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| Steve Scheibner |
(Easter 2012: This homily was
given on April 8, 2012 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond
Suriani. Read Romans 6: 3-11; John 20:
1-9.)
It was Monday afternoon, and
American Airlines pilot Steve Scheibner went online and booked himself on an
early morning flight to the west coast—a flight that was scheduled to leave the
following day.
Nothing unusual about that: this
was standard procedure for pilots at the time (at least at American Airlines).
But later that same Monday another
pilot—a man named Tom McGinnis—decided that he wanted to fly the following
morning, so he “bumped” Scheibner from the flight, and scheduled himself to be
the pilot.
He was well within his rights to
do that, since he had seniority over Steve.
So on that beautiful Tuesday
morning Steve Scheibner went off to work at his other job (which was with the U.S.
Navy), and Tom McGinnis got on the plane: American Airlines, Flight 11, Boston
to Los Angeles—September 11, 2001.
Sadly, we all know the rest of
the story.
Flight 11 was the first of the
two planes that hit the World Trade Center that terrible day.
It’s extremely moving to listen
to Steve Scheibner speak about his experience on September 11, and about his
life since then.
As a Christian, he definitely
understands the sacrifice of Jesus Christ from a uniquely personal perspective,
since he knows what it is to have another
person suffer and die in his place.
Because Tom McGinnis suffered and
died, Steve Scheibner is alive—physically speaking. Because Jesus Christ suffered and died and
rose from the dead, Steve (and the rest of us) can have a life in the kingdom
of God that will never end. That’s the
foundational truth that we celebrate and proclaim on Easter Sunday. As St. Paul put it in 1 Thessalonians 5: “[Jesus
Christ] died for us, that all of us . . . together might live with him.” (cf. 1Thessalonians 5: 10)
In some sense, Tom McGinnis
“sacrificed” his life for Steve Scheibner—and Scheibner knows it! As Steve once said in an interview: “Words
can’t describe that moment of realizing that you should have been someplace . .
. I saw [on television] where I should have died, but I didn’t. “
Of course, every analogy falls
short in certain respects, and that’s definitely true in this case. As great as Tom McGinnis’ sacrifice was, it
was not equal to Jesus’ sacrifice for you and for me.
The Lord’s sacrifice was
different and greater, and it was different and greater in several respects.
First of all, Jesus knowingly sacrificed himself for
us. He predicted his passion a number of
times before it actually took place: “The Son of Man is going to be delivered
into the hands of men who will put him to death,” he said in Mark, chapter 9,
and several other times during his earthly ministry.
Tom McGinnis, on the other hand,
had no idea what would happen to him that day on American Airlines, Flight 11,
when it took off from Logan Airport. He
couldn’t possibly have known.
Jesus also sacrificed himself willingly, yielding his human will to his
heavenly Father’s divine will: “Father, take this cup away from me! But not
what I will but what you will.”
I’m sure Tom McGinnis didn’t give
up his life willingly on that horrible morning in September of 2001. Now that’s not to say anything negative about
Tom—in those circumstances he shouldn’t
have given up his life without a fight!
Rather, it’s to say something positive about Jesus Christ, and about
what he did for us on Calvary 2,000 years ago.
Nor did Tom take Steve’s place out of love! But that’s precisely why Jesus died for us:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.”
Jesus died for us knowingly, willingly and lovingly.
And for that we should be most
grateful.
Neither Steve Scheibner nor Tom
McGinnis deserved to be murdered on September 11, 2001. In that sense they were like Jesus, who did
not deserve the cross—since, as Scripture says, he was a man like us in all
things but sin.
But Steve and Tom and all of us do
deserve a just punishment for our sins!
In that we are unlike Jesus.
But Jesus was willing to endure
the punishment he didn’t deserve on Good Friday, so that we can avoid the just
punishment we do deserve in eternity.
Tom took Steve’s place for
economic reasons; Jesus took our place for eternal reasons—and out of pure
mercy.
I’m sure that every time Steve
Scheibner sees news footage of the events at the World Trade Center on 9/11, he
remembers the sacrifice Tom McGinnis made for him (how could he NOT think of
that?), and I’m sure he thanks God from the bottom of his heart for sparing his
life.
Well, if we’re Catholic, this is
akin to what we are supposed to
experience every time we come to Mass!
Perhaps this explains why many Catholics don’t come to Mass regularly:
they don’t know their Faith; they don’t know what’s happening here!
The Mass is the unbloody
re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. To “re-present,” in this case means “to make
present,” as the Catechism tells us in paragraph 1366. Jesus does not die again every time Mass is
celebrated. Rather, his once-and-for all
sacrifice on Calvary becomes present to
us in a real but unbloody way.
It’s much more “real,”
spiritually speaking, than watching old news footage on TV—which means that we
should be much more grateful here at Mass in the presence of Christ crucified
(and risen) than Steve Scheibner is when he watches old news footage of the sacrifice of Tom
McGinnis for him on 9/11!
But are we?
If we are, we will definitely be
at Mass every week from now on.
How could we not be?
Let me bring this homily to a
close now with a quote from Steve Scheibner.
He said:
“What I know is that somebody
died in my place not once but twice.
That’s where God comes into the whole thing for me. Tom sat in the seat I was qualified to sit
in, and . . . I should have been in that seat.
In fact I’ve sat in the very seat of that airplane that Tom was in; I’ve
flown all of the 757s and 767s American Airlines owns. So I know what it’s like literally to sit [there];
and I still all these years later am qualified to sit in that seat. . . .
“But Tom didn’t die for my
sins. God sent his own Son to die for my
sins. Jesus Christ was the other one who
died in my place—and he hung, and he bled, and he suffered on a cross to pay a
price for me that I wasn’t
qualified to pay. I couldn’t have hung
on the cross; I didn’t have the same qualifications.
“So one guy sat in a seat that I
should have sat in; the other hung and bled on a cross.
“One is far more significant than
the other. That’s NOT to trivialize what
happened to Tom; [rather] it’s to elevate and glorify what God did for me and
for mankind on the cross.”
Most of us have not known—and
will never know—what it’s like to have a man like Tom McGinnis die for us. But
Jesus Christ already has (whether we’re aware of that fact or not)! And he rose again from the dead that
we might have eternal life with him. But
Jesus doesn’t force that life upon us; we have to choose it, by living the faith we profess.
In this regard, I think we can
all take a valuable lesson from Steve Scheibner. Twenty years ago—long before the terrorist
attacks of September 11, Steve wrote what he calls a “life objective” (sort of
a personal mission statement). He says
that since 9/11, this has deeply intensified in him. It reads as follows: “To seek, trust and
glorify God through humble service and continual prayer. To raise up qualified disciples as quickly as
possible, so that one day I might hear God say, ‘Well done, my good and
faithful servant!’”
It’s my prayer that this very
same life objective will either be born in us—or intensify in us—this Easter.
