Here are the remarks I made this morning at a Habitat for Humanity event in Billerica, Massachusetts. I also worked for about two hours clearing a new house site with Christians, Muslims, Jews. It is at the corner of Peace and Friendship. Everyone who spoke talked about the need to build up–from the foundation up–at a time when things are falling down. After we finished each finished our remarks we broke bread (pita, naan, matzah, tortillas and rice cakes), we sang or read blessings and graces for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. This was a powerful moment.

Habitat for Humanity is a powerful model. And while I was busy doing this, my daughter did something too. Behind the scenes she arranged for my old car in California to be donated to Habitat for Humanity in my honor. It seem so fitting. The car that brought me back and forth to New York. Her first car. Finding a new way to recycle and “ReStore.”

About six months ago I got a phone call from Dan Bush, the development director, for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Lowell. “What are you doing on 9/11?” he asked. “Working,” I was sure. Because it is so close to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Why? I wondered. “Because I would like it if you could come into Boston and talk about your experience with Habitat for Humanity. On 9/11 about 9/11”

I rarely say no to Habitat. Here’s why. On September 11^th in 2001 I was in New York City. I was trying desperately to find the new campus of the Academy for Jewish Religion, tucked up on the fifth floor of the administration building of a Catholic College. I was lost in Yonkers. No, really. I was. I turned off the radio so I could concentrate. The last news story I heard was about an American drone being shot down over Iraq. Oh, no, I thought, here we go again. I called Simon for directions and could not get through. I cursed him and Sprint. When I finally found the College of Mount Saint Vincent…I was greeted by a hysterical classmate who was trying to find a television. She was worried about a bombing. I assumed in Israel. She said the World Trade Center. I said, and I quote, “Get a grip. That was 1993.” As it turned out she had a daughter in the World Trade Center and one in the Pentagon. She was lucky. Both were OK. As know now many more were not.

On a beautiful bright blue day, my class watched the smoke rise further down the river. After being told if we could make it to Connecticut we would be safe, somehow I managed to get gas in my car without a credit card server that worked and I made it to Connecticut where miraculously my cell phone started to work again. I say miraculously because in all those years I commuted to New York for school I dropped more calls in Connecticut than anywhere else. The first call I received was from Rabbi Larry Zimmerman. By now Dracut knew whom the pilot of Flight 11 was. John Oganowski. I knew him from Tufts. He was a farmer and helped Cambodian refugees grow food on this farm that otherwise was difficult to find in America. Dracut was already beginning the painful task of planning memorials. The next call was from a principal in Acton. She had a kindergarten student with a father on the plane. The next call was from a rabbi—who opted to close the synagogue for Hebrew School since the Wang Towers were also closing. It was a scary, long, confusion drive home. It was eerily silent. Most people were off the roads and holed up watching TV. Despite that bright blue sky, it seemed the world was collapsing. Do you remember?

Carol Gagne had the task of planning a service at Saints Memorial. I was doing my pastoral care class with her. The volunteer coordinator whose office was next door to Carol’s was Madeline Sweeney’s sister-in-law. Madeline was the flight attendant who heroically used her cell phone to alert the traffic control towers that they had been hijacked. We learned of others who were lost that day. One of my Girl Scouts lost an uncle. A good friend lost her mother. 2,997 people died that day. Do you remember?

I also remember this: The Rev. Imogene Stulken had had an idea that summer. What if the clergy of GLILA came together and showed Lowell how we could cooperate and build something lasting? What if we worked on a Habitat for Humanity build right here in Lowell? And so we signed up as a group. The day that was scheduled was September 12, 2001. I am not sure that any of us, maybe Imogene, knew what to expect when we got there. Some of the details are foggy. I think it must have been the project on Nichols Street. I know that Imogene, Simon, Steve Fisher, Gordon White, Larry Zimmerman were there. I can’t remember who else. I know that I helped dry wall a closet. I didn’t even know I could do that when I started.

And I know this. When we started building that morning it seemed like all the world was falling down, collapsing, smoking. If Jews and Christians could come together and build something, maybe the world was not so scary a place. Maybe we could even dare to hope for peace.

