From the Pastor’s Desk

It’s the Saturday before the third Sunday after Epiphany. My liturgy professor always said it’s good to know what time it is, and where we are. Preparations for our annual meeting are underway. We’re holding it tomorrow after church, and there will be food! In Fellowship Hall, and the Undercroft, we’re setting up tables, placing chairs, arranging flowers. Many thanks to Sylvia and Bob De Rosa, Fred and Joanne Peterson, and Chris Blanchette, for coming out in a snowstorm to get us ready for tomorrow’s meeting.

If you haven’t read the Annual Report, please do so. It was a much busier year, with more transitions, than I realized while it was happening. Only in recollection, and in writing, did I discover how much has happened this year. I called the Pastor’s report “A Year of Blessings and Change,” because, as I wrote, I found myself deep in gratitude, naming the many blessings we’ve experienced together in this gift of Christian community. In words from an ancient source, St. Paul, after whom we are named: to the church that is in Gloucester, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind–just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you–so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(I Cor.1:4-8)

It is a privilege to serve as your pastor.
May Christ’s light shine for you, today.
Pastor Anne

This week, our Sunday worship was graced by the Sunday School Christmas Pageant! The children were the preachers and the Word was heard. Three prophets, numerous angels, animals, Mary and Joseph, Gabriel, a Star, and the manger heralded the birth of Jesus, whose part was played, as always, by our youngest member. Previously, this week, Bishop Payne sent out a beautiful Advent letter, reminding us, the pastors and other rostered leaders, to remember to meditate on the Nativity. Luther’s beautiful Christmas book, edited by Roland Bainton is a series of such meditations.

During our Christmas pageant, it occured to me that the pageant itself could be considered a re-enactment meditation, the fruit of centuries of the church’s reflection on the birth of Christ; although it simply looks like a sweet, humble pageant, it’s a doorway to glory. A traditional way of meditating on scripture, in Christian tradition, is to choose a particular perspective from within the portion of text you are reading. So, let’s say you were reading the Nativity story. What’s it like from the point of view of one of the participants? The Christmas pageant lets us all do that–imagining again what it was like, for a shepherd, or for Joseph, or Gabriel. One year, we enacted one called the “Noisy Night,” a pageant from the perspective of the animals.

This year, one of the innovations, in our pageant, was the inclusion of three prophets: so we heard 1000 years of proclamation. In appearance, it was simply presented. Three small prophets with three long, crooked, homemade beards, and colorful robes, wrote on three scrolls, and even though we knew the story, while they were writing/painting on the scrolls, many of us were deeply attentive to what they would write. And we listened to the narrator’s words, “a child will be born,’ with as much attention, as if we were hearing it for the first time.

Every year, each pageant is different, just as Christ comes differently, and surprisngly in the different seasons of our lives. This year, during Advent preparations, our scriptural focus has been on prophets, Isaiah and John the Baptist. Including the voices and announcements of the prophets in our pageant brought home the message we’ve been hearing over and over again this season: God has been speaking to us for a very long time…in many and various ways, and now through a Savior, which is Christ, the Lord. May this last week of Advent preparation open us even more to the mystery and wonder of his birth in the cradle of our hearts. Be loved, beloved friends, this season. May joy and grace embrace you, surprise you, and delight you.

The lessons: Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2,8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8

The written text of the sermon–it always changes in the giving, though, but this is pretty close.

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God,
speak tenderly to Jerusalem!

If we could sum up the Gospel, in one word,
rolling every mighty act of God
on our behalf, from the beginning of creation
to the good news of Jesus Christ,
into one announcement,
one proclamation,
Comfort! might be a good candidate for that one word!

And what a joy to our sore hearts,
we who wait for God, and long, and yearn for God,
we, who with more or less raggedy faith,
listen for a word of hope and consolation.
What a joy to us to hear the word of comfort,
a word we can carry with us
a word to give to others,
a promise that life is more open, more gracious,
than we could ask or imagine.
What a joy to hear that God’s intention,
God’s command even, for us, is comfort.
God’s intention is to speak tenderly to God’s people.
Tenderly, here, in Isaiah, means literally to speak to the heart.
Our Lord intends tenderness; our Lord intends to speak to our hearts.

Isaiah’s gorgeous announcement this morning
gathers so much that we hope for in Advent:
that such comfort, and such tenderness
would come toward us through our wilderness places,
making a path straight for our hearts.

