Monday, September 10, 2001. The day before the day that changed the world. According to USA Today, here are some of the things making news headlines: Actor Robert Blake was a suspect in the murder of his wife, Celebrity publicist Lizzie Grubman was accused of plowing her SUV into a crowd outside a Long Island nightclub. US Representative Gary Condit was embroiled in rumors he had orchestrated the disappearance and murder of Chandra Levy. Primary elections were set for the next day in NYC, and beleaguered mayor, Rudolph Guiliani was battling for re-election. Also on that day Donald Rumsfield announced an investigation would be launched into wasteful Pentagon spending. Barely receiving any coverage in US news was the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud on September 9th. Massoud was regarded as the hero of the Northen Alliance fighting for freedom in Afghanistan. His assassination was part of the ripples that would change the world the following day.

Now we live in what is called, the post 9/11 world. Maybe what happened is we got drawn into the world and were forced to become part of the global community in ways we are not comfortable with. Our daily lives have changed. We are accustomed to taking our shoes off to get through airport security, we are familiar with names and places in the world that would never had made the news on September 10th. We live color-coded days that forecast our security threat level, knowing that we will probably never again have another green day until the kingdom of God us ushered in. In so many ways, September 10, 2001 was the last ordinary day.

Hard to believe five years have passed. Five years seems an important, weighty anniversary and so extra attention is being given to remembering. Actually, from news coverage it feels less like a remembering, and more like an attempt to re-live. In that I was struck by something Daniel Benedict who writes worship resources for our denomination said: "One of the factors that allows anniversaries to become points of healing is the passage of time without constant reminders of the trauma. Given the persistent replaying of images from 9/11/01 in our media, and the constant references to that day as the basis for so much of the current foreign policy, domestic security, and military actions of our country, the United States may not have experienced such time apart. For our national psyche, healing may still be a long time coming." On this anniversary is it our attempt to re-live or remember?

I believe as God's people that is a crucial question for us to ask. Such enormous events that turn life up-side-down and in-side-out, threaten our sense of perspective. The world has seen enough of its share of such events in the past years. How do we keep perspective of who we are as the children of God. It is easy to lose that - I think I have shared this example with some of you - I first walked into the pit of Ground Zero some four years ago on a cold January day. Walking down the ramp became an experience of dis-orientation. The ramp is much longer and more steep than it appears on TV. And size becomes confusing. One the one had it does not seem possible that those two 110 foot skyscrapers were contained in such a small space, yet at the same time you feel dwarfed by the size of the space. The space is at the same time, too big and too small. How easy it is to lose perspective and become dis-oriented in the face of terror and disaster.

As God's people, we know what to do. We know who's we are and we know who we are. And even when it doesn't seem we have the resources, God has given us all that we need. When my son was about six years old, he was "helping" us put together a file cabinet in the office. The administrative assistant and I were puzzling over how we were going to cut a length of metal rod that you needed to size for your particular filing cabinet. We were about to call someone who had the saw we needed, but Daniel was insistent that we had everything we needed. We thought otherwise, but he persisted. He finally showed us, how we could improvise using a screw driver. We did have everything we needed?and so it is that God has given us all that we need, even when we're not so sure.

While the enormity of change seems huge between September 10th and September 11th in terms of the world?.in God's love nothing has changed. In some ways while everything has changed since that last ordinary day, in other ways nothing has changed. In interviews I am often asked how that day has changed me. There are many differences that I can point to?media coverage, anniversary observances, some incredible opportunities. But in the most important ways, nothing has changed. We are still the children of God, saved through the grace of Jesus Christ, and there is nothing that can change that reality. And as the children of God we know how to behave in the world.

Our scriptures this morning remind us of those truths. The book of James is a primer on Christian behavior. In the debates of grace and works during the Reformation, James got a bad name. We need to pay attention to James and to reclaim it from the throes of misleading theological debate. James reminds us of how we are called to respond to others. It is a reminder that we aren't called to wine and dine the rich and the favorable?that we only hob-nob with the ones most like us. James reminds us that God sides with the poor and the outcast. Times of catastrophe do not change the basic tenets of Christian behavior.

And the Psalm reminds us it is God that keeps and surrounds us always. This is a Psalm written after Israel had experience being exiled. In exile they had been cut off from their identity and home. They questioned whether they were still God's people. Now, in the midst of restoration they write this Psalm: "Those who trust in God are like Zion Mountain: Nothing can move it, a rock-solid mountain you can always depend on. Mountains encircle Jerusalem, and God encircles God's people." God is still God, and will keep and surround us, even in these times.

September 10, 2001 . . . the last ordinary day . . . but as God's people tomorrow and the next are the same, for the love of God continues to define and keep us; and challenges us to live in the "extra-ordinary" of that truth.