You know that ancient psalm that we listened to, "Deliver us, O Lord, from evil-doers and from terrorists..." That gives us some consolation. And the reading from St. Paul that "nothing can separate us from the love of God..." That gives us some assurance. And the words of Jesus, "Now don't let your hearts be troubled. In My Father's house, there are many mansions, many towers, many dwelling places, and I am the Way." That gives us some hope.

But the enormous tragedy of this past week challenges our faith and challenges our hearts. It's hard to find anything to measure it by, from our own experience.... maybe those with an adult memory of Pearl Harbor, certainly those who went through the Blitz in London, those who suffered the fire-bombing of Dresden , and certainly those who suffered the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. But, in our own nation and in our recent memory, we have nothing to match this. There is the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the killing of Martin Luther King and, locally, the Loma Prieta Earthquake and the East Bay fires that really tore at our hearts and, to some extent, demoralized us. But those things don't measure up to the depth and the scope of this week's tragedy.

But we do know something about tragedy. I want to share with you just two main thoughts about that. The first is that tragedy brings out the best in us.... Brings out the best in us, first of all, because it touches our hearts. So, instead of just looking at the morning television news or newspaper like a distant observer or a casual spectator, we feel the pain of other people because our hearts have been touched. Brings out the best in us. It also brings out the best in us by drawing us together in solidarity, first of all, with people all over the world. You know, we have been so blessed in this country with such safety, security, and insulation. And here we are bonded with the vulnerable and weak of the world, with those people oppressed and facing violence and tragedy and terrorism as a daily thing, and fear, in their lives. We are suddenly bonded with them.

We are also bonded with one another, as a nation. So we end up talking about our national pride and "I'm proud to be an American," and we have flags and the firefighters of New York are chanting "U.S.A!" Let me tell you something about that, which I think brings out the best in us. But let me say something about national pride. National pride CAN be a vice and it can be an evil. When it is founded and based on competition and greed and the desire to dominate others, and to be #1, and out of anger, to destroy others. But when it is based on our American values and when it is fueled by tragedy and by an enormous threat, not just to ourselves, but to the whole planet, and then it brings us together to join hands, across differences that are political, that are ethnic, that are racial and religious. Then it is, certainly not a vice but a great virtue and a profound truth. Tragedy does bring out the best in us.

It brings out the best in us in the sacrifice that we observe that is so heroic, and by which we are blessed.... those who struggled on Flight 93 to prevent even a greater disaster taking place, the rescuers at the World Trade Center, people like.... Well in our own parish we have a number of connections. Pam Brady and her brother Timmy Danz have a younger brother, a New York policeman. And on Tuesday morning he called his wife who was out, so he left a message. She's from Ireland, and they have three young children, the most recent born in March. And he left a message, "We are going in to evacuate people. Pray for them and pray for me. I love you. I'll talk to you later." He never emerged. He is among the dead and missing. And we are blessed by that kind of heroic sacrifice. We are blessed too, and tragedy brings out the best in us, in our own concern and our own caring and in our own setting of priorities. How many on Tuesday ended up saying, "You know, what's really important? What is really important in life and in our world?" So, tragedy can bring out the best in us.

The other point I want to make is that tragedy can bring out the worst in us. Tragedy can bring out fear and panic, which is the exact point why terrorists do what they do, to bring out fear and panic, to change our ways, to change our open and generous attitude, to cancel our normal lives. If we give in wholesale to fear and panic, tragedy brings out the worst in us. Tragedy can bring out the worst in us in anger and hatred. Now anger and hatred is very understandable. But we have to realize that is the raw material that created terrorism and tragedy in the first place. And we don't want to add to that raw material. Tragedy can bring out the worst in us when we are attacked, when I am attacked, in an unreasonable and irrational way, and I respond in an irrational and unreasonable way. We need only to think of the treatment of our fellow citizens, our Japanese American citizens, during the Second World War. Or just read the reports of the treatment of fellow citizens, Arab Americans and Sikhs, who are not from the Middle East, who are not Muslims, who have nothing to do with this, and who are now under attack in our nation. That brings out the worst in us. Fear, anger, and rage are understandable. And at one level, they are appropriate, when sadness is just not enough. But when fear or anger or rage drives our decisions, or decides our actions, then it is bringing out the very worst in us.

So, what to do? What do we do as Christians? I am going to walk on some thin ice here and try to address that. You know, Christ told us to be forgiving, to be a people of forgiveness, but also to be a people who are responsible and hold ourselves and one another accountable. Christ calls us to be a people of love and of peace, but also a people of justice. So, what do we do?

I got a phone call Friday afternoon from the Contra Costa Times, a reporter who asked me the question and wanted me to address it, as a pastor, "What should we do in retaliation?... How should we retaliate?" Fortunately, the line got cut off. But, I'm going to take a stab at it now. Although, as I do this, I remember my mother's comment always about priests getting up and preaching their opinions, saying, "They think they're six feet above contradiction!" (That's why I don't go into the pulpit!) But what I want to share with you is my hopes. And I realize what I would hope for (And I'm going to list four things.) may, at one level, be unrealistic and impossible. But, if we are clear at what we hope for, at what we think the ideal should be, then we will be clear on what we will settle for and what we will refuse to settle for. Four things....

First, I would hope for an international effort to find those responsible and hold them accountable, an international effort.

Secondly, and this might be the most idealistic, I would hope for an international court, like the war crimes tribunal after the Second World War. That would publicly, and in the name of humanity, ask for justice, because these crimes were not just against the United States, but against humanity.

Thirdly, I would hope that every step and precaution humanly possible would be taken that we do not harm the innocent. I got a call yesterday from a priest in New Jersey, right across from the World Trade Center, a lot of his parishoners involved and connected with the victims. And one of the young women he was counseling was a 26 year-old secretary who got out of the World Trade Center just before one of the towers, the one she was in, collapsed. She had two strong feelings. One was a feeling of guilt, that she didn't go back and get a few more people out. Maybe she could have made a difference. The other, the feeling of real upset and hurt, when she heard all the rage and anger because, as she said, "I don't want some 26 year-old woman like myself, going about her normal business in another part of the world, harming no one and hurting nothing, being killed because of our anger at this." So, my third hope is that we take every step and precaution possible, that we do not harm the innocent.

And the fourth is that we have the moral strength and the strong resolve, as a nation, to look at our national policy and our national practice, and ask, "Is there anything we've been doing that continues to fuel the hatred and anger towards the United States, which helps produce and perpetuate terrorists." And, if so, what can we reasonably do to undo that? What changes can we make so that our grandchildren and our great grandchildren don't just play out the same tragic scenario of terrorism and retaliation again and again?

Tuesday evening, we had a Eucharist here. It wasn't well-publicized but about four hundred people were with us. Pam Brady, who was there grieving about her missing brother, came up and said to me, "You know, we either have God or we have nothing.... And we have God!"

In the end, we still have God. Amen.