Is There a Balm in Gilead?

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

September 11, 2016

15^th Anniversary of 9-11 Attacks

Mark S. Bollwinkel

In the sixth century BCE, the prophet Jeremiah watched the armies of Nebuchadnezzar march from the north to destroy Israel, the nation of God’s chosen people.  The Temple of Zion, where he worshiped YHWH and tried to warn the people of their apostasy, was burnt to the ground.  The leaders and intelligencia of his Israel were carted off to Babylon in chains of slavery.  The devastation was complete.  It would take years before the exiles were allowed to rebuild the city, their nations and their lives.

            In a terrible moment of anguish the prophet cries out “O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people! I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.  Is there no balm in Gilead?”

Gilead was a mountainous region east of the river Jordan noted for its production of a medicinal salve taken from the aromatic resin of a tree.  This ointment was used for cosmetics, embalming and by physicians for the healing of wounds.

We can assume it was widely known and used in Palestine.

            In his despair, anger and grief at the destruction of God’s city of Zion, Jeremiah asks the question metaphorically, “Is there no comfort…is there no healing…is there no relief from this pain…is there no balm in Gilead?”

            We often think of the great African American hymn when we hear these words.  But its composer doesn’t ask it as a question but rather asserts a conviction, “There is a balm in Gilead…there is comfort…there is healing…there is relief from our pain”.

            African slave poets and musicians in North America can answer Jeremiah’s question asked thousands of years before in Israel.  What did they discover that he did not know at that moment?

            We had better explore their answer because it is our question, too.  In the face of the horrific evil of September 11^th 2001, and the violence of wars and terrorism since, aren’t we also left to ask, “Is there any comfort…is there any healing…is there a balm in Gilead?

Every one of us can remember the moment when we learned of the planes hitting the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington DC and that field out near Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania fifteen years ago today.    We’ll never forget where we were and what we were doing. 

During those fifteen years since we’ve sent our men and women off to war against the agents of those attacks, spending their valor and our nation’s treasure.  The common perception is that things are no better as a result.   In spite of their efforts things seem to be worse.  The violence of extremists has infiltrated the streets of our cities.  The citizens of Paris and Belgium, San Bernardino and Orlando now weep along with the victims in Bagdad, Aleppo and Karachi.

We are outraged and afraid as our sense of security has been violated by crime after crime against humanity itself.   It can be overwhelming. 

 As Christians what do we do with our anger?  What do we do with our fear?

Old Testament Proverbs say that anger is for “fools” and “whoever is slow to anger has great understanding” (12:16, 14:29).  The writers of the Epistles say that it has no place in the Christian community (Ephesians 4:26-32, Colossians 3:8, James 1:20). Jesus and the apostle Paul say to avoid anger at all costs (Matthew 5:22, Romans 12:19).

Yet in the face of religious hypocrisy (Mark 3:1-5, 11:15-19) Jesus, the Son of God, himself gets angry.  This same God, the God of love and peace, is also described throughout the Bible as One who can also focus terrible anger and wrath on the wicked (Psalm 7:11-17, 21:8-12, Isaiah 13:9, Ephesians 5:6, Colossians 3:6).

As human beings there is no way we will not be outraged by the events of September 11^th and the violence of the last fifteen years.   But as Christians we cannot let that anger consume us.   Our tradition clearly warns that it can.  And when anger overwhelms us we often strike out at others.

The week after 9/11 two Sikhs were killed in Arizona simply because of their appearance which includes wearing turbans and beards (San Jose Mercury News, 9/17/01).  In the weeks that followed 9/11, the FBI investigated 50 cases of hate crimes against Arab, Muslim and Sikh Americans (San Jose Mercury News, 9/20/01).  On August 5, 2012, a massacre took place at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where 40-year-old Wade Michael Page fatally shot six people and wounded four others before taking his own life.  Page was an American white supremacist and Army veteran (CNN, August 6, 2012). The Sikhs come from India not Arabia.  They wear turbans and beards as an expression of their religious tradition. They are not Muslim. 