Here in Isaiah, how clear it is, that God himself makes the path,
that God’s own word prepares the road God will travel.
God speaks, you are forgiven, you are beloved.
You are set free, released, restored
and there is nothing more to do.
Suddenly, our path in the wilderness,
our wandering path through the desert is made straight.

For Isaiah, who is speaking in this passage to people in exile,
comfort is the promise of return, the guarantee of homecoming.
The long separation is over, and a new beginning is possible.
Comfort looks like the assurance that God’s word
stands forever, even when all we know is ephemeral.
Comfort, for Isaiah, looks like a God who becomes our shepherd,
who feeds and cares for his lambs,
who carries each of us, as gently as a mother carries her young.
Here is God, Isaiah wants us to know,
who comes toward us, who comes to find us,
making ours paths straight,
our rough places plain,
the mountains brought low,
the patchy uneven ground of our lives
transformed into the road
which the Lord travels,
his Word clearing a path,
as we would clear one through the woods with a scythe.
God’s been coming toward us from the beginning of time.

Comfort, for the Psalmist
looks like a God who is faithful,
a God who restores his people from their brokenness,
like forgiveness to a people in need—
He prays to hear the good news,
what the Lord will say to his people.
And at the same the singer knows
the Word God speaks to us is peace.
To those who turn to God in their hearts,
comfort looks like steadfast love and faithfulness on God’s part.
It looks and feels like an embrace, a kiss of peace and goodness.
With eyes filled with God’s glory,
the Psalmist looks around and sees comfort everywhere,
in God’s faithfulness that springs up from the earth, like water,
in God’s justice that shines in the sky.
Where God travels,
his justice and mercy go before him, making a path.

Comfort in 2nd Peter,
looks like a God whose sense of time is not ours,
a God who isn’t in a rush, a God who isn’t too busy
to take time over his creation, to tend his people,
to pay attention, to be thorough with each one.
Here is the Holy One whose patience is timeless,
whose slowness is not slow,
concerning the promise—whose care is so gracious
withholding judgment for eons.
A God who is patient, who never gives up,
whose intention is life for every person,
not wanting any of us to perish.
Comfort looks like a God whose Word sustains us,
even when everything else is dissolved,
and this changeful world passes away.
God’s patience makes a place for us,
a space for us, an Advent opening for us,
a room for waiting with hope,
as we would wait for a child to be born,
with joy and expectation.
We’re ready to receive, ready to embrace this new life.
We’re waiting and watching for a new heaven and a new earth,
and in the meantime, we live in this house of God’s patience,
striving, Peter suggests, to live holy and godly lives.

And finally comes Mark,
announcing that true comfort,
is the beginning of the good news
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Comfort comes in this one
whom all the prophets announce,
from ancient times,
from Isaiah’s voice crying in the wilderness
to John, the Baptizer, with his camel hair shirt,
and locusts and wild honey,
pointing toward Christ, saying
I am not worthy, I am not competent to unloose the straps of his sandals.

True comfort comes along the highway God has made
from before time, John calls out,
in the person of Christ, one stronger than any of us,
the one who comes with the power of the Spirit
to renew and remake us, to raise us from the dead.
Our true comfort is Christ
in whom God is present for us.
And He comes today in his Word,
in all of you gathered here, for we are the Body of the Risen One.
Christ comes in this time together,
in bread and wine, in mercy and grace,
in forgiveness, in this moment, in this place.

We say Advent is about preparing a place,
and yet it is God who does that preparing in us,
God who stirs our hearts,
whose Word goes to work in us creating faith,
God who builds the road through the wilderness toward us.

What does Gospel comfort look like for you this year?
We have heard the testimony, the witness of the prophets.
We’ve heard the announcement of the good news.
We know what it looked life for Isaiah, for the Psalmist, for Peter, for Mark.
What does comfort look like for us?
In this open spacious time of Advent waiting
in the house of God’s patience,
sheltered by God’s grace, peace, and tenderness,
may the comfort you need
come toward you.
May we each have the eyes of faith to see
Christ coming toward us, Christ who speaks so gently to us,
Christ, whose gift to us through the Cross and resurrection,
prepares a way of mercy and peace,
for us to come toward him.

Advent Greetings!

