Oh, the heaviness of these days!
Isn't it remarkable how heavy life feels in these days after the attacks of September 11?
I ask people how they are,
and the shrug of the shoulders and the knowing look, as if to say,
"How well could I be after such a catastrophe?"
is ever so much more than a polite nod to the many thousands who have lost loved ones
or a respectful acknowledgment of the thousands who were killed.
No, people are deeply, deeply affected.

Several years ago, a friend with whom I had been praying announced that he would no longer pray for people and situations distant from himself.
His view was that God was calling him to pray for people and situations close at hand,
the people and situations he could do something about, where his praying might really make a difference,
and no longer for the people of Rwanda or Bosnia, two places in turmoil and anguish at the time.
We didn't talk of it again, but I'm sure he was not able to keep that resolve:
I'm sure that the Spirit of God pressed upon him the suffering of the distant and the unseen,
letting him know that God is deeply affected by all suffering,
that the Spirit prays through us with groans too deep for words not only for the near and dear but equally for the distant and the unknown.

Don't we feel that reality in these days?
Isn't it remarkable how millions, not only in this country but the world over,
are feeling the heaviness with such loss of life? -
The heaviness of malevolence directed intentionally against a target where it was known that so many, many would die who had simply gone to work that day -
The heaviness of wondering what is in store for not only this nation but for the whole human family if people with a grievance will go to such lengths to make their point.
It is as though the Holy Spirit is brooding over the world
and drawing us into her brooding.
The shared heaviness reminds us that the social reality of being human is just as real as the individual and personal dimension of being human.
People who have never been to New York, who never cared to go to New York, who never cared much for New Yorkers,
people living in far off distant places who knew no one who worked in the World Trade Center,
who did not even know the friend of a colleague who is the brother-in-law of someone who lived in New York or worked at the World Trade Center,
people in places as distant as Tegucigalpa in Honduras or Madras in India
have been deeply, deeply shaken by these events.
Yes, that says something about the effectiveness of film coverage.
Yes, it says something about the global reach of American media,
so that an American trauma is able to become a global trauma in a way that a terrorist event in Sri Lankanor Palestine might not.
Yes, by reason of this country being the sole remaining superpower,
the potential force of a response draws attention to the event that provokes the talk of retaliation.

Yet these are far from being the only reasons for the effect of this event.
Never except in the engagement between nations at war have so many non-combatants been killed so quickly by so few,
and in a way so spectacular as to become an enduring visual icon in the consciousness of the global community.
Think of it: Probably half of the world's people, or 3 billion people, have seen those buildings erupt into flame in the 12 days since the attacks.
Something close to 3 billion people have been asking themselves:
Is this justified?
Where do such acts come from?
What do they tell us about being human?
Where, as I asked last week, is God in all this?
No wonder there is a shared heaviness!
Truly, as John Donne wrote, "No man is an island. . . .
Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."

In this morning's collect we prayed for a certain kind of freedom from heaviness.
"Grant us, Lord," we prayed, "not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly,
and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure."
Well, just as in the First World War, with its frightful and gristly forms of death,
and in World War II, with the holocaust of the Jews and the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
just as in these and many other catastrophes we were reminded of how things can pass away,
so these attacks certainly remind us of what can pass away, and how quickly.
It is that sudden and frightful passing away that afflicts us with heaviness.
What it is that shall endure?
And how shall we hold fast to it?
These surely are questions we are wrestling with in every one of these days since the attacks.

Even though we're still bruised by the attacks, today's scriptures come along and rough us up some more.
From the prophet Amos, living in a prosperous Israel in the 8th century before Christ, come the harsh words:
"Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring to ruin the poor of the land . . . I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation.
I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day."
And from Jesus we hearthe uncompromising declaration,
"No slave can serve two masters . . .
You cannot serve God and wealth."

And so in the midst of our mourning and our bruisedness, today's words from Amos and Jesus may function like tugboats nudging and pushing a battered ship in a different direction.
We find ourselves heading into the difficult business of considering money,
the stewardship of our resources,
and the difficult business of justice in a world of inequality.
It's been observed a thousand times that the World Trade Center was targeted because it symbolizes the economic dominance of the industrialized west, and especially the United States, in the global economy,
a dominance that many perceive as an economic imperialism that determines the well-being of billions of people worldwide.
We think we know that there are other issues, as well:
US support for Israel, western defilement of Saudi Arabia, thought be sacred as the home of Mecca, the holiest site of Islam,
the perceived impurity of American cultural influence in movies and TV.
Yet money and the power of money certainly play a role in the attacks and ongoing hostility.

