I’d like to say a few words in addition to Bishop Alexander’s Pastoral letter. First of all, I very much appreciate that he wrote it as an expression of concern for the Diocese. One of the things I think we’ve all learned anew this week is how connected we all are and how connected we need to be in times of crisis. It is comforting to me to be reminded by my bishop that during these hard times, we do not gather alone in witness to our faith. It is comforting to me to be reminded that the Church universal gathers this morning, after this devastation, to defiantly state our belief in the power of the Resurrection.

I don’t need to tell you that it has been a terrible week. I lack the powers of eloquence necessary to describe the horror we’ve all felt, the outrage, the anger, the sadness. Any effort to describe our tears, our abhorrence, our grief seems to me to be obviated by the continuously running loop of video tape we’ve all seen over and over and over again and again and again since Tuesday morning as the fireballs shoot out of the buildings, the flames rage, the buildings collapse in clouds of predatory dust, the firemen try to move mountains of steel and concrete with their bare hands, the pitiful people walk the streets of New York with pictures of their loved ones.

In the presence of such horror I think most of us are numb. Most of us are exhausted as this week’s devastating emotions take their toll. And most of us are speechless, because whatever we say seems so inadequate, so small in the face of such huge monstrosity.

But it is a time when Christians speak. Because if we cannot speak in a time of gut-wrenching grief and anger, perhaps we should loose the privilege of speaking during times of comfort and calm. But I want you to know that I am aware that we will need to speak of this for a very long time. We will need to be working this out and processing it for a very long time. What I say this morning, and what we say to one another this morning, will be only the beginning of a long process for us.

If people are to know that we are Christians, surely Jesus must govern the equation of how we respond to hatred. But before we can follow Jesus in this regard, before we can say Jesus’ words of defiance to the terrorists, we have to ask two questions. They are not easy. The first is this: "Can refusing to respond to hatred with hatred defeat hatred?" You see, Jesus refused to respond to hatred with hatred. And he didn’t leave us Christians the option of responding with our very real gut feelings of hatred. He said, "But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."

That’s how Jesus lived his life. He refused to respond to hatred with hatred, even when hatred was killing him. And so one way to view the Resurrection is that it is God’s statement that responding to hatred with love is ultimately life giving and more powerful than death. And so our first question is: "Can we believe that the power of Resurrection, of responding to hatred with love, is more powerful even than the hatred we saw on that endless video tape of horror?"

Can we believe that? Well, this week, it’s not easy. Everything inside me cries out, "No! The only power these people will understand is the power of hatred. God may forgive them, but we won’t. Bomb them back to hell."

But I want to say to you that if we cannot believe that the power of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection is more powerful than anything that Osama bin Laden can do, then we should stop this church service and go home, because everything we’ve done here, everything we’ve said here, they don’t mean a thing.

And so I encourage you, wherever you are in your faith journey, to continue the process of believing in the power of Christ’s Resurrection, the power of love overcoming hatred. You may not feel like it; many times this week I haven’t felt like it. Feelings are overrated; believe it, and hang on to that belief.

You’re going to need it. Because the second question we must ask is this: "Can we pray for our enemies?" Now, there’s no way you can do that unless you believe that the power of the Resurrection is greater than the power of hatred. But if the world is to be able to tell that we are Christians, the world will have to see that we are doing what Jesus told us to do, that we are praying even for those who have deliberately carried out this unthinkable evil.

No. When someone is committing great evil, the loving response is to stop them, not only for the protection of those they would hurt, but also for their well-being. Osama bin Laden has undoubtedly caused God to sob with grief, but we can still think of him as a beloved child of God, as a human being and not as a devil, as a child that God longs desperately to heal.

We will certainly have to take action with respect to Osama bin Laden and those who work with him. At this point, I have no more idea of what action will be appropriate than you do; we simply don’t have the facts to make a decision. But the important thing is that when we make that decision, if we do it as people who hate Osama bin Laden, history is very clear that we may score a temporary victory, but we will create a martyr who will inspire a new generation of terrorists, and the cycle of hatred and violence will continue. If we act as people who pray for Osama bin Laden, what we do and how we do it will somehow be different. We will be motivated not only by our legitimate need for security, but also by our love for our enemies.

That is so hard. So hard. But I want to tell you, that if as Christians we can answer those two questions as Christ did, by responding to hatred by loving enemies and trusting the power of that love to bring about Resurrection, then we are defying the terrorists the way Christ defied the powers of hatred—with two words: love and Resurrection. It is a defiance that breaks the cycle of violence that has gotten us into this mess. It is a defiance that, in the final analysis, is our only hope.

And it is the ultimate weapon against hatred. When we say to Osama bin Laden, "We must stop you from being destructive, but still I will genuinely care for your soul and love you," then we are saying to him, "The most precious things I have, more precious than any buildings, or airplanes, or even my life, you cannot have. The most precious things I have are my compassion, my humanity, my faith, my ability to love as Christ loved. And you cannot take them from me; I would have to give them to you on a platter of hatred.

"And Osama, I love you."