A few days ago, around sunset, November’s warm Indian summer departed quietly. The temperature outside dropped quickly, and by early evening, the first deep silence of early winter rose up from the earth. Even the ocean was quiet, and the waves stilled. Such silence, for me, at least, is the herald of Advent, our season of quiet waiting for Jesus’ birth. Other messengers announce Advent, too. Orion rises in the night sky, starry warrior of northern darkness. Small winter birds return to edges of fields and woods. On my walks, I hear their soft chatter in cedars and yew bushes. And yet, I’m still surprised by blossoms every now and then, for we haven’t yet had a hard frost. Occasional roses still bloom, their lovely color even brighter for the bare trees around them.

Outwardly, during the weeks before Christmas, many of us experience busier schedules, but even in our external busyness, our souls may be waiting for some new birth. Mary knew that she was expecting a child, an astonishing child, and she prepared accordingly, pondering God’s word in her heart. We, too, are invited into that kind of preparation for Christmas. In Christian teachings on Advent and Christmas, in our own tradition and across the church, spiritual teachers from the earliest times invite us to see Mary’s experience as our own. Each one of us hears and receives God’s word; each one of us nurtures new life in ourselves and in others. Each one of us bears Christ in the world in our words and actions.

In this season of waiting and new birth, perhaps there will be time and space to tend whatever new life God is stirring up within us. Perhaps there is one area of your spiritual life you’d like to see renewed. Advent is a good time to pay attention to that. New life is there, of course, always, because God is always at work in us, preparing our hearts and minds to welcome his Presence even more deeply in our lives. As your pastor, my prayer for you has ever been that your faith would grow and flourish, that God would make himself known to you, that your heart would leap with joy in response, as John leapt up within Elizabeth, when Mary came to visit (Luke 1:39-44). May there be time for you to tend your spirit this season. May your joy in Christ grow and when Christmas arrives, may our hearts open even more widely to receive the wonder of Christ’s bright and gentle Light.
In Christ’s peace,
Pastor Anne

Dear Readers, I sent this out as an FYI to the congregational mailing list, but thought I would post it here as well.
…………………………..

Dear Friends,

The glorious autumn days with warm temperatures seem like late summer. November, though, is here, and we are heading towards the end of the church year, and the new Advent season. May these beautiful fall days be filled with blessing for you and your friends and families.

This Sunday, November 13th: PROVISIONING SUNDAY!! We’ll celebrate the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost with our Stewardship theme of OUR FAITH VOYAGE. We’ve heard wonderful testimonies from members during worship these last several weeks. Our thanks to all the speakers, Kathy Eckles, Rachel Merchant, and Chris Larson, and our great thanks to Laurie Jamieson, our Stewardship captain, and her stewardship crew, who have made this campaign so moving and inspiring. Thank you to all of you, for your profound care of the good ship St. Paul Lutheran. Bring your pledge cards for Provisioning Sunday!

Choir: Thursday Evening, 7:00 p.m. New members welcome. Come and sing! Location: the sanctuary.

Concert: Saturday Evening, 7:30 p.m Sound Temple: Music for an Inner Journey. Presented by visiting musicians Christine Tulis, Kem Stralka, and Stan Strickland. Advanced prices: $18; $25 at the door. For advanced tickets, please go to Ms. Tulis’ website: www.christinetulis.com.

Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, Sunday, Nov. 20th at 2:00 p.m. Riverdale Methodist Church. Please come and celebrate this holiday with our ecumenical and interfaith neighbors on Cape Ann at the Methodist church.

Christmas Fair news: Deb Coull and Suzanne Maki have offered to organize the Christmas Fair. If you wish to help with the Christmas Fair, please let them know, or call or email the church office, and we’ll pass your names along.

Thanks to those who have been bringing offerings of food for the Cape Ann Food Pantry. Please keep food gifts coming; there’s lots of hungry people on Cape Ann, especially during the holiday season.

Kissing Ball Workshop: Tuesday, Nov. 29th, 6:30–9:00 p.m. Undercroft. Sandi Misuraca’s annual workshop is most enjoyable. Please join us to make festive greens for the Christmas Fair.

If you have information you’d like to get out to our community, please email us at office@stpaulcapeann.org, or pastor@stpaulcapeann.org.

