First Sunday after Pentecost – Trinity Sunday

Readings – Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; II Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20

The twelfth of September, 1962, Rice University, Texas.  The President of the United States, John F. Kennedy proclaimed–

We choose to go to the moon.  We choose to go to the moon.                                               We choose to go to the moon in this decade and to do other                                           things not because they are easy, but because they are hard;                                                 because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best                                         of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we                                              are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and                                       one we intend to win… 

He spoke that day of “the pioneering spirit” of America. 

How different were those times of challenge and stretching toward goals from the language of today when we hear about going for “the low-hanging fruit”, meaning achieving only the easy things! 

Listening to the first part of Genesis, the first creation story, we are reminded of all that God did for us.

Sun, moon, and stars, earth and seas, swarms of living creatures, birds and sea monsters, cattle and creeping things, and finally us, to be responsible for all of it, “over the fish of the seas and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth”.

God gave it all to us, and then God rested.  We are now responsible for God’s gift of creation, responsible for God’s Garden, our home. 

And how are we doing?                          And how are we doing?

John Nace’s plantings on Market Street.  The pollinator garden on the South side. About ready to mulch on the North side.  For the dogwood tree on the East side, trimming is needed around the Memorial Garden.  Yet these are all low-hanging fruit.

What are the moon-shot things; what are the other things we choose “not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”?

How about making sure no child in the Selinsgrove Area School District goes to bed hungry?  That’s the mission of Meals for Seals.

How about making sure no elderly person goes without a noon-time healthy hot meal Monday through Friday?  That’s the mission of Meals on Wheels.

How about providing an evening meal every other week to all who come to our door?  That’s the mission of Martha’s Table. 

How about recycling here at All Saints, and in our individual homes?  We have a recycling dumpster and we individually use our community recycling centers.

We are doing our part here at All Saints.  Could we do more and grow our responsibility for caring for God’s Garden, for God’s creation gifted to us and entrusted to us?  Where may the “pioneering spirit” be leading us?

            !We need to talk!                                                                                                                           We need to challenge ourselves to do more than pick the low-hanging fruit! 

I will conclude with the last line from our Gospel text, the last line from the Gospel according to St. Matthew.  Even though some still doubted, Jesus said,                             

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

            I am with you always. 

Amen