A Sermon for September 11 (Preached by the Rev. Dr. Charles B. Fulghum in St. Martin’s Church at 10 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. on September 11, 2002.)
‘Therefore never send to
ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’
One of
the scenes from Ground Zero in New York city this week was the tolling bell for
the firemen killed in terrorists attack on the Trade Towers. The tolling bell
was a grim reminder of the poetic lines of John Donne, the Anglican
Priest and Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the 17th Century.
His
lines were made famous by Ernest Hemingway in the novel For Whom The Bell
Tolls. When John Donne wrote those lines, he thought he was dying from some
sickness, and he wrote down his morbid thoughts. At first he thought the bell
was tolling for him, but then he acknowledged that he was not dead yet, and no
one knew he was dying.
Then
on further reflection he wrote, “But it is the same as if I were dying, because
in a sense I am dying, and even 
if the bell is not tolling
for me, a part of me has died if someone of my friends has died, or someone of
my species has died. When someone dies, I am the less. If a piece of a
continent is washed into the sea, the continent is reduced. And if a promontory
or even a clod is washed into the sea, the continent is reduced. If a man dies,
mankind is reduced. If someone dies, a part of me dies. Therefore never send to
ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
Never
send to ask for whom the bells in New York City are tolling. The bells toll for
us. We are the less because of what has happened there. Over and over again we
hear people say that we will never be the same. I have had painful changing
events in my life. Our house was broken into, the door locks were forced and
broken. The televisions were stolen. The jewelry was taken. I never again felt
secure in my home.
I
lost a 29 year old daughter, I have never felt the same about my children. I
had never known the death of a child in my family before. It never occurred to
me when Betsy got sick, that she might die. But she did, and it changed my
life, my love for my children and all people. I have never been the same.
I do
not ask for whom the bell tolls. When the bell tolls now, it is tolls for me.
When the Trade Towers collapsed in far away New York City, a part of my life
collapsed. Never again will I be quietly objective about senseless murderous
attacks in some far off country like Lebanon or Israel. And never again will we
wonder, “Why do they do that?” They do that because the great towers are there.
Sir
Edmund Hillary was asked, “Why do you climb Mount Everest? He responds quite
simply, “Because it is there.” The presence of the mountain challenged him to
conquer it. The Trade Towers were the tallest buildings in the greatest city in
the greatest country in the world. They were the easy symbols of America’s
greatness. And they were destroyed by a determined group of anonymous,
diminutive men simply because they were there. Like New York is there. Like
America is here. We task the envious world by our simple presence.
Those
buildings were not there just for the hijackers that day. Those buildings were
there for us too. They were our icons. New York is our great city. Washington
is our great city, full of icons that we venerate. The hijackers failed that
day to destroy our great monuments in Washington, The Capitol Building and The
White House. We are quite certain that was their intent. The facts are we have
certain monuments, buildings, cities, which become a part of us. They represent
us, and when they are destroyed, a part of us is destroyed. If our country, our
flag, our symbols are destroyed, a part of us is destroyed. When Lee Harvey
Oswald destroyed our President Kennedy, a part of us was destroyed. And when
that happens, we are never the same.
Today
we mourn a part of us that has been destroyed. A part of our home has been
violated. A part of us has died and we and our country will never be the same.
We lost more of our innocence that day. We did not know it could happen to us.
Even the Japanese and Germans had not attacked what we call real America. True,
they sank our ships and killed our soldiers, but we knew the ships could and
would be sunk when we built them. Soldiers know they are in harm’s way, and
some of them will be destroyed. But us, here, in our city, our market place,
our home . . . we are truly shocked . . . and we say, “We will never be the
same.” We have to confess that we were innocent, perhaps in a state of denial,
and naive when we felt in our inner most being, that the destruction of cities
is something that happens to someone else in another part of the world. Now it
has happened to us. We are the less. A part of us has died. The bell tolls for
us, for me. I am humbled.
Until
now, America has escaped lessons in humility. Even though we had a dozen
national insults in the past 50 years, we rationalize to keep our fantasy of
national security intact. “Someone made a mistake. The destruction of Marines in
Lebanon could have been prevented. The destroyer Coles attacked in Yemen
could have been prevented. The Viet Nam war could have been won.” Even now we
believe that if the CIA and the FBI had been vigilant, the terrorists could
have been stopped. Actually we did good. We stopped two of the planes. The
planes assigned to Washington, D.C. did not achieve their objectives.
We
are still a challenge for the bad people in the world. We are still a proud
tower challenging those who deface towers and mutilate beauty simply because it
is there. We prefer to play “King of The Hill” by the accepted rules of the
game, but the diminutive men in history never play by the rules of the rulers
and they never will.
We
ask how can the bandits be stopped? Why do they do this? What will they do
next? The answers are as simple as the questions. They will do more of the
same. They have not changed and we are still here. Are we victims of our open
society? I think not. The totalitarian countries have as much terrorism and
political protest as we do. The other Arab countries fear the renegades as much
as we do. Israel is almost impotent in its efforts to control terrorists. The
price of being great and outstanding is continuing sabotage. Someone will
always break a window because it is there.
Our
real defense against irrational attack is exactly the same as it has always
been. We must not confuse our symbols with our reality. America is not great
because it has great memorials and icons. America is great because of its
spirit, we believe it is the spirit of God. We believe in the rights of
humanity, freedom of expression, the freedom of movement and speech.
At
the expense and the risk of danger to ourselves and our possessions, we choose
freedom. We choose freedom because that is the basis of our spirit. We do not
put our faith in things that can be destroyed. Indeed, the destruction of
material wealth enhances our spirit. We don’t find out how strong and brave we
are until we are seriously contested. Who would have thought that the passengers
on an airline would have destroyed their own airplane and themselves to prevent
its theft by bandits? But the passengers, people like us, rose to the occasion
and demonstrated the great spirit that makes a nation. Pray that we will not be
challenged. But pray harder that we will not fear the challenge when our
freedom and our spirit is at risk. Our values are not gold, steel and concrete.
Our spirit is our treasure. It is reinforced today, and it is for that spirit
that we give thanks to God . . . today . . . here . . . now.
Amen