Schizophrenic Day
This Sunday is going to be a little schizophrenic. I can admit that ahead of time, and should, because you'll no doubt pick up on it when you're here.
It goes without saying that Sunday is the tenth anniversary of 9/11. It's amazing to think that we're ten years on from that event. It feels simultaneously like yesterday and a lifetime ago. Much has been written and said by politicians, commentators and religious leaders, reflecting on this most solemn of anniversaries, and even I tried my hand at a brief response in the mailed newsletter a few weeks back. Whatever your opinions about our national response to this act of terrorism, it will be a humbling, sobering day of remembrance and prayer.
But in a funny twist of timing and coincidence, it is also our church's fall kickoff, the day when we resume Sunday School and launch of program for the year. There will be a blessing of backpacks and briefcases in church, and a picnic on the lawn.
As I said, it may feel schizophrenic.
And yet, it may be just right. Because even on our most somber occasions, days like a 9/11 anniversary for example, we remain Christian people--people who are grounded in hope and life. And so we carry on doing what the faithful have throughout the generations: praying, giving thanks, breaking bread, diving into Scripture, asking for God's mercy and guidance, sharing our lives with one another. So that's exactly what we'll do on Sunday.
The passage from Romans you'll hear contains this famous line (excerpted for the Burial service, so it may sound vaguely familiar): "We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's."
It all belongs to God. The sad and the happy, the grief and the joy, the life and the death. We turn it over to the one who transcends it, and who is the only one who can make sense for us of a world like ours.
I hope you'll come and join me on Sunday for our schizophrenic worship and fellowship. It may not make any sense, or it may just make the most sense of all.
