A few weeks ago, Old Worship New reader, Meridith, posted on Facebook that we should discuss Sunday, September 11, 2011. Here is one set of ideas related to the US holiday “Patriot Day” and the regular Sunday worship.
Back in the day, the Church celebrated the death date of every saint that had died. By the 7th century, it dawned on people that there were more saints than days and we should just have one day to commemorate all the saints’ death dates on one day. This simplified things.
Commemoration days are tough, because there is always something else to commemorate and there will always be something to commemorate that we forget.
As we all know, on September 11, 2001 two hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center, another hit the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., and another crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. In total, around 3,000 people died that day. It was a very tragic event. This year is the tenth anniversary of that horrific event.
This was a terrible event for many, especially in the US. However, without detracting from 9-11 or the massive loss of life on that day and the massive loss of feelings of safety for all of the US, here are some other events that we could remember:
- On December 26, 2004 an earthquake occurred off the coast of Indonesia creating a Tsunami that resulted in 230,000 deaths throughout countries bordering the Indian Ocean.
- Haiti was struck with a massive earthquake that killed 316,000 people January 10, 2010.
- 15,641 people died as an earthquake and a tsunami hit Japan on March 11, 2011.
- Every day, nearly 10,000 people worldwide die of water-related diseases. In the time it took you to read that sentence, 1 person died of water-related disease.
All of these events have occurred more recently and have greater death tolls than 9-11, however, few are advocating for an commemoration of these days for our liturgies. Moreover, if we did, soon every Sunday would be a commemoration of some event.
Before you call me heartless because of my mentioning of this, please note that my church is asking this question. The pastor is on one side and a coworker, who was working a few blocks from the World Trade Center on 9-11, is on the other side. My coworker does not think that we should celebrate it at all, my pastor, I believe, thinks it should be a whole commemoration.
As you might guess, I’m in between, both as the worship leader in between the two coworkers and in my opinion. I am not advocating for a whole day to 9-11, nor do I think we shouldn’t mention it. Instead, I am advocating for a day that we remember 9-11, Haiti, Japan, Indonesia, water-related deaths, starvation, etc. Have a day where we remember all those who have died in tragic ends, whether they perished at the hands of terrorists, earthquake, water, or something else. I’m not sure how this will work, nor what we call it, I hope to hear from you all.
My plan is to mention 9-11 on September 11 this year, but September 18, we will have our day of tragedies (hopefully the service won’t be a tragedy). In this, we will memorialize many tragedies, look for God in those tragedies, and pray for the families of the victims and the survivors. I think this is healthier than the day of 9-11, because the focus will naturally be on 9-11 solely.
Do you have plans for 9-11? What are you doing?
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