Thanks, Pastor Anne

The following quotation comes from a paraphrase of the Bible, called The Message, written by Eugene Peterson. I’ve been pondering prayer this morning, in preparation for Reformation Sunday. In this passage, Peterson works with Paul’s Letter to the Romans, and speaks of waiting for God in a beautiful way, one that I normally associate with Advent. I’m sharing it here this morning, because it spoke to me, and perhaps it will speak to you.
Romans 8: 22-28, as paraphrased in The Message.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

I’m not sure about you, but when the fall comes, I often experience a sense of loss. It’s as much a reaction to the darkening days, as it is the loss of summer’s open schedule, not so much for myself, even, but for the members of our congregation, and the ramped up busyness of fall schedules. Everyone is busier, and not entirely happy about it. This year, with long-term economic struggles for most folks, the busyness is tinged with more anxiety than I’ve seen in people for a long time.

This fall, the early morning hours, in their quiet darkness, have become a way of remembering freedom, remembering spaciousness, and working my way slowly back to them, the way you tack against the wind in a sailboat, or paddle against a current in a kayak. Just up river is an island of peace. Despite the loss of warmth and sun, I’m glad for these times of emptiness and silent prayer. No words, Paul observes, are needed, for God is already praying in and through us. I’m glad faith is a gift–I can’t manufacture it through mental exercises or spiritual practices, or works of mercy–it’s straight from God. And if I have the capacity to receive faith, that too, is God’s work , an enlargement of the soul, an expansion of heart, more spaciousness. Paul puts it so beautifully: “We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.” Here on Cape Ann, today is a cold, blustery, sunny October morning–may the Holy Spirit stir a joyful expectancy, and take us all into a swirling dance, the way the winds of October swirl the leaves of our birch tree into the sky.

In these last days of September, crows fly over early in the morning, leaves turn, sunflowers give their last seeds to the goldfinches, whose bright summer plumage has begun to fade.

Summer was particularly beautiful this year, and letting go of it is as hard as it was sending my children off to school for the first time. I want to hold their hands forever. I want to hold the summer light forever.

Transition times, like these early fall days, carry equal parts of sadness and anticipation. This year, the beginning of fall, in our church, was marked with the loss of one of our members, Carol Sampson. She was one of those people whose presence helped hold the community together, linked as she was to so many lives. We’ve all felt deep reverberations at her departure. She passed away on an evening during one of the first big thunderstorms of the season. The winds that night blew away muggy heat, and blew in the cool fresh air of September. I was glad for the wild weather and the high winds–it seemed appropriate for her, for she loved a good storm.

Mid-September brought with it the return of children to Sunday School, and the anticipation of a new year. The morning they were back was marked by celebration with balloons, and healthy snacks, lots of chatter, and the sound of small feet running around the church. It was great to have them back, and they seemed happy to return, even though it meant getting up earlier on a Sunday morning.

We have just hired a new music director, Ted Stoddard, who also works for Fisk Organ. Ted saw us through a transition time last spring, right up to Pentecost. We enjoyed his time with us so much, we decided to ask him to stay. Ted brings lovely gifts to his work, and our organ sounds wonderful in his hands. We’re looking forward to making music with him this year. The St. Paul choir has recovened, after a summer off. We’re glad for their return.

Late last spring, and into the early days of summer, we completed a vision process for our community. In our case, the process was an opportunity to listen in to where people are in their lives, to check our spiritual pulse, as it were. The pulse was strong and healthy, the steady sturdy heartbeat, a reassuring comfort, that we are on the right track, and in good shape. During the fall, we’ll be exploring the results of our work together. We were led through the visioning process by one of our members, Kathy Eckles, whose gifts for this kind of work are profound. We experimented with a communal conversation model called The World Cafe, which turned out to be as enjoyable as it was informative. We used the New England Synod’s guidance on Doing What Matters to shape our process. It was well worth it.

May these last September days be blessed for you, with that late early autumn golden haze that sometimes floats over fields in the evenings. May the longer hours of darkness be a time of rest and refreshment for the tasks that transitions bring, and the days bright with meaningful activity. Wherever and whoever you are, during these beautiful days, may Christ lead you deeper into the mystery of God’s love.

Earlier last week, one of the many commentators on 9/11 suggested that perhaps the best way to honor
the tenth anniversary of 9/11 is silence.

No words, she said, would do justice
to the sorrow of that memory, nor the
deeply complicated history that follows.
I am sympathetic to her view.
It’s not just one day of sudden violence
that we remember today, but ten years of consequences,
reverberations we still feel and act upon in our responses,
as a nation, as individuals—
the long wars and many more dead,
the economic crises that arise from the instability
that violence produces.

