The Invitation - Introduction

 

The invitation – introduction

 

Yesterday, September 11, 2026, I awoke about 4:00 A.M. thinking of 25 years ago. While I am always aware of a 9/11 anniversary, this year it was especially poignant, perhaps because it has been 25 years, perhaps because the chaos continues; domestically, internationally and within the professing church. Indeed, the chaos appears exponential, faster than a human can process, faster than humanity can process.

 

As a rule Vickie and I cannot handle watching retrospectives on 9/11, they are too sorrowful, too tragic…how many times have we all relived them? How many times can we watch the videos and hear the voices?

 

The one retrospective that we did watch was the story of Steve Scheibner, the American Airlines pilot who was scheduled to fly the first hijacked plane, but who was bumped from the flight by another pilot who had seniority. You can find his story on YouTube, “In my Seat.”  His wife also wrote a book with that title.

 

The evening of 9/11 our church hosted a community time of prayer and reflection, and since we were the only church in our Massachusetts township, the sanctuary was filled. I knew, as pastor, that I needed to provide comfort in Christ, hope in Christ, and to keep our eyes focused on Jesus Christ. As many of you who are reading this know, if you didn’t live through that day you can no more adequately describe it, capture it, for others, than our parents (of my generation) could describe their experience of December 7.

 

A few days after 9/11 what was known as The Berkshire Revival occurred. This was an annual multi-day meeting of churches from various traditions in the Berkshires, to worship Jesus, encourage one another, and witness to our regional community. Each evening a different pastor would preach, and a different church would provide music and lead singing. In 2001 the Dalton United Methodist Church, with is large sanctuary, hosted the event.

 

There was absolute unanimity among the pastors that we were going to focus on Jesus Christ, and worship Him and Him alone. For sure there was pressure by some in the community to focus on issues and movements other than Jesus, but we affirmed one another in our calling to serve Jesus and only Jesus; we would lead our collective flocks to the Christ of the Cross. I still recall witnessing an attendee verbally attacking a pastor after his evening message because the pastor spoke of overcoming evil with good (Romans 12:21; Matthew 5:43 – 48), and saying, “I’m glad you’re not my pastor!”

 

Well, it was a challenging time and today is no less challenging. If Jesus isn’t our focus, our heart’s desire, our One True Love, our Compass; then we are like weathervanes at the mercy of the winds. You can’t navigate using a weathervane, or at least you shouldn’t.

 

Yesterday I was wondering what I preached in the aftermath of 9/11, 25 years ago. What follows in the next post is my message during the Berkshire Revival, on September 21, 2001.

 

Much love,

 

Bob