Online Sermons
Proper 25-A: October 26, The Rev. Dr. Bill Pugliese
The opening words of the Bible are "In the beginning.” “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,” so begins the Book of Genesis. There are always beginnings. There is the beginning of time, the beginning of creation, the beginning of the universe, the beginning of the year, the month, the day. There are always beginnings. There are no endings.
Sometimes we think that there are indeed endings. There are those who would speak of the end of creation, the end of the universe, the end of the world; certainly the end of this day, this week, this month, this year. There are even those who may even speak of the end of time. But there are no endings. There are only beginnings.
You see, whatever is begun, whatever has a beginning, whatever is never ends. Some how in some way it always continues on. Everything that was ever created, everything that now is, everything that will ever be – all will continue on in something or someone else. Nothing ever comes to an end as if it never was or never is to be again.
In this life we think in terms of points of time, in terms of beginnings and endings, because we are like that. I suspect if we did not have calendars and watches we would have chaos. We might have less ulcers and lower blood pressure, but we would have chaos. We live in a physical and material world where time and where beginnings and endings in point of time are almost essential for the well-ordering of this world of ours.
And that is okay. But in the other world in which you and I also live, the spiritual world, the world of our faith, time is not so much of the essence. In fact, time sometimes complicates everything. Just as we can’t hurry love, so we cannot hurry time. In our faith life we need to look at creation, the universe, the world; we need to look at ourselves and our lives from a different perspective. Our spiritual life is not about beginnings and endings, but that which has only beginnings.
Again, once life begins, it never ends. Whatever is will always live on. It will not live on as it was in its beginning, but it will live on as it becomes in others. My father lives on in me. I live on in my children. They will live on in their children. Even if we do not live on in others biologically, we live on in them spiritually. Others live on in us, others who have passed through our lives. And we will live on in those whose lives we have passed through. Such is the way of God, the way of creation, the way of life.
Years ago I was asked to deliver the baccalaureate address at one of our daughter’s graduation ceremonies. After my words I passed out a packet of flower seeds to each one of the graduating seniors in attendance. It was meant to be a visible symbol, a visible reminder to them of the fact that years before that day their parents planted the seeds that brought each of them to this point in their lives. Their graduation from high school would be a new beginning in their lives.
The seeds that those graduates would plant would be planted in soil already fertilized, tilled and made fallow for them by those who had gone before. Those seeds that they would plant would be part of the soil in which those who come after them would plant their seeds. They live on in their parents. Others will live on in them. Such is life.
On July 1, 2003, I began my ministry with you. It was a new beginning for you and for me. The seeds that I planted were sown in a ground made fertile by Jim Gundrum and Father Lofersky, by Roger Rollins and Gary Coffey and by all the priests who have served St. Michael’s and St. John’s and now Christ Church all the way back to Grace Episcopal Church where it all began over 150 years ago. Their ministry still lives on and it will never end – just as mine will never end. It, too, will live on.
On my first Sunday with you I remember reflecting with you on the words of Peter to Jesus up on that mountain where Jesus was transfigured: that it is good to be here. Over five years later I can say that it has been good, very, very good, for me to be here with you, for Arlena and Albert and I to be here. I can only hope that it was as good for you as it was for us. But that is for you to decide.
Yet, at this point in our lives together, it does not matter. What matters is what we both do with the new beginnings in our lives -- new beginnings, not endings. To say that my ministry to you is ending or that your ministry to me concludes this day is to miss what Christian ministry and our Christian life is all about. You see, I firmly believe that God brought us together to share our lives with one another. We will never be the same – for better or for worse, hopefully, for better. But we will never be the same.
Our paths have crossed because that was God's will. What God's will will be for you and for me in the days and months and years to come is at this point in our lives rather uncertain. We are both contemplating that new beginning: for you, who will lead it; for me, what life and ministry will bring for my family and me back home in Pennsylvania. It is a period of uncertainty for us. As much as we might anticipate and even look forward to new beginnings, there is always that sense of the unknown, which is always somewhat frightening.
Yet what allows us to go on, you and me, is our faith. We have to believe that God is in charge, as God has always been in charge, from the very beginning. Sometimes, of course, we interfere with God's will and God's ways and make what happens our will and our way. When we do that, we end up in pain. As with those high school graduates, as with Jesus in his life, so with you and with me, for those seeds that are planted to become fruitful and multiply, we must always be sure that what we are doing, what we want to do, is not our will but God's.
And for that, prayer is essential. Without prayer, without keeping ourselves open to God's Holy Spirit, whatever seeds we plant will never grow into as full a stature as they could. As I have said often enough, perhaps too often, more often that I would like to admit, we spend much of our time in prayer trying to make our will God's will rather that trying to discover God's will for us and make it our will.
I do ask you to keep my family and me in your prayers. I promise the same to you. I thank you for all that you have been and for all that you are. You will always be a part of my life, and for that I am thankful to God. It truly has been good for me, for us, to be here. As that old song says, you’ve made me so very, very happy. I’m so glad you came into my life. For that I cannot thank you enough.
For you and for me it is now on to new beginnings, planting new seeds sown in soil fertilized and made rich by those who went before. May the harvest be rich and fruitful and blessed.
God bless you always.
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