Silence opens a space for us to ponder and pray,
to remember and process deep emotion.
One of my strongest memories of that time ten years ago
is of the silence that followed the event.
For a few days after 9/11 there was no air traffic
permitted to fly over American skies.
We were living still at my mother’s house,
and I spent several hours
over the course of that week
near a pond in the woods, praying.
I heard the silence of the mornings in a way
I hadn’t heard since childhood,
no sounds of engines passing above.
I saw the emptiness of the blue sky,
no jet trails marking the paths of travelers.

The wide silence of skies had come as a means of protection,
but it also became a memorial.
The silence held the enormity of what had happened.
It opened a space to ponder and absorb the shock and grief.

I sometimes feel odd when I think about 9/11
because unlike many people, I never felt anger,
just shock and deep mourning.
I lamented the response of returning violence for violence.
Several of my friends lived in New York;
Michael’s company had a floor in one of the towers.

And I am sure, along with all of you,
I felt the premonition, even the recognition
that we would never be the same again.
We would be living with the fall out for years.

Our scripture lessons this morning
bring us again, as they have for several weeks now,
to the question of forgiveness.
They take us to the edge, the threshold of what we can do
and what we need God’s help to do.
The practice of mercy is the crucible of faith.
The path of forgiveness is often where we
are tried in our deepest selves.
But it is the path our Lord takes,
and it is a the path to which we are called as his followers.

One of the words we can speak,
as Christians, into the deep sorrow of today,
into the stunned silence and hurt of memory,
is Christ’s profound word of mercy.
It is the hope of the Gospel—God’s forgiveness,
that deep river of grace.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Jesus offered mercy from the cross
on behalf of those who would kill him.
Even as mortal life left him,
he saw with eyes of mercy;
his great loving heart
stayed open toward us.

In the Gospel lesson this morning,
Peter, as always, in his urgent need to understand,
and his desire to reach spiritual heights,
asks Jesus about the limits of forgiveness.
How often should we do it?
As if by checking off a number of times,
we would have fulfilled some kind of forgiveness quota.
Jesus answers with a boundless expectation—
Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Seventy-seven is a number here that stands for countless times,
as much as you need to,
again and again and again,
until it’s done.

And yet we cannot do this without God’s help.
Human forgiveness has a limit, but God’s does not,
and Jesus asks us to be like the Divine One here.
Twice in the last month readings, Jesus has said
what we unleash, what we loose on earth
is unleashed,
is loosed in heaven.
What we bind on earth is bound in heaven.
Here, the parable he tells speaks of mercy unbound—
A king forgives a servant, showing mercy, releasing someone
from his debt—in his freedom, the same servant
refuses to offer what has been offered him.
He abuses the gift that has been given to him.
It’s a frightening parable in some ways,
especially the end, for it suggests an angry God.

But for me, it speaks to the reality of what happens to us,
to our souls, when we don’t forgive, when we withhold compassion,
when we choose hatred, revenge, and violence,
as the servant did.
No one, no child born, is born to hatred—it has to be taught.
It hurts us, it hurts our souls, and in the end separates us from God.

Many battles have been fought since 9/11.
Perhaps the most serious one takes place in our souls,
in our spiritual lives; it is the spiritual battle we wage every day
in every choice between good and evil, or between mercy and revenge,
between sacrifice or selfishness, between love and violence,
between unloosing forgiveness, or binding ourselves with resentment.
My prayer is that forgiveness would open a new way for us
through memories and hurt, whether it is the memory of 9/11
or some other painful wound in our lives.

Every Sunday, we hold a memorial called the Great Thanksgiving.
We hear Christ’s word of grace for us, and we come to this table
to eat the bread of heaven, and drink the cup of salvation.
These are visible words of forgiveness.
We are fed with compassion by God himself.
And in turn, we are sent to bring this healing food
to a hungry, heartsick world.
We are called to be like the One who called out forgiveness
to those who hurt him most.

In Romans, this morning,
Saint Paul offers a great affirmation of the life we live as Christians:
“if we live , we live to the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord.
So then, whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
Live to Christ, then, today—and live into mercy.
Die to what holds us back from God, and choose life.
It is the way we can loose God’s forgiveness on earth,
the path of transformation for us, and for all the world.
Let us close then with silence,
in memory of those who have died, for everyone who has been hurt
by these events, and hope for God’s healing grace to come
as our shelter and our peace.

