Clarity
St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
September 11, 2026
Service of Holy Communion and Remembrance
Isaiah 61:1-4
Psalm 31:1-5, 19-21
Romans 8:31-39
Matthew 5:1-10
I think most of you know that my hometown, Jersey City, is just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.
And, although not all Jersey City people are this way, my family was always very New York City-focused.
When I was a kid, there were many weekends when my parents, sister, and I would take the PATH train under the river and into “the city.”
Sometimes, we went up to midtown – but often we’d go downtown, taking the PATH train to the World Trade Center and walking around Lower Manhattan: St. Paul’s Chapel, Trinity Church, Wall Street, Battery Park…
I’m just old enough to remember when the World Trade Center was being completed – I remember one time we saw masons laying bricks in the concourse floor.
Because of all those childhood trips and then later trips as a teenager and adult on my own or with friends, there were few places more familiar to me than the World Trade Center.
I can still so clearly see the very 1970s brown-and-gold signage of the PATH Station, the long bank of escalators from the station up to the concourse, the Gap store at the top of the escalators, the Borders bookstore, the whoosh of the super-fast elevators, the gusts of wind whipping around the plaza at the base of the towers.
I can still see it all so clearly, hear it, feel it.
The day when all of that and much more was lost forever, began with great promise.
Of course, we remember that clear, deep blue sky, that beautiful start to a late summer day.
But for me, that morning was extra-hopeful because the previous night, I had attended my very first seminary class – I was just dipping my toe, testing it out, and I was so excited – it felt like the rest of my life was about to begin
God felt so close.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001, was the second day of school at St. Peter’s Prep, located a few blocks from the Jersey City waterfront. St. Peter’s is my alma mater, and I was a history teacher there – and my top floor classroom had a great view of the New York skyline.
That day, I had a free first period and so I clearly remember the first reports in the faculty room of a plane hitting one of the Twin Towers – we all assumed it must have been a small plane.
I clearly remember a colleague who was sure that some air traffic controller must have really screwed up.
I clearly remember:
The woman stopped in traffic in front of the school, weeping, gasping, her face pressed against the steering wheel.
The fireball as United Flight 175 struck the South Tower.
Watching from my classroom window as the North Tower fell, hearing the rushing sound all the way across the river, a room full of silent boys looking to me for answers.
Our principal’s frequent announcements on the PA, remaining amazingly calm in the crisis, doing his best to reassure us.
Sue’s family leaving messages on our answering machine, panicked, not sure where exactly her office was in the city.
A friend in Germany leaving a message, frightened, choked with tears.
The alarming reports about where else we had been hit, some proving to be true – the Pentagon! - some not.
The people, covered in dust, who made their way across the river by ferry.
It took Sue all day to get back to Jersey City and after we were finally reunited, we stopped at the Burger King drive-thru to pick up dinner.
Getting a call from the rector of our church, Dave Hamilton, checking that we were OK, letting us know that he was having a service that night at the church – and Sue and I walking up to the church, passing a man screaming at a cab driver who had double-parked.
Gathering in the dark church with, I don’t know, maybe 25 other parishioners.
I can’t recall a word Dave said that night, but I clearly remember that in that holy place, even after all that we had witnessed, even after everyone and everything we had lost, and even with the fears of what was yet to come, I clearly remember that, somehow, God felt close.
There was unspeakable suffering – and much confusion and fear - but the events of September 11 and the days that followed offered us clarity.
Clarity about what is most important:
The voicemails we heard from people trapped in burning buildings or on doomed planes, reminding us of what is most essential – over and over, they said, “I love you, I love you.”
The courage and sacrifice of firefighters and police officers and other first responders who raced into horror, so many losing their lives.
The workers who continued to search and dig in the smoking ruins, first for survivors and then for remains, for many months, doing incredibly grim and dangerous work – work, as we have witnessed in the years since, destructive to their health.
Clarity also about our place in the world – that the vast oceans no longer defend us from attack, that we are vulnerable much like all people are vulnerable.
Clarity about resilience – it didn’t seem possible at the time, but somehow, with God’s help, we continued with our lives – for better or for worse, a memorial and a museum, a soaring train station, and, yes, a shopping mall now occupy “Ground Zero.”
And finally, clarity about the great choice before us – the choice between two opposing ways of life:
The way of violence, hate, vengeance, and war.
Or the way of love, generosity, sacrifice, and peacemaking.
In today’s gospel lesson, in what we call the Beatitudes, Jesus presents his downside-up vision of God’s kingdom, the realm where it’s the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness who are the blessed ones – God’s kingdom where it’s the peacemakers and the persecuted who are blessed.
I don’t know, maybe after everything we’ve been through that all sounds naïve or nonsensical - maybe that‘s how it’s always sounded, but I’m convinced that it’s really the only way – Jesus’ way of love, generosity, sacrifice, and peacemaking is the only way for us – because the other way offers no hope and leads only to more suffering, more destruction.
The way of Jesus takes courage, requires faith that, as St. Paul writes, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
With clarity, may we remember the events of September 11, 2001, the lives lost in New York, Washington, and Shanksville - the families and dreams shattered.
With clarity, may we recall the heartbreaking expressions of love, the extraordinary acts of heroism.
And with clarity, may we trust that, even when buildings fall and evil and death are all around us, God will never let go of us, no matter what.
Amen.
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