Sermon: Healing Our Character

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Healing Our Character

By Charles Rush

September 30, 2001

rhaps you saw the cartoon this week that had a group of clerics from the Taliban all huddled in a meeting. One of them was reading a message from the United States. It said, “Hand over Osama Bin Laden… or we'll send your women to college.” At times like these, we could use a little feminine counsel. In the Iliad, all the great war hero's -- Ajax, Oddyesus, Priam -- are constantly going off the deep end, their emotions and desire for revenge, getting the best of them. It is only Achilles, who has his wife, Helen to calm him down that is able to come to a point of reason. It should be our prayer that, during these tense times, wisdom is spoken quietly at bed time, all over the world.

In our first passage, Jesus says that we shall be known by our fruits, suggesting that our actions manifest our character in this life in a way that is essential for our spirituality. The second passage reinforces this general idea by complementing spiritual forgiveness and physical healing. Jesus suggests that God wants all of us healed and forgiven, empowered to manifest humane values in this life.

I like this piece at the introduction that has the friends bringing their paralyzed friend to Jesus. We have all heard many moving stories out of the September 11 World Trade Center tragedy of managers staying on their floors until all the people were out, and God knows there are some unbelievable stories of heroism and humane kindness that will never be told, people trying to help others around them, forfeiting their own life in the process.

But it is not just in tragedy. If we are lucky, we are surrounded by people who will help us get the healing we need, demand that we get the healing we need. I heard someone once speak at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, and this is what he said. “Back in the 80's I was using cocaine pretty heavily and so were most of the people I knew at that time. The amazing thing is that none of us had a problem. And the even more amazing thing is that we all had a problem.”

In the mid-80's, we had a good friend that had graduated from Wharton Business School, and had taken a job with one of the big investment banks, doing what the most talented, aggressive young graduates were doing at the time, working in mergers and acquisitions. If you recall, it was an era for the shark tooth approach to corporate capitalism, and the mergers and acquisitions were carrying a hefty heap of the bank profits in those years. It was the era that gave us the T-Shirt ‘He who collects the most toys wins'.

It was an era particularly given suited to cocaine- people working manic hours in pursuit of strong armed deals. Cocaine gave people that bolster of super-confidence that they could shake all the coconuts loose from the tree if necessary. Cocaine promoted the primacy of the Ego. I remember going to social occasions where people would talk so fast and furiously… about themselves- 45 minutes would go by and I would realize that I hadn't actually said more than 6 sentences. So many people, full of ideas, full of plans, full of themselves, full of… you get the picture.

And you needed that primary reference to self since so many of these deals made a profit only at the expense of dozens of sad people in other parts of the world who were suddenly out of work. Ten years later, one of the elders of Wall Street would remark, ‘so many train wrecks, so little money for what it cost socially speaking.' In that environment, it helped to have that expansive sense of Self that Cocaine so readily delivers.

Their lives got more and more out of control. And as they did, there were more and more of these emotionally overwrought conversations: “No, I'm fine really, really. Everything's cool really. Are you okay? I'm okay? Are you okay?”

After a while I got a couple of these late night calls… I think because I'd gone to seminary and people thought I would understand. One night my friend calls and wants to talk. The first thing I said was, ‘you know it's 4 in the morning.'

“I think I have a problem”, he says, “with alcohol.”

I said, “What makes you say that?”

“Well, I couldn't sleep so I got up and drank about half a bottle of Findlandia Vodka, went back to bed, couldn't sleep, so I got up and drank almost the rest.”

I said, “That's a lot of liquor. I can't believe you are still up a 4 in the morning.”

“Man, neither can I”.

I said, “You think- just a thought-that may have anything to do with the gram of cocaine you did at 11 p.m.” Just a thought… There was this long silence on the phone…

“Oh yeah” he says.

This is a man with a 3.5 in college, honors at B school… “Oh yeah”

A few weeks later, his wife called a bunch of his friends. He came home from one day to find 6 people from all over the country in his house- one of his brothers even came. It was an intense session but no one would leave until he went with them to get some treatment. Fortunately, that is what he wanted to do too. Almost like the bible story, they had to nearly carry him to get healing.

His company gave him some time off. He got better. A few years later, he had a bunch of these same people who intervened were in the same room together and he told them all that he was the luckiest person in the world to have friends that cared about him that much and stuck with him when he was not so beautiful and made him get help and how much he appreciated it. I heard that all of the guys gathered eventually slapped him silly after his emotional speech but it was true nevertheless.

I've always been impressed with this dimension of Alcoholics Anonymous, that part where people sincerely give you their name and number and say, ‘if you are thinking of having a drink, call immediately, no matter what the time of night… I'll come right over.' And they do. I'm impressed with that part of AA where people openly and honestly confront one another with what they call ‘stinking thinking' that sets you up to start drinking again. It strikes me that this is what Jesus tried to teach us about helping each other to be healed and forgiven.

On it's best days, that is what the church is all about, honestly lifting each other up, encouraging one another to attain our higher selves, and holding each other responsible so that we don't settle for less than. We really need that kind of critique from outside. Left to ourselves, we set the bar pretty low. Left to ourselves, our purview tends to be rather narrow. We need others to challenge us to our higher selves. And we can only hear that critique from people that we trust, people that love us. Rarely are we able to hear criticism from those we do not trust, even if it happens to be true.