It’s another glorious day here in Lanesville on Cape Ann. The sun has been shining with regularity, for which I’m grateful. We’re getting ready for a big extravaganza–the 40th Annual Yard Sale on Saturday morning. The church is full of all manner of interesting objects, formerly beloved objects perhaps, or formerly beloved of someone who has passed away. We see everything come through here, from gadgetry to couch pillows, from dish towels to fine linen, from costume jewelry to beautiful old brooches. But it’s not so much the “stuff” that makes the day enjoyable.

It’s the community that makes the day a celebration. We’re more like an old fashioned block sale. Our cousins in faith up the street at the Congregational Church had their Barnacle Bill Bazaar last week. Our turn is this week, and the people who come will mostly be folks from our neighborhood. We have baked goods and a sausage stand, so we’ll all get to eat one way or another. Sometimes people only see each other this one day a year, and it may be the only time they come in contact with St. Paul church. It took me a long time to understand the Yard Sale as outreach, but it is in an odd and unexpected way.

During the summer, people who bring in their items chat with us in the office. I often meet family friends and relations of the people who attend church here. They sometimes tell stories of their families when bringing something in, for an object in the yard sale once had a home and a place, and we get to hear about the history of the people who owned it, what’s been happening, why, who, where, what, when. Often it’s on-the-spot pastoral care, too, especially when the people donating have experienced a loss.

When I first arrived here, I remember calling a friend involved in Synod-wide stewardship. She gave me a good way to think about yard sales: they’re communal recycling projects. All of what we have left over usually goes to the Salvation Army or the Second Glance, one of the arms of the Cape Ann Food Pantry.

Will people coming to the Yard Sale leave with a sense of having met Jesus? I don’t know. They will leave having a sense of our community of cheerful hard workers. They often leave having a sense of doing something for the church, in a small way. Maybe they’ll go into the sanctuary before heading home, and sit in the quiet, because it’s beautifully quiet there, even on Yard Sale day. Maybe they will connect with an old friend who invites them to church on Sunday. Maybe they’ll be touched by something someone says to them, someone who remembers their name, or that they like nisu. I’ve often wondered if Jesus would like a yard sale, or if they had them in his time. But I do imagine he liked a happy crowd, and when people of faith show up in His name, even at yard sales, he’s probably around somewhere.

It’s another warmish sunny day on Cape Ann, with all the attendant beauty of a summer’s morning. The sun is coming up around 5:00 a.m., and I watched it rise over Good Harbor with a cup of coffee. There were some early walkers and photographers out for the spectacle, for spectacle it was, a shimmering orange, red, and gold sky, some clouds, and clear water. “Morning has broken” indeed.

Below is a version of yesterday’s sermon, based upon Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seeds. It’s not exactly what was preached, because words change in the moment, but it’s close enough. The lectionary readings were:
Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm 65:[1-8] 9-13 (11)
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

God is a profligate god, a prodigious God,
a plenteous God, an abundant God,
a giving God, who never gives up on
planting, a farmer God, really,
tilling and preparing our hearts,
to receive God, to welcome God.
God’s tills even the rockiest of hearts.

God’s word goes out like scattered seed,
like someone throwing endless handfuls
into the wind, and God doesn’t stop
sowing it, ever, day after day,
year after year, eon after eon.

From the beginning of creation,
God’s word went out.
God speaks, and who we are,
this world we live in, the universe,
everything that is, springs from that Word.
Let there be light, and there was light.
Let there be a world, and there was a world.
Let there be beauty, and there was beauty.
God sows seeds of goodness and truth,
of wisdom and mercy, of life and grace,
everywhere all the time.

God’s word, Isaiah tells us,
fulfills that which God intends—
It doesn’t go out and return to God empty,
but does what it says.
What a promise we hear this morning.
God says life, and life shall be:
an ultimate promise, though we die, we live.

This week in our church,
we’ve had the chance to see
some of the seeds of grace and faith
ripen and bear fruit.
Yesterday, in a beautiful ecumenical ceremony,
Hilary Mattison and Nat Crosby were
married at St. Anthony’s by the Sea.
Hilary is a member of our church.
Nat is Roman Catholic.
but both of them are faithful young Christians
and their faith brought them together.

It was Father Gariboldi’s first ecumenical wedding,
and we all felt the uniting spirit of God at work.
Part of the joy we experienced
was the chance to bring together
in a small but powerful way
to great expressions of Christian faith.
Catholics and Lutherans at that wedding
were delighted by the chance to worship together
in such a happy moment.

