I will never forget hearing Mark and Dave on WMBI relaying the first reports of a plane hitting the World Trade Center as I was on my way to work. Nor huddling around Jerry’s radio at work as additional updates came in.
I will also always remember the way our country came together in the days and months after those attacks. We held prayer meetings for the ones who lost their loved ones. People came from all over the country to help New York. We lavished love and support on our first responders.
2020 may not have a moment in time seared into our national memory as September 11, 2001 did, but it is a year that has been even more cataclysmic than 2001 was. More than 300 times as many people have died world-wide from COVID-19 than died in the attacks on 9/11. Waves of social unrest have swept through the country in response to shootings by police. But what concerns me even more is the unprecedented division and vitriol between different camps within our country.
Any group of people naturally grows tighter when they feel a communal threat from an outside source. That helped our country unify after 9/11 but that is the same dynamic that is dividing us today. Some leaders have played on mistrust of others to create “foxholes” of people huddling together to defend a cause. But we seem to expect everyone in our foxhole to agree with all our group’s views. If you even suggest that someone else has valid reasons for their different views, you might get kicked out of the foxhole and become the enemy.
I pray more of us can find a way to come together. Instead of sitting in the foxholes with people we agree with, we need to cross the lines to understand where people are coming from who have different views. Maybe if I walk a mile in their moccasins, I’ll find out that those could have been my moccasins. Maybe if we start to focus on the things that unite us, we’ll find a way to overcome the issues that divide us.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:9 NASB
The picture above is from a prayer time at First Christian Church of Chicago on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. We prayed for God to bless and comfort all who lost loved ones that day. We also prayed that He would protect the first responders and military who continue to put themselves in harm’s way for our safety. Today we need to pray for the ones who have lost loved ones to COVID-19 or to violence. We need to continue to pray for first responders. And we need to continue to pray for equal justice to all people in our country.
One thing I like about this picture is how the Cross rises above the American Flag. It symbolizes for me how we Christians need to put our allegiance to God first over our allegiance to the United States. God calls us to be peacemakers, to stand up for justice, to help the needy, and to break down the divisions that separate people from each other and from Him. If everyone in this country who claims the name of Christian would do those things, we might find that we rise above the issues that divide us.
Walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another in love, diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds us.
Ephesians 4:1-3 HCSB
Brothers and Sisters in Christ let’s get out of our foxholes and look for the things we have in common with people in other foxholes. Let’s put Christ first in our lives and see where His Spirit leads us.