Right now, we are calling on the Taliban to condemn suicide bombings but they will never be able to really hear our legitimate concerns because they can not hear it from us. There is no trust or love for them to hear. Some Middle Eastern newspapers have taken this opportunity to explain why they resent the United States but we are not able to hear even legitimate criticisms in this context, under these circumstances. Not now… there is no trust, respect, or love. The Palestinians cannot hear the Israeli's and the Israeli's cannot hear the Palestinians because there is no foundation of trust or love.

We can only really hear a constructive criticism that leads us to change when w we are in a context of trust and love. This is what the ‘Beloved Community' is all about. We are blessed to be part of such a community and when that community gathers, in support, in love, holding us to our higher selves… then Church meets… real Church meets.

We need the Church to meet just now. I was thinking of that the last couple days, reading that truly chilling religious reflection found in Mohammed Atta's luggage, that encouraged the suicide bombers with promises that in death, they would suddenly embrace absolute bliss, as though the afterworld is completely disconnected from this world. And I was thinking, as I read this, of Jesus' very humane words about this life… you shall know them by their fruits… And what is the fruit of this terror?

There is a very real demonic reality that has been unleashed in this event. It is fear and it is palpable. Fear because seemingly normal people that live around us are capable of doing something so bizarre and deadly dangerous that we find ourselves not knowing who to trust. And fear that something as monotonously normal as going to work or boarding a plane can suddenly become a living nightmare. This is not the ‘Twilight Zone'. This is real life.

And this is the intent of terrorism, to propagate this fear, and make the living of life the dread-filled. In a recent article in a newspaper in Egypt, one advocate of suicide bombing spoke of the success of the many bombings in Israel. One of his principal points was the collateral psychological fall out that is so difficult to gauge. He pointed out, in some very grim math, that the average bomb yields 10 dead and 50 wounded… But he went on, dozens of families decide to move out of Israel to somewhere else and hundreds of families decide not to emigrate to Israel at all.[i] It is sick but the intent is to spread fear and uncertainty and it is very effective.

All around us we see the fall out of this fear. We read that people are purchasing firearms, more than a little irrational, but as the head of the N.R.A. said this week, they are uncertain and afraid. People don't want to get on planes. Suddenly, those commanding views from high atop offices are not so desirable. And the biggest casualty has been civil liberties. We deeply cherish the fundamental freedoms that we have come to take for granted in our country. And it is becoming obvious to almost everyone, even though we haven't given articulate voice to it yet that the Free society took an enormous amount of time and effort to develop and is very delicate, easily destroyed. You can't really be free in a terror-filled world.

This fear, at this point, will have to be willed away and I don't underestimate for a minute how difficult that really is, but that is the spiritual challenge we face. And I suspect that we here in metropolitan New York will lead the world in this, partly because of our sheer cussedness.

I lived several weeks in Jerusalem in 1976, when the Palestinians blew up the number 6 bus that ran between Old Jerusalem and New Jerusalem. It was one of the most popular buses and it was very disturbing that something like that could happen, since everyone rode it. Just after the bombing, the news people interviewed a guy that was waiting for the #6 bus. It turns out he is from New York. The lady said, “Sir, with all the concern about safety, I see that you are riding the bus anyway… Sir can you tell us why?”

Phgghh… he said, “it's too far to walk.” What are you going to do, let fear rule you. We have to will ourselves back to normality. I think New Yorkers are uniquely disposed to will normality again.

And there are signs that things are returning to normal. Perhaps you heard about the pilot this week at Kennedy airport, who, just before take off said. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to thank you for flying… we don't have any new guidelines for flying, so a couple of things. First, this plane has no bomb on it, so if someone tells you it does they are lying. Second, if someone tries to take over the plane with box cutters, I want everyone to start throwing stuff at them at the same time, get a blanket over their head, hold them on the ground and we'll stop at the nearest airport and turn them over to the authorities. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Constitution says, “We the people” that means you and me.” I understand he was applauded. And I think that New Yorkers are uniquely disposed to take control of their lives again.

But, as we go forward, it will take more than just cussedness, it will take love. St. John said, “Love casteth out fear”. And it does. And love will have to help people manage their fear, work through their fears, and get over it.

Casting out fear and working through our grief is not a deal where one size fits all. I want you to remember that. Some of us already just want to get on with it. Other people want to talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. The Superintendent of Schools has asked me to remind parents of young children especially, but children in general, that they don't need to be overexposed to the aftermath of this tragedy, the way that some adults want to stay hooked into the news. People are just edgy all around us. Some people are having a hard time concentrating on work. We are at different places. And the face of love recognizes this, helps each person to grow at their own pace and work through their grief and anger, and move towards hope and the recovery of some of the precious wonder of life and the ordinary goodness that comes from children, baptisms, watching the sunset, sitting together as families, sharing a meal with friends.

And love ought to motivate us- and I am certain that it will- to make a long-term commitment to understanding Islam, to making some connections with people of Muslim faith. It ought to lead us to understanding and respect, to an exploration of our shared humanity, and the religious values that make for peace and tolerance. Ultimately, we cannot simply just have political freedoms. Political freedom has a spiritual foundation. Political freedoms only really work if there is real good will, real respect, real recognition of our common humanity. And all of those are spiritual challenges. We have to begin a long, sustained process of developing respect, understanding, and good will. That is the healing that is in front of us and it is large. It will be long. It will be difficult at times. But profound challenges have a way of bringing out profound responses. We are up to it. I am sure. May the fear that has been unleashed be surrounded and enveloped by an even bigger love that brings us together.

Amen.

[i] Norman Podhoretz, in “Oslo: The Peacemongers Return” in Commentary (October 2001), p. 22. Also see the web site www.memri.org.