Welcome back! I trust that the time away was useful – to stretch your legs, to fill your stomachs, quench your thirst, answer some questions and begin conversations. I trust also that on a day like today you can appreciate the precious nature of water!

Thanks to John Maxwell and his unique offering of his great talents during the break.
Someone asked me about how you do an altar call at an Episcopal Tent Meeting. Sisters and brothers, here it is, and we do it week after week... offering our "selves, our souls and bodies" at this altar.
My words will be fewer now as we prepare to respond as a people to God's claim on our lives - to make that offering of self so that we might be sustained in our faithfulness.
But before we are fed for the journey, I want to reflect with you on this marvelously cool symbol in our midst. I'd like us to live into this image for a moment. Water from around the world that cascades through this fountain.
Water is that primal source of life that even now the latest Mars Probe is searching for on that mysterious planet. For where there is no water, there is no life. Life is birthed in water. Water - the bearer of all life on earth until that first land creature emerged from the ancient waters of this planet. Water - that life-giving sustenance that surrounded us in our mother's womb.
These same waters have shaped us as a unique entity in this state - the impact of the Gulf of Mexico to our south and what the Native Americans called the "Father of Waters" on our western border - is immeasurable.
And my dear Delta friends, where would you and we be without the ancient flooding and swamp lands that have produced the richest soil on this earth.
Our salvation history is reflected in this same water. Look closely...
You'll see our Hebrew ancestors being delivered out of slavery into freedom through the waters of the Red Sea. Look closely and you'll see the waters of the River Jordan - our Lord with John the Baptist - and "ten thousand times ten thousand" crossing over the Jordan. Look closely and you'll see water raised from an isolated well by a Samaritan woman and the one who says to her "I am the living water which comes down from heaven."
Keep looking, however, and you'll see this water's power and capacity for destruction. These are also the waters of chaos before the spirit of God blew upon them at creation. These are also the waters that covered the earth as God saved a remnant of life in an ark to sustain God's purposes for creation. And these are also the waters of the 1927 Mississippi River flood and Hurricane Camille. These are waters beyond any human control. Death, does, indeed come with these waters.
"We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit."
. There are some, both within the Christian community and outside, who say the church is dying in our generation. To those who would despair at such observation, I would say that to be faithful, the church, as an institution, must die in every generation so that God might reveal Gods self anew in the eternal truth of the gospel - a Truth made flesh in Jesus Christ, but a truth too often obscured by the frailty of its all too human messengers.
In every generation the church must be washed in the waters of baptism. For the very waters that would destroy us become the waters that renew us, transform us and bring us life. The same waters of a storm at sea that drove a young captain of a slave ship to his knees, gave him the experience to write the words we just sang, "Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I am found. Was blind, but now I see."
If the church is to be reborn in our generation we must not be afraid to die - die to the pride and arrogance that seems to be our birthright as Episcopalians. Die to the suspicion and deception that dominate our common life.
Wash in the waters of baptisms, sisters and brothers! I am calling this church to a new, but very ancient, standard of faithfulness. This church, beloved by us all, but this church as it exists as the center for power, privilege and prestige must die...so that God can get beyond the barriers of our pseudo successful lives to transform us for His purposes - not ours. The idea of religion as our own personal téte-a-téte with God must die...so that we can see the face of God in those around us.
The practice of coming to church to get something only for ourselves, must die... so that we can fully embrace the awesomely terrifying act of self offering we make at each and every eucharist. "Here I am - hold me, break me, mold me, use me." If we can become ever more clear that we are offering our own lives to Almighty God, we won't have to ask what transformation looks like, because the Holy Spirit will change our lives.
. I will be asking more of you and this church in the years to come - more than pay, pray and keep quiet! (Most of you are rarely doing one out of three!) I want to know why you get up on Sunday morning (or Saturday morning in August!) and I want to help you share that faith with others. I will be asking you for periods of prayer and fasting and discernment as we, together, try to be faithful to God's call in this place, in this time. I will be asking you to take seriously the task of forming disciples and to be serious about your own formation as well as others. I will be asking you to take seriously the deepening needs of a world starving in body and spirit. I want you to take seriously the cost of discipleship.
. Remember the gospel reading this morning? Jesus sends out seventy persons in pairs - to go ahead of him into the villages where he was planning to travel. Don't set out by yourself for you cannot take this journey alone. He told them this task would be costly. You're being sent "like lambs in the midst of wolves." He tells them they must travel light - "carry no purse, no bag, no sandals." And they had two very specific tasks: Be an instrument of healing, he said, and in all that you do declare the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God.
. At its core, this gospel tells us we are a sent people, empowered by the very Lord who has given us life.
And this old tent reminds us that we are not always sure where we're going but we believe that God leads us on. The journey may be long and arduous, but it is not without purpose. And the God who has both sent us and leads us gives us gifts - provisions, if you will, for the journey.
First, he gives us the Great Story for we will need to know how others have taken the journey - how they have responded to God in their time. He gives us bread, for we will get tired and hungry and discouraged and want to give up. The bread will nourish us. He'll give us wine that will make us dream dreams and see visions for there are times when we need to be a bit crazy to be faithful.
He will give us each other. This is the one gift that we are often tempted to forget.
And He will give us water. It washes away the dirt of the journey, cleans the face and purifies the soul. It allows us to die to self so that we might live in Him. Wash in it often. And wherever you go - speak and live the new life that is ours - The Kingdom of God has come near.