It is God who spread out the earth and what comes from it. God's loving-kindness is solid and dependable. God is in the words from Isaiah, and in our murmured expectation and hope. God is present in places that are broken and people who are oppressed. God is present in times of celebration and moments of freedom foreseen. The passage of time and the presence of change are no barrier to the covenant. God's promise has no end.

It is God who gives breath to the people upon the earth, and spirit to those who walk in it. The prophet and apostles proclaim a god who shows no partiality, who sent His son as a light to the nations, a savior to all who believe. The prophets, apostles and all the host of heaven are speaking to us across the centuries and the dimensions of reality. Their word to us is that God is solid and dependable.

Almost three thousand years stretch out between Isaiah's expectations and our anticipation of our own future. More things have changed in those three thousand years than we could even enumerate. But God is constant, solid, full of loving-kindness and as eager as ever to be our God and to have us be His faithful people as he was for those alive in the days of Moses. God wants to take us by the hand and keep us as surely as he did the people in Isaiah's day. All we have to do is keep putting our hand in his and walking forward. All we have to do is risk our hearts on the hope that the promise is true.

We stand on the bedrock of prophets, washed by the stories of Jesus' life and work. We have been baptized into the power of the covenant, and marked as Christ's own forever. By water and the spirit we became part of the Beloved, members of the Son of God. This is indissoluble. It cannot be washed away when the currents in the river change. It will not disappear when a community's leadership shifts to another.

God is in the winds of change, and the river flows from God's throne. We do not control the water or the wind. That power belongs to the Son, God with us, Emmanuel. It is He who stills the raging sea. It is his who calms our fearful hearts. God saves us, not we ourselves.

Neither our worry nor our work will carve away the bedrock, or change the nature of the body, which hold us together as one. This is good news. God is dependable. Our strength, and our future, is in the Lord.

Prophecy, truth telling and revelation- the power of the written word- a few paragraphs can change the lives of many. One short letter can reveal that former things are reaching their full fruition and new things are forming in the heart of God even before we see them with our eyes.

It takes a wise person to recognize the signs of the times. It takes great courage to leave when things are good, and to part from people one loves. But the right time to leave the labor of a vineyard is when the harvest is plentiful, the vines are healthy and the laborers are willing, numerous and seasoned.

The right time for a Rector to announce that he is leaving a congregation is when there is enough life and spirit in that priest and in that congregation that God can do new things in two places to the future benefit of many. This is yet another gift that Heyward has given to this community.

We have much for which we can thank Heyward, Sandy and their family. They have been faithful, loving people who have helped to lead and shape this parish for over two decades. We are all going to need time to say goodbye.

It is important that we do as well in our parting as we have done in our working together. The temptation will be to do a thousand things and distract ourselves from the pain of parting. But it is important to finish the work we have begun.

This is where we are, now. Let us try together not to rush ahead to what should be next. It important to finish this work before we imagine too exactly what should come next.

God knows. God knows what to provide for Heyward and Sandy, and God knows what this community will need next. God is faithful and dependable. When it is time, a word will be spoken, the signs will be clear, and we will know what to do.

Remember the bedrock on which we stand.

Today, in your hearing, an Old Testament prophet gives hope to a nation, and to nations yet to come. God offers light, freedom and salvation. God does not grow faint in the work of raising up servants.

Today, in your hearing, Luke recounts the birth of the church and the power of God, in Christ, to change individuals and entire communities. This power has not diminished. We, all of us, are the Baptized, the ones empowered by God to continue the work of Christ in the world, where ever we may be standing. In Christ, we are solid and strong. We move forward, at Saint James, as a community formed by faithful leadership but marked as Christ's own forever. We are called as Christian to the work of change and transformation.

Today, in your hearing, Mark tells of the pivotal time in which the nature of John the Baptizer's ministry changes, Jesus rises from the water and even the heavens seemed torn apart. Beyond the Gospel reading is the wilderness in which Christ discovers who he really is. That is a time of clarifying his mission, facing temptations but choosing God above all things.

The time beyond today's hearing is the place of discerning future ministry. That word will come in its own time, for Heyward and his family, and for Saint James.

Words have power to provoke us to new visions and new understandings about our God, our future and ourselves.

This is the nature and legacy of the scriptures we have inherited.
This is true of the letter we each received this week. It will be true of the article in the next newsletter that will speak more about the way forward.

God is still with us. Christ is still calling.
There is a fork in the road ahead,
but both roads lead to the Promised Land,
and God waits to welcome us to the places He is preparing for us, even now.
Before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
AMEN