Last month 30,000 Muslims marched in London denouncing the violence of Islamic extremists; “The only thing the terrorists are achieving is to completely violate the teachings of the Holy Koran and of the Holy Prophet Muhammad,” His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad told attendees, “Let it be clear that they are not practicing Islam, rather it seems as though they have invented their own hate-filled and poisonous religion.” (The Independent, August 15^th, 2016). Since 9/11 Muslim leaders and organizations here in the USA and around the world have denounced the violence of Jihadi radicals but it rarely gets mentioned in the press.   Not all Muslims are out to kill us!  To label all 1.2 billion Muslims as potential terrorists is not only wrong, it is a ploy to promote fear.  

Religious and racial prejudice has no place in our country or in the Christian heart.  Yet it always seems to find one.  That is what happens when anger and fear overwhelm us.  We strike out at others.

The New Testament warns us that fear is the opposite of faith (Matthew 6:25-34, Luke 12:22-28, I Corinthians 7:32, Philippians 4:6, I Peter 5:7). 

Last year photographer Joel Meyerowitz, whose book “Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive” chronicles the months following the attack, gave the National September 11 Memorial Museum a fragment of a steel beam from the South Tower on which was fused pages of the Kings James Version of the Bible.  An unnamed firefighter found the fragment in March 2002 and gave it to the photographer years later.  The only pages legible were from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew: 

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” ...“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (NYT, 09/25/2015)

If we’ve learned anything in years since 9/11 is that we will not win the war against terrorism with guns alone.  We can kill terrorists but violence will not heal the poverty, ignorance and oppression that breeds cells of terrorism in the first place.  If all we do is continue the cycle of retaliation and retribution, with all of our might and sophistication, we will not defeat terrorism; some would argue we’ve made it worse.  All we have to do is look at the results of 60 years of revenge and retribution between Israel and Palestine to be reminded that violence only breeds more violence.

The apostle Paul reminds us when dealing with anger and fear;

“If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay.”  No, if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:18-21)

I do not suggest for a moment that these terror crimes against humanity go ignored or rewarded.  Just the opposite, their perpetrators must be resisted and defeated.  But in our anger, however righteous, let us not forget that the American eagle…which we find on our government’s seal and our currency…holds out both the arrows of war and the branch of peace at the same time.

To win the war against terrorism we will have to be as vigilant and determined in our peace making as we are in our military response.

“With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.”

Malala Yousafzai (Pakistani advocate for women’s education, victim of terrorist attack and youngest winner of Nobel Peace Prize [2014])

The Jihadists will claim that God is on their side.  Fundamentalist Christian preachers will tell you that God caused the planes to crash on 9/11 to punish America’s sin, as they define it (see Ann and Franklin Graham, Farwell, Robinson, etc.).

But God didn’t cause those planes to fly into those buildings on 9/11.  God didn’t reject the prayers of the victims.

God weeps with us in our sorrow.  God grieves with us in our loss.  God sent his angels to minister to the fallen through the courage and sacrifice of the emergency personnel.  God inspires and strengthens us to rebuild our cities and lives, to resist and defeat the agents of terrorism.

God was there on 9/11 as the New York firefighters and police men and women went up the stairs as the buildings came down.  God was with those valent passengers who fought back against the hijackers on United Flight 93.  God rushed with the rescuers at the Pentagon who pulled victims out of the burning rubble.

In our rage and anxiety we may blame God for all manner of things, but what more need God do to reveal that God wants the best for us all.  It’s those human beings that reject and distort God’s gift that must take responsibility for earth’s horrors.  Not God.

Maybe that is why the African American poets could insist “There is a balm in Gilead.”

It took the faith of an oppressed people, a powerless people who had been ripped out of their worlds, people who were the victims of the worst of human deeds, to answer Jeremiah’s question.

God doesn’t cause human suffering, God shares it.

In spite of every effort to violently dehumanize them, in Jesus they discovered that they were precious in God’s sight, no less than Children of God.  No master’s whip could ever drive that grace out of their lives.

Aliens in a foreign land, victims of violence in every way, they were never alone, they had each other and they had the love of God.

Someday they would be free.  Someday there would be justice.  Someday they would live in peace.  And they sang in the face of terrible anger and fear, and they still sing today, “Yes, there is a balm in Gilead.”

Can we?

We need to believe in the future.

We need to resist evil with good.

We need to stand with one voice, as a nation, as a world and in the threat of darkness insist that in God’s gift to us of life and love, “There is a balm in Gilead” and we will not be defeated by anger or fear.

Amen.