New York is a city filled with landmarks. There's Broadway, Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, just to name a few. But when terrorists turned their hijacked planes toward Gotham, their target was clear. They had set their sights on the two gleaming towers of the World Trade Center. And they did so because those towers were symbols of America's economic power. To destroy them was—in the minds of the hijackers—a blow to America's economic systems.

And they were right the financial fallout from the attack was devastating.

• Hundreds of companies housed in the World Trade Center and the surrounding buildings lost not only millions of dollars in business but more importantly the people at the core of their success.
• Insurers paid as much as $35 billion in attack-related claims.
• The airline industry was crushed. More than 120,000 airline employees were laid off.
• Restaurants dependent of convention business suffered. Taxi drivers who serve airports. Cruise lines. The list was endless.
• The Dow Jones Stock Exchange fell dramatically.
• And the wars? Who can calculate that toll?

Those who attacked the World Trade Center succeeded in striking a blow to the economy and well being of this country. As one stock market guru put it at the time, "If you were planning on your airline stocks for retirement, you best not quit your job anytime soon." Money that many thought they would have was no longer there. Confidence in the future was been shaken. And that is scary. But this crisis presented us with an opportunity. It invited us to reflect on the purpose of the wealth we created and counted on.

Jesus told the story of a man who faced just such a crisis.