This text appears in the lectionary cycle just about the time of the America's remembrance of the September 11 attacks in 2001. "Life will never be the same again," we heard over and over, and that prediction has more or less proven true, although probably not in the ways that any of the pundits assumed. Many folks say they live in fear of more attacks, and it does not take a prophet to see that more are coming — as a nation we have never really addressed the motivations of the terrorists, and in fact, by our government's responses, the problems have been exacerbated. It does not take a revelation from God to see that our problems are far from over.

On the other side of that coin, we are a nation that has certainly changed in its understanding of our heroes. After 9/11, we saw our police …