<html><body><div>Here's the first part of the draft for Sunday.</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>GENESIS
1:1 – 2:4a <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST:
TRINITY SUNDAY a</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>2
CORINTHIANS 13:11-13<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>11<sup>th</sup>
JUNE, 2017</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>MATTHEW
28:16-20<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>CANTICLE13</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There was a wonderful cast of
comedians on the old TV show, “Hollywood Squares”, broadcast many years ago. In
response to the question from Peter Marshall, “If you were pregnant for two
years, what would you give birth to?”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Paul Lynde replied, “Whatever it is,
it would never be afraid of the dark.”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That touches on a problem we all
face – the dark, whether it’s physical, spiritual or mental darkness. That may
be why the writer of the creation story emphasises that the first thing that
God said was, “Let there be light”. God knows that we have a tough enough time
as it is without there being any unnecessary complications. So God produced
light so that we can see; so that we’ll know what’s what; so that we’ll be able
to comprehend more about who God is; and so that we’ll behave appropriately.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This is not to say that those who
are blind and those who develop diseases of the eye are, somehow, less
important to God and should be offered less compassion that any of our other
brothers and sisters. Exactly the opposite. God actually gives light in so many
different ways that we often talk of “insight” – the art and science of being
able to see past the clutter, to discover what a person, what an object, what a
situation is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>REALLY</u></b> like.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Of course, this takes skill; this
takes time on our part. And it takes both common sense and – well, insight.
It’s too easy to make up our minds based on fake information and misperception.
What God wants us to work on, then, is developing our insight so that not only
will we discover what our brothers and sisters are like, but also that we’ll
discover what God is like. In the meantime, we have this wonderful description
of God from which to begin. God brought everything into being and set
everything into interactive motion, and God, who loves us unconditionally,
wants us to be unafraid.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As Paul Lynde put it, whatever it
is, whoever we are, it and we will never need to be afraid of the dark. Such is
the power of God that we’re given the means to address fear, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>AND</u></b> to have insight into
ourselves, our neighbours, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>AND</u></b>
God.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Remember that prophetic passage of
hope that we read and hear just prior to Christmas? “The people that walked in
darkness have seen a great light; on those who lived in a land as dark as death
a light has dawned.” <sup>1</sup></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We all need to be brought into the
Light. We all have our places of darkness in our lives – perhaps kept dark
deliberately because we don’t want to deal with them; or kept dark because we
don’t want others to see that much of us – have others see or, indeed, to have
God see. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But here, as the first reading puts
it, here is God who doesn’t want us to stumble around in the dark. God, who <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>IS</u></b> Light, who knows how much
healthier, how much more appropriate we can be; how much more we can do if we
are in that Light; God wants us to live with that Light within and around us
all the time.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Still, we are afraid. We fear so
much and are being taught to fear so much by both people and events.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Life <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>ISN’T</u></b> always straightforward. No matter how well things may
seem to be going, somewhere at the back of our minds, we’re waiting for the
other shoe to drop, for things to start to go back towards the dark places of
life. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THIS</u></b> is why God and
God’s messengers came to us to give us practical advice, and to offer
suggestions about how we can work on our fears and live, instead, in faith.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This isn’t to suggest that what
we’re going to be given by God is in any way unrealistic. Quite the opposite –
God finds ways to awaken our hearts and minds precisely so that we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>CAN</u></b> deal with reality, so that
we can analyse our fears to see exactly how they can be addressed and their
paralytic properties put aside.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now, you may have been wondering
where I’m going to start to talk about the Trinity today, so let me insert a
little thought or two here to let you begin to reconsider the Trinity. Think
about how God is constantly reaching out to us in so many different ways, to
make whatever self-revelation may touch and help us best at any given time. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The United Church of Christ, the
Congregational Church, has a wonderful knack of coming up with provocative
slogans to engage people. One that I particularly enjoy is, “Never put a period
where God has placed a comma ,” – meaning that God continues to make personal
revelation, God continues to speak to us in ways that, if we don’t fully
understand at the outset, then they challenge us to work to tease our their
meaning.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This leads us back to how we live in
the Light; how we deal with fear; how we deepen our faith, because this is an
ongoing process, just as is how we encounter God and how we come to know one
another better. As Brother Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the
Evangelist wrote, “</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>We, as Christians, believe that the
Spirit of God continues to show forth God’s revelation and ‘to lead us into all
truth.’ We do not worship a God who is ‘packagable,’ but rather a God who is
always More”. <sup>2</sup></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Six years ago, in his commencement
address to the graduating class of Yale, Tom Hanks said, quite forcefully,
“Fear will get the worst of the best of us.” Again, “Fear will get the worst of
the best of us.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><sup>3</sup></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT’S</u></b>
why God said, “Let there be light”. God knew, and continues to know, and deal
with, all that can derail us. God knows that there are all sorts of people who
seem hell-bent – I use the expression deliberately – hell-bent on confusing us,
on leading us astray by subtleties or by blatancies. God knows that it can be
so difficult to sort out what’s going on, so Paul was inspired to say “let your
minds be filled with everything that is true, everything that is honourable,
everything that is upright and pure, everything that we love and admire …” <sup><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>4</sup><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Paul knew that we need to be on our guard, constantly, even with the
Light that he prays is in our hearts.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><br></span></span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><br></span></span></p>
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