Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann

On 9/11: One Year Later

On 9/11: One Year Later Rock ofAges, cleftfor me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Naked, come to Theefor dress, Helpless, look to Theefor grace; Be ofsin the double cure, Cleanse mefrom its guilt and power. While I draw thisfleeting breath, When my eyelids close in death, When I soar to worlds unknown, See thee on Thyjudgment throne, Rock ofAges, cleftfor me, Let me hide myself in Thee. You rock of strength and power and certitude, You rock higher than all the waters of chaos, You shelter safer than all threats, You dwelling place in all generations, You who goes before us and is rear guard after us, We turn to you for safety, security, assurance, for we have had a deep fill of alarm, displacement, loss, threat... all becoming a lingering sense of vulnerability new to us, and we grow weary of the risk. 175 We turn to you in that heaviness, for we do afresh ponder our mortality, think about our naked exposure, fully cognizant of the fragility that is the truth of our lives. And so we turn to you seeking assurance, consolation, embrace. And you receive us, faithful mother who holds sure father who welcomes and embraces, And we settle in peaceableness even midst the chaos we do . . . and we give you thanks. And then, because of the narrative we know best, we discover that in the rock where you had nestled us, You have blown the rock open from the inside, You have rolled the stone away, You have surged out of a tomb-like womb a womb-like tomb, And are back surging in the world, toJerusalem and Galilee and to parts unknown, life overriding death, work overriding dormancy, risk moving beyond solace . . . all things new and we ponder our oldest mantra: "Christ is risen . . . He is risen indeed." You are risen in power and wonder; You are risen out of the shambles of death and terror and doubt and fear; You are risen to turn the world to peace and justice and freedom and well-being; You are risen with healing wings to cure our diseased hurts and our public pathologies. You are risen and summoning us, summoning us beyond our fear to obedience, summoning us beyond our nestling to freedom, summoning us beyond our self-preoccupation to courage, 176 summoning us beyond our safety to your bold, transformative way in the world. We dare imagine that the rock of safety blown open to newness matters even to our school. So we ask your risen power and your stirring spirit among us, that our common life may be like bread broken in remembering you and like wine poured out in hope of your coming soon. Let us, good Lord of the dying and the living, hide ourselves in Thee. And then let us follow your Easter way, that the world shriveled in deathliness may turn tojoy and to newness. We gladly attest. Christ is Risen And the congregation answers. "He is risen indeed!" Amen. Columbia Theological Seminary chapel service/September 11, 2002 177 ...