I’m not going to give an oral version here of my detailed written annual report, because the scriptures today seem to demand a sermon. If you read the 36 page annual report with sections written by a wide variety of leaders at St. Paul’s, it has an overall theme that 2022 was a year of dramatic change and challenges, prior to that was the pandemic, but 2023 finally was a year of restoration of much that had not been present since before the global pandemic, a year of substantial consolidation where St. Paul’s regained its footing and confidence. If you give the annual report a careful reading, you may believe you have a full account of the ministries that happen here at St. Paul’s. In fact, all that data only captures a small subsection of St. Paul’s ministries, largely the organizational infrastructure of St. Paul’s, which is utterly necessary for the well-being of the whole, but is far, far, less than the whole….

No one seems to know why when our parish was founded in 1849, they named it after St. Paul the Apostle. For a church incorporated on October 31st, All Saints’ would seem to be the more obvious name. There not only was not another All Saints’ in Brookline at the time, there was not an Episcopal church with that name in the whole diocese. In fact, this is church is so old, they largely had their pick of names. Working through all the names, they picked St. Paul’s Church. So on this Feast of St. Paul, let’s think together about why they may have picked that name to define this place for all the generations they certainly intended it to be here as they put stone upon stone….

Have I told you how much I love Jonah? The story, yes, familiar from way back in childhood, but most of all, Jonah the character. He is the most real to me of all the characters in the Bible – whoever spun this yarn had a profound grasp of human nature.

In this country we have become accustomed to having an almost unimaginable number of choices. Go into any grocery store and count the number of kinds and brands of cereal; you will be there for quite a while. Even just looking at a restaurant menu – once you have decided which restaurant to go to – is enough to make one’s head spin. This availability of choices is a matter of pride for many residents of this nation – for many, America is all about freedom to choose one’s path in life; one’s job, one’s place of residence, the books one reads, the kind of peanut butter to buy. This assumes that what makes us us, and what makes life worthwhile, is the choices we make, without anyone anywhere limiting or guiding those choices.

On this blessed morning, we celebrate that Love came down and was born all those centuries ago in a land that even now is wracked with violence and death and unimaginable suffering. It is hard to see evidence that the world has been saved; I have been thinking this every Christmas for many years now. If Love has indeed come down, why is the world still so full of hate?