floor in front of us did not know what was happening, though the adults in the room did.

Bob noticed a banner stretched across the room. It said something like, “We will settle conflicts peacefully.” He pointed to the banner and gently told the children that there were big events happening in our country that day, which they would likely learn more about later. They would need to remember the words on that banner in the days ahead. And then we launched into our literacy program and later drove back home into a world that would never be the same for any of us.

In those painful and chaotic days after September 11, as the news came in and the death toll mounted, we wondered what the country’s response would be and worried about war. Jess and I discussed how we might advocate for peace, and we asked activist friends how they were responding. We learned that friends in the local Catholic Worker group were gathering across from the West Side Market to create a witness for peace, calling for our country to respond to the attack with nonviolence and diplomacy.

As we joined the gathering with our signs calling for peace, a group of people gathered on the other side of the street to put up a sign that read Justice! It was not the first time in the days and years after the attack that these two values would be squared off against each other, as though they were mutually exclusive. At the time, I thought of the scripture from the New American Bible Translation of Psalm 85:11 "Love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss….” I imagined our two protesting sides meeting in the middle of the street to connect our longings for both peace and justice.

Twenty-five years have passed. Peace protests were not very popular back then, though they mounted as people began to question how a war in Iraq would make our country safe from terrorism that emerged from Afghanistan and our ally Saudi Arabia. My kids spent their childhoods in a country at war and are now adults in a country that is again at war.  The cry for peace is not so hard to muster in these violent times, and the idea that justice may meet it in the middle of the road remains the greatest hope of so many people.

The lessons to be learned from September 11 continue to reveal themselves. We will never forget the capacity of people to selflessly rescue strangers in peril. We will never forget the sacrifices made by first responders and clergy and people on the street that day. We can only imagine what attack is like for people in other countries experiencing bombardment and injury and death, rescue and maybe someday rebuilding.

We also know from the experience of 9-11 that mercy is not always evenly applied. We saw how quickly neighbors of Middle Eastern and Asian descent could be blamed for violence that originated far away. We have learned to be wary of the reasons that officials give for going to war, and for the devastating cost of global conflict. Long-buried evidence is emerging about the toxins that first responders and New Yorkers were exposed to after 9.11, and as a country we must still ensure that those who still seek health claims from that time receive them.

The anniversary of Sept 11 reminds us what we are capable of, both for good and for ill. Psalm 85: 9-14 still reminds us of our role as people of faith in times like these:

…I will listen for what God, the Lord, has to say;    

surely he will speak of peace

To his people and to his faithful.    

May they not turn to foolishness!

Near indeed is his salvation for those who fear him;    

glory will dwell in our land.

Love and truth will meet; 

   justice and peace will kiss. 

Truth will spring from the earth; 

   justice will look down from heaven.

 Yes, the Lord will grant his bounty; 

   our land will yield its produce.

 Justice will march before him, 

   and make a way for his footsteps.