“It is best for you now to complete what a year ago you began not only to do but to desire, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have.” II Corinthians 8:10

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

            As many of you know, things in my life have been pretty crazy over the past few weeks, as I prepare to finish my work here at Saint Paul’s and as our family prepares to move.  There has been one advantage in all the extra tasks though: this year, I got out of cleaning the pond.  In our family, you see, we have this chore that comes around every June, just when the days are beginning to get really hot.  For two days, we sweep and push several hundred thousand gallons of dirty, smelly water through a six inch pipe to drain the enormous pond behind my grandparent’s farmhouse.  Continued

“He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” St. Mark 4:40

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

This morning’s Gospel lesson is not one into which I can easily imagine myself.  I’ve always been a landlubber, the world of boats and sails and sea storms a foreign and strange world.  I get stern and bow and starboard and larboard confused, and I never got that merit badge for knot-tying in the scouts.  I like to fish, but nearly all of my fishing has been from a pond bank or while wading out into a stream. Continued

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  Romans 8:15-16

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

An article in the Wall Street Journal this week remarked on the large number of new federal agencies and programs being created as a part of the economic stimulus plan, all of them designated by fancy acronyms.  Not since Roosevelt’s New Deal, it remarked, have we seen so many new alphabet soup titles.  Continued

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”  St. John 16:13 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

For about a month in the fall of my sophomore year of high school, I was a dirt bag.  That’s what we called ourselves, the “dirt bags,” the official land judging team of the Clear Spring chapter of the Future Farmers of America.  After school we would get into our blue FFA coveralls and plunge into the soil pits in the fields behind the high school to judge dirt.  We were getting ready for the state contest where, if you won, you got a free trip to judge dirt at the national contest in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Continued

“And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”  St. John 17:11

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The headmaster at Saint James has very kindly invited me to preach the sermon at the Baccalaureate Eucharist at school next Saturday evening.  I was delighted to be asked and I have been thinking hard over the last few weeks about what I should say to the outgoing class at Saint James School. Continued

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The summer after my freshman year of college, I went to India to teach English in a mission school.  It was located in a pretty remote village called Moolaikaraipatti in Southern India that didn’t see too many Americans on a regular basis, and I soon became a bit of a local celebrity.  To say that people treated me kindly in the village would be a clear understatement. Continued

“….Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

  The rain that we have been receiving these past several weeks has been very good for my lawn as I am sure all of you have benefited from it as well.  My lawn is greener than ever, and it appears later a month or so down the road, my Black Eyed Susans that I have planted in front of my house will be beautiful as well. Continued

“I am the Good Shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me…and I lay down my life for the sheep.”  St. John 10:15-16

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

When I was a 4-Her, I took the public speaking project, and every year they asked everyone enrolled in that project to help out by announcing the classes and the prizes at the livestock shows at the Ag Expo.  This was my first year announcing at the fair, and before we all went in to meet with the 4-H agent I decided I was going to pick something easy, a small show, without that many different classes: I’d announce for the rabbit show, or the dairy goats, or maybe the sheep.  Continued

“And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.”  St. Mark 16:8

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

When I was about nine years old, one of my cousins gave me a can of tennis balls for Christmas.  This was no ordinary can, though.  It had a spring-loaded plastic black snake inside of it.  You know the sort of thing.  The sly kid walks up to an adult with a perfectly straight face.  “I keep trying, but I can’t get the lid off these tennis balls.  Can you help?”  An instant later, the snake pops out and mayhem ensues.  Continued

“But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.” St. Matthew 27:20

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

As most of you will know, March Madness, college basketball’s annual round of exciting tournament games is soon to finish with a much hyped contest between the University of North Carolina and Michigan State University tomorrow night.  Like most years, the annual tournament has been filled with upsets and dramatic finishes, doing its best to prove once more that as spectator sports go, it doesn’t get much better than college basketball. Continued