Jeremy L. Berg

Where were you when the news broke on that tragic morning in America September 11, 2001?  That’s the question we all ask years later.  And we all remember.  For what it’s worth, I was in my car on the way to Bethel University to lift weights with some buddies on campus. We didn’t lift any weights that day. We spent the day gathering together around TV screens lifting up prayers instead. 

I recorded a prayer in my journal that night. This is where my heart was at that horrible day 8 years ago.  I was 22 years old. This was my prayer:

September 11, 2001

Heavenly Father, 

We ask for your mercy on this great nation on this day of terror. Lord, we are a nation that has turned it’s back on you. Established under your sovereignty and built on a God-fearing foundation. We are a nation whose currency states: “In God we trust”, and yet our leaders cannot say your name. We have been blessed more abundantly than any other nation and we all too often credit ourselves. We live with a boastful sense of self-sufficiency. We create our own solar system in which everything revolves around us until suddenly the rug is pulled out from under us by circumstances totally beyond our control. It is these circumstances in which absolute horror provokes proper perspective on our being. Lord, we now put aside our own agenda and look outside ourselves to You who holds the world in it’s place. We see our lives as vapors in the wind and ask for your mercy.

Lord, may some good come out of this evil.

May the sword of the enemy draw us nearer to the shield of our Savior.

May suffering bring about love and charity.

May civil chaos bring about Spiritual order in our lives of misplaced priorities.

Though the body of believers be as fragile as clay vessels, may the faith that unites us give us the strength to bring your Light into the darkness of these circumstances. Our prayers go out to our nation’s leaders. Give them wisdom from on high to bring about peace and justice. Lord, bring your peace, love, courage and hope to those who have lost loved ones today. 

Amen. 

My theology and political views have changed in the past 8 years. Jesus’ radical kingdom politics has challenged many of my more conservative  views. If I were to change or clarify anything in my raw, college-boy prayer years later it would be the following. First, I was tip-toeing on dangerous theological grounds in hinting that the terrorist attacks were divine punishment for turning our back on God. Greg Boy’s Myth of a Christian Nation helped me see this truth.  I don’t think God causes evil (such as flying airplanes into buildings to kill civilians), though He certainly can use human evil to accomplish his purposes.

Second, I was right to see this tragedy as a reminder of our fragility and mortality — both as individuals and as a nation. Moments like this remind us that our lives are fleeting and we are never promised a tomorrow. There are many things outside of our control, and we should humble ourselves before the God who holds our eternal fate in His hands.  Our nation did experience a moment of corporate repentance and humility. People flooded churches, mosques and synagogues to petition a higher power. This was appropriate and good. 

Third, my prayer today would also include a Jesus-shaped prayer for the well-being of our enemies — individual and national. “I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons 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” (Matt 5:43-45). We serve a peculiar God who doesn’t fly a national flag. Our God has torn down all artificial boundaries and borders that divide the human family into warring tribes, tongues and nations. Our God’s Kingdom is transnational, transcultural, and multilingual. The past 8 years have provided me with much time to observe the Right/Left political divide in America and I have found them both wanting. I now pledge primary allegiance to the Cross of Jesus and am still wrestling with how his upside down kingdom politics are to be lived out in a broken and divided world.

Finally, I still believe now as I did when I wrote this prayer that God’s church is called to stand as a beacon of light and hope in a world of darkness and despair. We fail time and time again. The unbelieving world takes notice and scoffers will always be able to point out our blemishes. But if we are humble, if we keep our eyes free of logs and stop picking sawdust specks out of others’ eyes and we instead hide behind our beautiful savior, then God will indeed find ways to shine “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4) through the cracked Body, his church.

And as I prayed that night, I now pray again on this somber anniversary:  Lord, bring your peace, love, courage and hope to those who have lost loved ones. Amen.