I have now worked on Habitat sites in North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, New Orleans (three times), and Illinois where I now live. Each of those times has been a special memory. Building with the Rev. Ginny McDaniel, The Rev. David Ferner, Betty and Rachel, Linda Gilmore, the members of my new congregation. I remember praying before working in North Carolina. I remember moving lots of sand to build a playground in hot, humid New Orleans. I remember signing the plywood in a house in the 9^th Ward with a Jewish blessing while a jazz musician played. That musician would be the owner of the house. I remember working along side house owners in Elgin as they moved rocks and laid a subfloor in Elgin.

Sometimes I am asked how I can work with Habitat since it was founded as an explicitly Christian organization. In most places I have been, Habitat accommodates. Habitat has had builds on Sunday—so that Jews can participate and not violate our Sabbath on Saturday. Habitat’s own website states explicitly that it has an open-door policy: “All who desire to be a part of this work are welcome, regardless of religious preference or background. We have a policy of building with people in need regardless of race or religion. We welcome volunteers and supporters from all backgrounds.”

Nonetheless, they see their work as being centered in Christianity in three important ways:

• It is a way of putting faith into action, following the teachings of Jesus, showing love and care for one another and not just words. By bringing, as the website says, diverse groups of people together to make affordable housing and better communities a reality for everyone.
• By following the economics of Jesus. When acting in response to human need, giving without seeking profit, Habitat believes G-d magnifies the effects of the efforts. Together the donated labor of construction workers and volunteers like us with the sweat equity of the Habitat’s partner families, Habitat has been able to make decent, affordable, safe housing for 800,000 families worldwide.
• Millard Fuller described his “theology of the hammer”. “We may disagree on all sorts of other things, but we can agree on the idea of building homes with G-d’s people in need and in doing so using biblical economics: no profit and no interest.”
• I know this—that biblical economics Fuller describes is the Bible we share in common. The Bible was explicit about how to reach economic justice. In the reading for Yom Kippur from the prophet Isaiah we are taught:

Is such the fast I desire,
A day to starve your bodies?
Is it bowing the head like a bulrush
And lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call that a fast,
A day when the Lord is favorable?
No, this is the fast I desire:
To unlock the fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.
It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And not to ignore your own kin.

I know this: this is what Judaism, my own faith tradition demands as well. In Scripture we hold in common, we are taught, “Justice, Justice shall you pursue.” (Deut 16). We are taught that justice means to welcome the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt. We are taught that Abraham even interrupted his prayer to welcome the three guests to his tent, into his home. We are taught that if the officers speak to the people and say, “Who has built a new house and not dedicated it, let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another dedicate it.” (Deut 20:5)

I know this: We are taught to not hold the wages of a laborer overnight. We are taught to leave the corners of our field for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the most marginalized among us. We are taught that there is a shmita year, a year of release. The shmita year we let the land lay fallow and we forgive debts. It is another form of economic justice. That shmita year begins in two weeks, with Rosh Hashanah.

I know this: We are taught by a non-Jewish prophet, hired to curse the Israelites, “How goodly are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places O Israel.” We are taught, “How good and how pleasant it is for people to dwell together.” We are taught “Seek Peace and Pursue it.” So justice and peace we need to pursue, actively run after, chase after with dogged determinism.

I know this: by being at a Habitat for Humanity build with my colleagues from GLILA on 9/12, building while the world seemed to be collapsing, it was the single most powerful moment of my life. Abraham Joshua Heschel said that when he marched with Martin Luther King in Selma his feet were praying. That day, and every day since when I have built with Habitat, I feel my hands are praying with every swing of the hammer.

I know this: by being here today, as we were on 9/11 13 years ago, we are doing precisely this. We are building peace—one swing of the hammer, one Habitat for Humanity home at a time.

And I know this: the world is a scary place again—or maybe still. Habitat for Humanity’s vision is “a world where everyone has a decent place to live. Our mission is to put God’s love into action by bringing people together to build homes, communities and hope.” That sense of hope is what this world needs right now, today. This is what we are building.