Let us cast our mind's eye across the acres of property on which our church, Saint James now sits. But let us not be content to rest within the bounds of our own day. If we regard the passage of years, the coming and going of people and things from a broad enough perspective we will have set the stage to regard the even broader sweep of time treated by the Scriptures we have just heard.

In the beginning the earth was void whether you talk to an evolutionary biologist or a biblical scholar. Things may have been full of potential but not much else was going on. Whether one believes it was the voice of God or a Big Bang, or both, things have not always been as we experience them. There was a beginning. This is now. But a lot has happened since in between.

Let narrow our focus to the hill on which our church sits. There have been times when our part of the world was at the bottom of a sea. In other centuries it was covered with ice. When this hill and the flatter places around it have been dry land, and warm enough, creatures we have never seen lived here in multitudinous numbers. Not only will we never see them in their fleshly forms, we do not even have names for all of them. But they had dominion here- long before the hill was cleared and a church was built. Indeed, they were probably here before our species even existed.

We are proud of our long history on this hill. And as Episcopal churches go 260 years is a long time to have gathered for prayer in one building. But it's not even the blink of an eye when we hold it up against the kind of timeframe in which the Creator works. I am not saying this to denigrate something we love or to make light of our lives. I simply hope to refocus us on the context in which it is all taking place- to move our attention from the work of our hands to the work of the One who made us - the same One who invites us to participate in the acts of ongoing creation that are moving the universe toward fulfillment.

We know only a tiny sliver of time by direct experience and even with all our science and philosophies we can only extend our understanding of heaven and earth but so far. This is why seeking to understand what the Creator is up to by looking at the long view and learning to listen for invitations in the present moment are so important.

Who would throw away a detailed map of a dangerous territory up ahead and travel on simply by instinct - only the naïve and the foolish. And yet, what sensible person would insist on blindly following the map when confronted by a detour sign raised up by the highway department? And would anyone push away an honest guide who had already made the journey and was promising to lead any willing travelers to places of safe rest and provision? Sadly history and the world are full of miserable travelers who made poor choices at dangerous crossroads and ended up lost.

But what is this dangerous territory up ahead that we have no choice but to traverse?

Change!

When political fortunes change there is rejoicing for some and sadness and anxiety for others. An extended time of war, and tensions between nations, wears down a people and polarizes already contentious political factions. Add in splits in theological understanding and shifts in how people think one should express one's faith then top that with a double handful of economic uncertainty. And don't forget the usual concerns about loss of comfort, status or well-being and the challenges of facing one's own mortality.

Have I described the breadth of it pretty accurately?

Yes, I am talking about our parish, our country and our time. But I am also talking about the community that the author of the Book of James was addressing, and also the ones to whom Isaiah spoke spread as they were in the diaspora. While we are painfully aware of the pressures we feel, the scene is not new, nor is it permanent.

In the long view the uncomfortable conditions I described are like the grass in the field at the bottom of this hill- today there are flowers but they will fall as the season turns. The grass will wither, indeed at various points there was no grass - only water, or ice caps - but, as it says in the first letter of Peter, "the Word of Lord stands forever".

And that is where we need to stand if we desire something solid under our feet and in our lives. Our solace will not come from a political party. Our salvation does not rest in a safe deposit box. There are no military alliances that guarantee eternal life. Not for us, not for James' community, nor for the Jews in exile with Isaiah. There is very little over which most of us have any actual control.

But that little control we do have allows us to be part of the most powerful thing in the universe. We can choose to hook our little wagons to the great engine of creation. If we trust that God is working God's providence out we can wait, or work when we are bid, knowing that even if we are weeping now, dawn will come in the morning and all our days are marching toward the glory of God.

Our efforts and our affections are limited- and seem even more so if we feel discouraged. But nothing can stop us from offering ourselves as conduits for the river of love that flows from the throne of God. That love is far more valuable than the all the riches of the world. But God still bids us to spend it like sailors on shore leave- broadly- and with a generosity that some might take for foolishness.

But we all leave this life with empty pockets, no matter how we spend our days, so why not focus on loving God, loving our neighbors and being drawn into God's vision for the restoration of all things? We are not the narrators of God's story. Won't the things we say and do, the sketches we draw in the margins of history, make more sense if they are part of the story God is trying to tell?

In our mind's eye let's fan the pages of the bible like one of those little flip-books with drawings on the edge. As the speed of their passage picks up it becomes apparent that the individual pictures are part of a movie, and the movie is the story - with a beginning, a middle and an end.

See how love makes all things from itself and draws all things to itself as Genesis flips through to Isaiah and on to Mark and the other the Gospels, past the Epistles of John and Peter and James all the way to the Revelation of John filled with light on the island of Patmos and pointing to the end. Light from light, God from God, making us, letting us sketch on a page or two, then drawing us back to Himself again. Beloved dust sparkling like diamonds when rising in light as the pages turn.

How we treat our neighbors will transform not just their lives but ours, not just the days which we share but the history we will leave for others. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. Sometimes it is we who are lifted, sometimes we are lifting others, but it is the same God writing the love story.

God's history is long, but our time is short. Let us make the best of both by consenting to allow God to fashion us into instruments that God can use. Be filled with hope. Be filled with faith. Our God is coming to us to save us. Not necessarily in the way we expect, or desire, but God knows what salvation looks like far better than we do.

How will we know it is happening? The signs to look for have been listed. When we are given speech that causes the previously deaf to hear, God is there. When our works of mercy and love help those who were paralyzed by fear learn to walk in faith - God is there. When others speak to us, reach out to us in love and we find freedom and rise up singing- God is there. When any life and any place that has been like a desert turns into a garden of delight - God will be there- in the cool of the evening, in the passage of the season, as it was in the beginning, is now and shall be even at the end. AMEN