Second Sunday

"Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost." John 6:18

Today is the second Sunday of my ministry here at All Saints', and I am thrilled to be here with these people, where I know we belong together. And I also know that it takes time to settle in and get acquainted, takes time to learn how to preach authentically with these people, and it takes time to know the needs of this congregation. I am anxious to do all of those things well. Despite all my training, and the myriad places I have been, coming home challenges me to be more honest, more open and clear, more transparent than ever. And that means I have to pick up and examine things and relationships I left behind when I graduated from high school.

Emily discovered my year book when she was helping me unpack. She wanted me to tell her all about so many people and things, I became overwhelmed. And then Phoebe found it and she wanted to know so much more. It was fun and funny in both circumstances, and it made me realize that God does not lose people, even when when we have ignored them or abandoned them. Even when we flee from them, desperately wanting to grow up and make our mark on the world. And coming home, to this community that raised me, I know in a new way, that the Creator gathers up the lost and the leftovers, the strands that we cut off and finds a way to bind us back together, in new ways, so that an an even more complete creation can be known. God gathers so that we might be restored, even when we think it unnecessary or inconvenient.

This Second Sunday, I want to gather with the people I have been called to serve and find new ways to be bound together in service. I want to know God's gathering us up together, so that nothing may be lost and that love might remain.