It was an agonized cry,
reflective of the angst of mothers and fathers,
clergy and the baptized of the church.
"Why don't many children
accept the faith and the church?"
"Why do they seem to flee
at the first opportunity?"

For the most part,
people looked to the church leadership
and asked for programs for youth,
to address the problem.

For the last 3 days, your clergy;
Bayly Buck and Mark McCulloh,
your delegates;
and half a dozen other members of St. James
for various reasons

joined over 300 other delegates and visitors
for the 218th annual convention
of the Diocese of Maryland.

For me, the center piece of our time together
was a series of 4 videos
produced by the Episcopal Church
Office of Children's Ministries.

These folks brought a large group of people,
mostly Episcopalians
including some children,
from all over the country,
to engage in deep conversation
about belief in God.

The intent was to see how
our children might, indeed, have faith.

The videos are fascinating
as people, even the children,
begin to share real feelings and much grief
about God and the Church.

The result seemed to fall
into a sequence of 4 categories
which suggest a process of faith formation.

1. naming our grief in community
2. forming our questions together
3. being surprised by God in community
4. Creating a church as a habitat of hope.

This sequence should not surprise us.
It seems to me to be the teaching
of Holy Week and Eastertide,
our liturgies,
and, indeed, of our readings this day.

"Jesus, himself, came and stood among them.
"Peace be with you," he said.
and, they were startled and frightened,
for they thought he was a ghost.

Jesus explained that God had conquered
death and sin and
and had brought them hope and joy.

"It is written that the messiah was to suffer
and rise from the dead,
and that forgiveness of sin
is to be proclaimed in his name
to all nations.
"You are witnesses to these things," he said.

In Jewish law,
truth or falsehood was established
by the testimony of a minimum
of 3 witnesses who perceived a given event
in the same way.
You are witnesses to this Truth,
said Jesus;
and, you are the only way
people will ever know the truth
and themselves become witnesses
to the freeing, healing power of God.

The Earliest church
had its struggle with this role
of witness to truth.

Our first reading today
is from the book, Acts
which records the response of the disciples.

We see Peter, who previously had gotten
almost nothing right
change into a great witness to truth.

It might help for me to remind us
of the whole story behind this short reading.

One day, Peter and John
were on the way to the Temple
when a man, lame from birth,
was carried in to pray.

When the lame man saw Peter and John
he asked for alms.
They looked intently into his eyes
and Peter said,
"We have no gold,
but that which we have, I give to you;
in the name of Jesus of Nazareth,
rise and walk."

And, he did.

Luke is careful to tell us
that the man was 40 years old;
an incredibly advanced age for that time.

Actually, the man didn't just walk.
He jumped up and danced,
leapt for joy,
praising God.

He who was lame
had been given a great gift of hope and joy;
and, all the people who witnessed this act
were filled with wonder and amazement;
but, Peter and john were arrested and put in jail.

At this point begins our first reading.

The next day
the elders and high priests assembled
and called the prisoners before them.
"By what power did you do this?"
they demand.

In other words, How dare you?
We are the priests.
We will do God's work, not you.

That is the moment in which Peter
stepped up to the plate
and became an apostle.

"If you question us because of a good deed done
for one who was sick,
let it be known that this man was made whole
by the Name of Jesus of Nazareth
whom God raised from the dead,"
he said.

And, there it is. There is the answer to our question,
"Will our Children Have Faith?"

They need; everyone needs;
to see and to know
that their parents, their peers, their priests,
their faith community
have witnessed in their lives
the wholeness and the joy of God.

How do we do that
in a world in which
children are reared 50% by the state
and 40% by television programmers?

How do we do that
in a world in which parents
seem forced to be absent most of the time,
working themselves to death
so as to be able to give their children
everything they want
but little they actually need?

How can we be witnesses
when cultural forces tear us in sundry directions
and our children see confusion and not conviction
of the faces of their elders?

It takes either great courage
or simple faith.

I don't know which it was with Peter,
but it worked.

He, who had been something of a Homer Simpson,
became a witness to the truth
of God's love and healing;
of God's life and God's Joy.

So, how do we do it?

The Office Of Children's Ministries
built their project,
not on Westerhoff's question,
"Will Our Children Have Faith,"
but on the prior question,
"Will Our Faith Have Children??"

That says it clearly,
for our children will know
whether or not the Adult's around them
are witnesses to the spirit of God
working in their lives.
or not.

Now, please allow me to assure you
that God works wonders here
in the Saint James Community
most every day.

Perhaps, because people talk to a priest
in ways they usually do not to one another,
I am in a better position to see
the lame leap, the blind gain sight.

In 22 years,
I have seen God at work in you, here.
I am witness to these things,
but, even more, are you.
Normally, I can't tell anyone about them
but you can.

All we have to do
is to continue to expand the conversation,
share our grief and form truthful questions
and in that conversation,
begin to tell one another stories
of God's mighty acts in our lives.

We then will be presenting
an authentic faith
to ourselves
to one another
and to our children.

We have a transition coming
in a few months.

Some feel insecure,
thinking that, somehow,
the witness to truth
the centering of community
will diminish.

Such will not be the case.
If it dies, I will return and haunt you.
Rather, I see this as an opportunity
for this congregation
to take on the task and the joy
of perceiving God's victories
and telling God's stories
on a grand scale,
and, thereby, creating a church
as a habitat of hope"
for us, for our children.

As did Peter
when he hit that homer
out of the temple.

I love the image of Saint Peter
on the cover of your bulletin today.

It shows him, and perhaps John,
walking along a street
of renascence Florence.

His shadow passes over the lame and the sick
and by even that thin shadow
they are healed.

It didn't matter to the painter
that Peter had been dead
for 1500 years.
In fact, it was quite his point.
For, in such a manner
the power of God abides
within the community of faith.

What you do, here;
the faith to which you witness, here,
will cast a long, healing shadow
long after you and I are gone.

And, I am very confident.
The story will be told;
your faith will have children.

The lame will dance, and leap for joy,
praising God
for all they have seen and heard.