Yet even more, our hearts were lifted by the couple.
The wedding was testimony
to their faith in God, and their faith journey.
Hilary and Nat both are consciously faithful;
they don’t take their spiritual lives for granted, and
their life choices are shaped by their faith commitments.
Nat, for example, spends most of his vacation
in the summer, helping to reconstruct synagogues
in Poland that were burned during the Holocaust.
That’s what he does with his spare time.
As an architect, he’s used his gifts to help heal
in a concrete way, the violence of persecution.
Hilary’s been a seeker all her life;
she’s been on archeological digs in the middle East
in order to understand the ancient worlds
of the bible better.
She exemplifies that wonderful theological maxim:
“faith seeks understanding.”
She’s made a pilgrimage through France and Spain.
She’s pulled by the Gospel, interested in where
Jesus leads, and she wants to follow.
Their lives are concrete evidence
that the seeds of faith, of the gospel,
we plant as the church
and as parents, or friends, as grandparents,
aunts and uncles, friends and relations,
in our children’s lives really do take root and grow.

At the wedding reception, I listened to another
faithful young person, Hilary’s brother, James,
tell a remarkable story of seeds coming to ripen.
As a college student, James had an opportunity
to start a school in rural Africa, in Ghana, with his cousin.
They began with one teacher, and four children,
and a small room, no money, or personnel besides themselves.
But they had a vision, and persistence.
James said he began fund-raising at a table
outside his college refectory, with coffee cans
for donations. But as he kept at it, they found
family and friends to help, and those family and friends
found more family and friends—each person
bringing something to their dream, a gift of time,
or money, or concrete material needs
like books, and crayons.

They formed an organization
called For One World: Education through Empowerment.
You can read more about how they started
on their website.
Today, they have a full on elementary school,
with four hundred children.
Each year as the school grows,
more people have a chance to participate:
seeds of goodness, truth, hope coming to flower
and bear fruit. The important thing James learned
and loves to tell about is the power of relationships.
We’re not alone, he says.
We all have friends and family
who help with our vision,
who help us make dreams come true.
Their success at the school is based on
loving connections between people,
and the willingness to take a risk on those connections.
He says he’s not remarkable.
The opportunities to do remarkable good
are in front of all of us every day, so don’t wait
to have enough money or enough people to get started.
Just start and see what happens.
There’s the Gospel—believe and act.
Have faith, and live it.

We know what James is talking about—for this church
is like that, too. And we can see the fruits of the
Gospel seeds planted in the lives of everyone here,
especially when we listen to each other,
when we tell our stories to each other,
or when we tell the story of this community.
We know the power of loving connection.
We experienced the promise
that God’s word doesn’t return to God empty,
but fulfills what God purposes. We’ve seen it happen.

This morning, we have a chance as church to celebrate
the seeds of the gospel planted in the life of another child.
Today, we baptize Lukas Philip Spinelli, here
in the presence of God, and his family and friends.
We’ll make promises to God on his behalf,
but we’ll also make promises to God that we’ll
be there for Lukas, as community, as a place for
him to grow, and learn, and experience
the fellowship of faith.
These are serious promises.
We’ve had the great blessing, as a church,
of making them often to many children.
It’s a profound pledge on our part,
to this child, to pray and care for him.
God plants the seeds, and gave us the
task of helping in Lukas’s garden of faith,
of tending Lukas’s spiritual life,
of helping when he needs help,
of being faithful witnesses of God’s love for him,
that God cares for him,
that faith in God is the best adventure of all.

Like Hilary and Nat’s ecumenical wedding,
this morning’s celebration brings together two great rivers
of world faith—Judaism and Christianity.
Lukas is blessed to be the living descendent
of all our ancestors in biblical faith
Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Rebekah,
Jacob and Leah and Rachel.
He is blessed by the faith of his parents Jessica and Michael
who worship here with us at St. Paul.
He is a blessing for us, too—
for we’ll have the gift of being able
to watch him grow up,
to see for ourselves the seeds of faith
grow, ripen and bear fruit in his life.

God is a profligate God, a prodigious, generous God.
God plants and plants, tends, and nurtures,
breathes life into all that lives,
holds all together with his will.
God is our ground,
our water of life, our spirit.
All creation sings God’s praise.
Mountains and hills rejoice,
the trees clap their hands,
and we go out in joy.
May God’s life grow in you, flower and bear fruit.
May God gives us eyes of faith to see
this greening, joyous life everywhere.