Several weeks ago, I arrived here at Trinity too early for the late service, but too late for the education offering, so I sat down in the nave and watched the sacristans setting things up. I noticed that the Gospel Book for a while was not placed squarely on its stand, but was off to one side. Now, to be fair, it didn’t remain that way: it was soon picked up by the acolyte who carried it in the procession and, when she later replaced it on the stand, it was centered. Nonetheless, it reminded me of the director of the Altar Guild in the first church I served as a priest, a lady named Jackie.
Jackie was a stickler when it came to the set up of the altar. The candles’ bases had to be placed exactly two inches in from each end of the altar, exactly two inches back from the front edge; the linens had to be placed just so; the chalice had to be centered; the veil on the chalice had to be draped evenly; the orphrey band on the veil had to be centered and, if it had a directional design, that design had to be running the proper direction.
With Jackie, there was no other way. There was no easier or more relaxed way to do things. No middle ground. No compromises.
“You are the light of the world. … [L]et your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
Do you all know what a tort is? Tort … T-O-R-T … no E on the end; I’m not talking about those wonderful little German or Austrian pastries. A tort is a civil wrong that causes harm to another person, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the wrong. You leave a puddle of milk on the floor of your grocery store knowing it’s there, then someone slips in it and injures themselves: you have committed a tort. You speed through a stop sign, collide with another car, and injure the driver: you’ve not only broken the law, you’ve committed a tort.
A few weeks ago, as I was looking forward to my annual cover-Rachel’s-vacation gig here at Harcourt Parish, my plan was to preach a sort of two-part sermon on play and playfulness. Seemed like a good summer-time thing to do. Last week, on Pentecost Sunday, I suggested to you that playfulness is a gift of the Holy Spirit, that play is why we were made. Today being Trinity Sunday, I planned to follow-up with a few words about how a metaphor of play and playfulness can help us understand and participate in the relational community which the triune God is. 
One of the things I try to do when I read the stories of Jesus in the Gospels, when he uses an odd or striking metaphor like “I will make you fishers of people”
I understand that St. Andrew’s Parish is, today, beginning its annual stewardship campaign, so I suppose it’s appropriate that we heard the story of Jesus being confronted by the wealthy man who wants to inherit eternal life in today’s Gospel reading from Mark. This tale must have been an important one to the earliest Christians, because we find it in all three of the Synoptic Gospels. Mark tells us only that the man is wealthy; Matthew adds that he is young; and Luke informs us that he is a ruler of some sort. But none of those details really changes the basic nature of the encounter: a potential disciple comes to Jesus seeking guidance and Jesus tells him that he must give up everything he possesses – “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor….”
“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.”
Again this week as last, our first reading today is from the First Book of Kings and like last week’s, it is a prayer spoken by King Solomon. Last week, it was a private prayer spoken in a dream late at night. Today, it is a public prayer. As long as it was, this reading is just a small part of the dedicatory prayer that Solomon offered when the Temple was finished and consecrated. In it, Solomon asks an important question, “[W]ill God indeed dwell on the earth?”
The United States is, at least ostensibly, a very religious country. Nearly two hundred years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “there is no country in the world where … religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.”
