It was just last year. The air was comfortably warm. The afternoon light made even weeds by the side of the pond seem beautiful. There was a gilded edge to everything and a feeling of deep peace and joy. Ben sat in a lawn chair with a floppy canvas hat and dark wrap around glasses. I stood in my clerical clothing with my arm drawn back, and I watched him.

With a fluidity born of years of loving practice Ben flicked his wrist and the thick fishing line sailed out over the pond. It was caught by the golden light and seemingly freed from the effects of gravity. Ben's line flew back and forth above the water as easily as the insects we were trying to convince the fish we were. I mimicked his actions to the best of my ability. I let out more and more line seeking to develop the same long slow trajectory Ben replicated over and over again.

His line reached to the middle of the pond with great economy of motion. I worked up a sweat thrashing the weeds two yards in front of me with uneven coils of line. As I adjusted my stance and tried again, I caught the limbs of the tree behind me and stood suddenly transfixed in mid-cast. This freed me to watch Ben more closely.

Ben's arm continued to move forward and back, forward and back and time and age fell away. It had never been any time other than that afternoon. The pond was the whole world. The sun eased toward the horizon and a sense of the sacred suffused this golden world, changing it into a numinous garden. One would not have been surprised if God Himself had walked towards us in the cool of the evening.

We were led to still water and green pastures without even moving our feet. We reveled in holy silence and each other's company. Our afternoon was as much about faith as it was about fishing.

Looking backwards I can trace other lines that arc from that scene. There is the line of God's casting, the one that floats over the water at our baptism and catches us up into the body of Christ. Ben and I are connected by water and Word as well as by rod and reel.

There is the line that leads from the back pew at St. James to the place where we break bread. As Ben moved through life this line moved ever more slowly. But the great economy of motion he displayed as an experienced fisherman was reflected in his faithful journey to the altar Sunday after Sunday. When Ben became too frail to stand in mountain streams or to walk the length of the Saint James nave, he fished from a lawn chair by the pond and we brought the church to Ben's dining room. "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name," Jesus said, "I will be in the midst of them." Sometimes four of us, often many more, would gather in remembrance of the One who multiplied both loaves and fishes. We cast our hopes on Christ, and each week he came to dwell among us.

We have spoken of water and fish, but there is another line in the story- another line in our life. This line moves beyond the water, it arcs from dust to dust. This line moves from before our arrival to beyond our departure. This line, too, is in the hands of God. These hands are tender, strong and there is great economy of motion.

We are drawn into this world by a loving God who delights in us- not because of our accomplishments, but simply because He made us. Ben was a man of great accomplishment in the world. But even if he had done nothing he would have been beloved.

Now Ben is company of all faithful people and in a place from which he will never be cast out. Time and age have fallen away, and in that place it is new every morning. Goodness and mercy and peace and well-being are Ben's fishing companions now.

I am of course speaking in metaphor when I allude to heaven as a garden, and suggest that a pond stands in the center of it like the tree of life. I cannot tell you the exact location of the eternal habitations. There is no map, as the disciple Thomas would tell you. But there is a guide. And any fisherman can tell you that the best places require a guide to find them.

This church is one of the places where the guide waits for us to gather that we might learn how to fish. We start with the basics, we practice and we learn to be willing to wait. You cannot fish if you cannot wait. You will catch little if you do not go near the water. Ben is already standing on the far shore with those who have gone before. In time we too will fish in that golden and endless afternoon, but now it is time for a simple fisherman's meal. Our guide is reaching for the bread and breaking it. We'll share a single cup. The line will form in aisle but it will reach to heaven in an effortless arc and we will in dine with the communion of saints. AMEN