We all remember where we were when we heard the initial news, saw the initial images. September 11, 2001 was a day unlike any other for a lot of people. Each year when the anniversary comes around, I find myself feeling a mix of emotions as I remember that day and I reflect on where we are now seventeen years later.

I have been using an app simply entitled Prayer. It is based on the rhythm of the Book of Common prayer offering a monthly action for focus as well as three daily prayer times.

The morning prayer always has a reading from the Psalms, a reading from the Old Testament and a reading from the New Testament. For a while, the Old Testament readings have come from the book of Esther and the New Testament readings from the Gospel of Matthew.

On September 7^th, the two readings included Esther 7:1-10 and Matthew 5:38-48.

In this section of Esther’s story, Haman is impaled on a pole that he had built for Mordecai. Mordecai was the cousin of Esther who had been made Queen to Kind Ahaseurus (not by choice, but that is the position she found herself in). When Haman called for the annihilation of the Jews, Mordecai pleaded with Esther to intervene on her people’s behalf even though to do so would put her own life at risk. Esther does intervene, and the audience applauds as the evil Haman gets what he deserves in the end.

Now read the words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel:

You have heard that is was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Suddenly the cheering and relief for revenge fulfilled at the End of Esther’s story is called into question as is all human desire for revenge or vengeance.

On this anniversary of so much destruction, damage and evil, it is human to go back to those places of anger…to those places of wanting revenge or vengeance. It is harder on these days to heed Jesus’ call to a very different response.

September 11, 2001 was not quite two months before my wedding day. My husband to be and I were living in Dallas, TX at the time and we went for a walk at White Rock Lake that evening to talk, to be together, to meditate on this horrible thing and what it meant for the us and for the world.

We sat on a park bench by the lake, which is very close to Dallas Love Field, in the eerie silence as the planes that would normally fill the skies were absent. My husband said something that night that has stuck with me through the years. He said, “in light of so much evil and bad, I really want to go out and do something good.”

My prayer these seventeen years later, is that through the grief, the loss and the anger, we will find our way to choosing to do good…choosing to be the good…and choosing to rely on the strength of Jesus to be our enabler of peace.