Greetings… and hope to see you on Sunday.
We will be celebrating the baptism of little Clover and Henry, two fairly recent arrivals in our church family — an opportunity for us all to discover that Grace that is wide enough and deep enough to embrace everyone.
The St. A/W Chamber Choir (21 voices strong) will be singing a powerful anthem by Paul Halley; here are the first two verses:
Come, my friends,
Now the wind fills the sails,
We are bound for the wide open sea.
Here’s the rising sun,
It’s the dawn of a new day.
We will go where the rivers run free.
For the waters of life
Are the waters that we sail,
And our boat is the bond of our love.
And the wind is our hope
That can never ever fail,
And our guide is the light that shines above.
You’ll also get to hear Steve Denroche on the French Horn.
This Sunday we will starting a summer sermon journey through the life of David — shepherd, king, poet, warrior, lover, father — hero of Israel. Each week, following the Lectionary (the suggested Scripture readings for each Sunday) we will explore a different moment in David’s life, seeking connections with our own times. This Sunday is the beginning — when David is “called”.
In my file entitled “Words I Wish I’d Written” I find these words about call… I think they came as a gift through my partner, Tim, many years ago. So long ago that the name of the author and the title of the book are both missing; so with credit to a fine unknown writer:
But, what if obeying our calling means to respond to the new energies churning out of our deepest integrity? Obeying our calling might mean having the courage, as did Abraham and Sarah, to obey that inner yearning calling us to leave home and go out on a wilderness journey. It might mean being obedient toward our own meaning and responsible toward our own destiny. Being called might mean being found, discovering that we belong to the world, that we have enough worth to be invited, urged, and summoned to participate in a work in the world. It might mean realizing, with a fierce joy, that tomorrow’s truth beckons us in our wants as well is in our oughts, as often in those inner agendas that swell within us as in those outer agendas put upon us by peers, parents, colleagues, and constituents. Obeying our calling, following Jesus, might mean not imitating him in the sense of seeking to become a carbon copy of him, but like him, living out of our deepest integrity in response to God and neighbor. It might mean looking for tomorrow’s signals in our needs, as well as our duties, knowing that God exults when one comes through a wish of one’s own. While taking the markings along the trail — those outer agendas of church and world — seriously, obeying the Spirit might mean honoring those sighs too deep for words in the depths of our own being in the confidence that we are being drawn, propelled, called, nudged and wooed by a lover… one who calls us out of our time and place toward a new time and place. We are in the hands of one who loves us. Obedience has nothing to do with punishment but with promise, nothing to do with submission but with responsibility, nothing to do with compromise but with choice, nothing to do with being right but with being real.