Responding as Seminarians
Jennifer Davidson, President
LTSP Student Body

What seemed like it could approach the realm of possibility, for me to speak about this morning, was to frame the question this way: What can our approach to terrorism be as seminarians? Y’know, we do not live our lives on the scale of this past week—buildings destroyed, thousands killed, humans made to be bombs, the posturing of nations. I mother a three-year-old. I share a meal with my marriage partner. I wander into class. So my question seemed to simplify and distill: For those of us who are currently seminarians, in this place now, what can we do to respond to terrorism? So I was surprised at the scale of what seems to be my response.

We must become acquainted with terror. And I mean this in two ways. First, the existence of terror as an effective (perhaps the most effective) force of evil in this world. Second, the terror in our own hearts when we consider God.

As seminarians, I believe our task comes down to this: we must be willing to stand on the edge of the abyss with our eyes wide open. We cannot turn away, cover our eyes, stop up our ears. Listen, if we did not know it before last week, we certainly do now: evil exists and is moving well across the face of the earth.

Jennifer Davidson

And when I say evil, this is what I mean. I mean the spirits that seek distraction, destruction, and death. And I mean this on every scale—from an abusive marriage relationship, to a church council meeting, to a Seminarians Interacting conference gone awry, to a Conference on Racism bent on political posturing, to a terrorist attack that kills thousands. It doesn’t matter what the scale of evil is that you brush against, its spirit still desires to move to distraction, destruction, and death. Trust in God’s mercy.

Well, whatever that means. And I say that sincerely. I believe it’s part of why we’re in seminary at all. We are here to learn more about our God, to learn more about God’s ways. But if we dare to want to know God’s ways, if we want to open our eyes to discern God’s movement in this world—then we must see the landscape of this world for what it truly is. We must burn our eyes open.

The missing twin towers join the already existing landscape of brokenness, rage, alienation, distraction, destruction, and death. The millions of tons of wreckage in New York City join the wreckage of AIDS in Africa, of poverty across the world, of lifestyles of excess and acquisitiveness, of homophobia, and racism, colonialism, and sexism.

It seems a nearly impossible task, but as seminarians, we must keep our eyes open to these realities—if we ever hope to respond (and I say respond, not react) to terrorism, to terror, in our world.

Walter Brueggemann puts it another way. In his book Finally Comes the Poet: Daring Speech for Proclamation, he says the preacher, for our purpose, we could substitute seminarian’s first task is "to explicate the reality, power, destructiveness and hurt that comes with sin and its accommpanying guilt. That reality is more powerful and more destructive than we are wont to imagine" (13).

Brueggemann follows up a few pages later to say:

Believers whose faith is greatly diminished may utter a truth greatly reduced: "Smile, God loves you." Does God love because God is engaged in some cover-up with us and does not know about the alienation? Because if God knew, God would not meet me with a smile, but with a deep, deep cry for life run amiss. The alienation is heavy, serious, and burdensome for us, because it is heavy, serious, and burdensome for the alienated father God, for the mother God who grieves for us while we are too numb to grieve (17).

And so, as seminarians, in response to terrorism, I believe we must be about acquainting ourselves with the heaviness, the seriousness, the burden, the terror of these realities. We must be willing to stand at the edge of that abyss, to gaze straight into the depths of it (which also means staring into our own selves), to bear witness to it, to speak God’s word down into it.

Ahhh, yes, speaking God’s word. Well, this would mean knowing God’s word, wouldn’t it? I mean, it would require a certain familiarity with the word of God. And this, I believe, brings us to the second terror. The other abyss. The terror we feel when we consider God.

It turns out, we are on the thinnest strip of land, an abyss on either side.

We only need to go back as far as Sunday’s lectionary text to acquaint ourselves with terror in facing God. Just listen to what God says to Moses—and imagine yourself hearing these words come out of God’s mouth—I feel like I can see the spittle of rage in the corners of God’s mouth, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them." (Ex 32: 9-10). God has just asked to be let alone. God is in a state of wrath—and Moses stands on that thin strip of land, between the abyss of distraction, destruction, and death and the abyss of God—and Moses pleads for the people. And God relents.

But look, in that space between God’s rage and the moment when God relents—it is this in-between space of terror that I think we, as seminarians, must become acquainted—that is, if we hope to have anything to offer this world, if we hope to have any response at all to terrorism.

And the only way we can put ourselves in that place, the only way we can set ourselves on that thin strip of land, is to immerse ourselves in scripture. To respond to terrorism as seminarians, we must take on our studies as if they matter. To acquaint ourselves with terror we must become familiar with the word of God. We will have to refuse to settle for easy answers to our terror when we consider God. We must be willing to wrestle the word down to the ground, to wait for our blessing after a night of terrible struggle. To reconcile ourselves to the fact that that night might last a lifetime.