"You cannot serve God and wealth," says Jesus.
Of course, not one of us believes we are serving money:
we're just trying to make ends meet!
This is an anxious time with money:
in the wake of the attacks, the stock market had its biggest percentage drop since the Great Depression,
and it seems certain that we're heading into a recession.
We may come to church partly to get away from all those worries.
So hearing about money right now in these lessons may not be very pleasant.
Yet it's striking that one-third of all Jesus' parables
and one-sixth of all Jesus' other sayings
deal with money in one way or another.
That may seem odd, but if we reflect a little on money we can see why.

Money is, first of all, an Expression of Value.
The world is full of things we value;
human societies have for millennia needed a medium of exchange,
and so arbitrary values are assigned to coins and to bits of paper.
The worth of virtually everything is assigned a money value:
homes, transportation, clothes, food, education, cultural experiences, discretionary consumer goods.
Money values tend to be based both on the demand for whatever is being sold
and on the value of the time, talent and training that go into producing a given object or experience.
Yet we're aware of the problems in many of these assessments:
Is an urban social worker making less of a contribution to the human situation than a movie star?
- probably not, but we know very well who gets paid more!
Is the time and talent of a retail executive worth more than that of a woman sewing jumpers in the Dominican Republic?
- we don't like to think so, but we know who gets paid more!
Observing the current crisis from Zimbabwe, St. Peter's missionary Liz Parsons wrote this week:
"What we do not or cannot acknowledge about mammon-infused Christianity in America works its way out into the open nevertheless. . . . [O]ne image particularly struck us as indicative of our country's schizophrenic religiosity. On Friday the 14th, CNN International carried the memorial service from National Cathedral. At the beginning, as mourners were entering the church, the screen split to show both the Cathedral and the New York Stock Exchange - silent except for its bell tolling in remembrance. The God to pray to in good times and the God to pray to in bad times, both there together."
Jesus challenges us to reconsider our values:
"You cannot serve both God and wealth."

Money is, second, a Tool for Work.
Money gets things done, and here is its opportunity,
Because money expresses value, moving it around gets work done:
people work in response to a promise of payment.
Banks and financial houses often use the slogan, "Put your money to work!"
So money is a tool for work.

Third, money is an Instrument of Power.
Accumulated money = Accumulated power.
We know so well that individuals with a lot of money also have a lot of power:
as they push money around they can also push people around,
and the same goes for companies and corporations.
Institutions with a great deal of money also wield a great deal of power,
whether it's wealthy nations like Group of Seven,
corporations and banks such as those headquartered at the World Trade Center,
universities and even foundations.
Money as an expression of power inevitably leads raises questions of justice.
Is it right for some to have so much while others have so little?
How can we be a global community where we all have what they need?
How can we relieve the burdens of the poor who labor under staggering debt,
whether in our own nation or in the international debt crisis?
The use of power often comes down to the use of money,
and the use of money as power comes under biblical norms.

Looked at this way, money encompasses much of our life in the world -
our personal and family life,
our commitments to church and neighborhood,
our national and our international life.
So our life with God must engage our life with money.
The issue is Stewardship:
Money expresses value, but what is our ultimate scale of values?
Money get work done, but what is the work that should be done?
Money is an instrument of power, but how should that power be used,
and for what ends?
There are two horizons for our stewardship,
the inner horizon of our Faithfulness
and the outer horizon of our Care for the World.

Today's gospel highlights the inner horizon of our Faithfulness with God.
When Jesus says, "You cannot serve both God and wealth," he means that all of our life decisions, including our money decisons,
must be submitted to the test of discipleship as we ask,
"Does this help or hinder my witness to the kingdom of God?
"Does this decision enhance or inhibit work of God's reign in the world?"
The stewardship of what we have -
our resources of time, talent and treasure,
our national and international life -
are all very important to God and to our life of living out God's rule in the world.
Ultimately, what we have, whether individually or nationally, belongs not to us but to God.
What we have to use is a gift, for which we give thanks to God.
What we're called to is the wise and faithful use of those resources
in the service of God's work in our lives and in the world.

Today's reading from Amos calls us to Stewardship's Outer Horizon of Care for World.
Addressing this society, Amos thunders the judgment of God:
"Hear this, you who trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation. . . .
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever flowing stream."

At this time in our national life,
let us look not only outward to the question of how to respond to terrorists,
important as that issue is,
but let us look inward to our individual and family life,
inward to our church life and professional life,
inward to our national life.
Let us heed the prophet's word and ask:
Are we living justly with the poor close at hand?
Are we keeping faith in our life in the church, which is Christ's body in the world?
Are we living justly in the global community?
How can we live more fairly?
How can we more faithfully be catalysts for Christ's kingdom throughout the world?