This Sunday is Ingathering for our 2025 Annual Giving Campaign. During all services, I invite you to offer your financial pledges as offerings of thanks to God and to support St. Michael’s life and ministry in the coming year. If you will bring your pledge this Sunday, we will have a time at the Offertory for you to bring it forward.

Election Day is less than two weeks away.  On November 5, votes across the country will be cast and counted to determine who will lead in government at the local, state and national levels. There is so much on the line. We need to give voice to the weight of the moment, and also to our shared anxiety about an outcome that is uncertain. I feel it. And I know you feel it. 

Greetings from the Florida Panhandle!  Last night I was honored to be present and preach at the Celebration of New Ministry for a friend and his new congregations (Yes, plural, there are two of them!) in Panama City Beach.  It was a joyful reunion for several of us who studied together at the Seminary of the Southwest.  Now, I am looking forward to being back with you on Sunday.

We don’t often read directly from The Book of Common Prayer on Sundays at St. Michael’s. You probably see it every week, peeking over the pew racks in back of each row, right next to hymnals and miscellaneous information cards. However, except for those who gather at the 7:30 service, we worship together using wonderfully produced, edited and printed worship bulletins that preserve us from having to juggle hymnals and prayer books and allow us to include additional words and prayers from the wider church as we worship together.

A few years ago, while I was serving in Houston, a couple of particularly conspicuous guests joined us one Sunday for worship. I may have been the only one in the room who didn’t know them. There was a buzz. Glances shot back and forth across the room.

Last Sunday was a wonderful and joy-filled gathering for our Annual All-Parish Picnic! It was a celebration of our life together as a diverse and multi-cultural parish family, and it was a beautiful occasion of thanks and appreciation for the ministry of Padre Beto. We sent him forth with love and blessing. My heart is overflowing with gratitude for all that we are as the people of St. Michael’s, and full of hope in looking toward God’s future together.

On Sunday, July 7, we celebrated the baptism of baby Anders. Many have shared that it was a deeply meaningful and moving experience. And I share those feelings. As I said then, baptism “is pure gift for this child of God: nothing professed or proclaimed or accomplished to earn it. It is the beginning of a life nested in God’s love, marked as Christ’s own for ever, beloved by a community of deep commitment and care.”

Rest is vital to physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness. Teachings on sabbath and rest appear in many ancient myths and teachings, including those of the Hebrew Scriptures. In Genesis, God sets the very example for all of creation: create>care>commune>celebrate>REST. The command to observe sabbath, which comes as #4 of the Big Ten (Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.), is not just for the group or person receiving the command directly. It is for anyone and everything in the earth – all who labor, including the animals, and even the land itself.

Since this coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday, it seems to me a good time to lean into a point of some confusion regarding the Nicene Creed. You may have noticed that when we say together the words of the Nicene Creed during liturgy, most often in the 9:00 service, there is one phrase that is usually not written in the bulletin (but occasionally makes an inadvertent appearance). You may also have noticed that occasionally one or two voices will steam forward to say the three unwritten words, even when it is not spoken by most others. Always makes me chuckle.
But what is happening?