Wasn’t the summer just great! You went to that place to which you always go, and life there was a wonderful as ever, I’ll bet: the sailing, the swimming, the hiking, the arts, the crafts, the lobster, the sunshine. You went to a camp that was so simple and natural that they didn’t even have warm water in the showers, and you loved that. Back at home, there were vegetables fresh from your garden, and new blossoms to pick every day. You read books that stimulated your thinking, fed your soul, tickled your fancy, taught you things you’re glad you now know.
 Or maybe not. Maybe there was sickness in your family, or even a death. The cabin you rented was musty and cramped and it rained every day. So you stayed inside and spent a whole week reading a very long novel that in the end, you had to admit, you didn’t understand at all. The camp you went to was so simple and natural that they didn’t even have warm water in the showers, and you hated that. Back home, the vine borers killed off the squash and the tomatoes are small and green still. For months you have been a vocal defender of the President’s veracity, or of Ken Starr’s prosecutorial sense of discretion. After waiting for years, you finally decided a month ago to put all your savings into stocks. Life is like that.

 But at least, after whatever kind of summer you had, here we are again in church, and isn’t that terrific! Both ministers are back again, and there’s a new intern who seems to be both talented and enthusiastic. There’s a skilled, devoted new sexton, too, along with our vivacious, efficient secretary, Geri Cotter; Irene Praeger working with Kimi to make sure the Sunday school is running great; our nursery workers; and as important as anyone, Polly Oliver, back in the loft with our splendid choir, musicians, and soloists. The committee structure for the year is in place; events galore are being planned that we will all enjoy; the place looks great; and Sunday school teachers are waiting to meet the young members of their classes, who are just as eager to be in class.
 Or maybe not. Maybe all this religion stuff just doesn’t relate much to what you care about -- not the prayers, not the sermons, not the study groups, not even the music -- none of it. Maybe you just showed up by mistake, or because unbeknownst to us, we are now included on some tour for autumn visitors to historic New England meetinghouses. Or maybe you got brung, by a partner or by your folks.
Maybe you’re a kid, and the kind of kid who doesn’t like Sunday school, at least this year. Me, I always liked Sunday school, a lot. I thought it was neat to learn about what people thought about the universe and life and death, and whether there’s a God, and why the earth is holy, and how important it is to care about love and mercy and justice. But maybe you’re only here because your family made you come.
And then there are the people who aren’t here at all, who used to come, who seemed to think our religion was an important part of their life, but who seem to have decided otherwise, at least for now. Life is also like that.

But at least, discontent and defections neverwithstanding, there is the community we have together, as people who [quote] "covenant to walk together in the ways of faith," as it would have been put by those who founded this congregation 358 years ago. Everyone needs that connection, that mutual support, that escape from life’s isolation. "We meet with eagerness and delight, needing one another for sharing," we say. We meet to create a home for our mutual nurture.
The novelist Kurt Vonnegut recently proposed an idealistic series of four amendments to our country’s Constitution:

"Article XXVIII: Every newborn shall be sincerely welcomed and cared for until maturity.
"Article XXIX: Every adult who needs it shall be given meaningful work to do, at a living wage."                   [Timequake, 176]
(That is the only one of the four that needs slight amending to fit the church’s situation: I certainly hope that all adults and children will here find meaningful work to do, to the degree that they need, want, and can handle it. Without such effort, the community cannot prosper or even survive. But I’m sorry, it will not come with a living wage – though I like to imagine that in the equation of one’s personal economy, all who find fruitful work in this community will feel they have been recompensed with rewards as real as wages.)
 "Article XXX: Every person, upon reaching a statutory age of puberty [which is to say, when anyone becomes a teenager], shall be declared an adult in a solemn public ritual, during which he or she must welcome his or her new responsibilities in the community, and their attendant dignities.
 "Article XXXI: Every effort shall be made to make every person feel that he or she will be sorely missed when he or she is gone."
 "Such essential elements in an ideal diet for a human spirit, of course, can be provided convincingly only be extended families."
       [Timequake, 202]

But in the end, let it be said, affirmed, and celebrated, that at least the First Parish and its services are here to tend our spirits in whatever form we may need just now:  providing regular occasion for meaningful worship, calling us out into more passionate social engagement, inviting us into its camaraderie, encouraging the exercise of our leadership abilities, enriching our religious lives through its classes, or offering us its ministry of care.
And here, there is no "maybe not."
So much changes in life. Dick Formisani was quoted in the paper this week saying, "The two toughest people to give up in a man’s life are his barber and his dentist." This was in an article about Mr. Formisani’s impending retirement as a barber here in Wayland – my barber, in fact – two years after the retirement of my dentist.
So much changes in life. But for 358 years and counting, 358 years and growing – in the face of all changes, in glad seasons and in the hard ones too, when we hunger for company or when we crave the service’s stillnesses -- there is never a "maybe" about the welcome we have to offer, the service we seek to stir, or the extended family we strive to be.
 
 
 
 

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