Sermon July 29, 2007 at Saint Philip's

“The Bunny didn’t belong to me, but …”

By the Rev. Raymond J. Howe

The week before last Beverly Ann and I enjoyed three delightful days at the home of my brother and his wife in Pocasset on Cape Cod.   Their new home is built on the same piece of land where there used to be a tiny cottage where Beverly Ann and I and the children vacationed for several decades.  It was great to be back and to walk around a very familiar one-mile peninsula. 

Many of you know that I love walking and reading ... and that I can combine the two ... walking at almost four miles/hour and reading at the same time.  I have walked around that one mile circle thousands of times in the past twenty seven years, sometimes reflecting or thinking, sometimes praying or meditating, sometimes just walking ... but most often walking and reading.

I’ll hear people say, “The guy who reads and walks is back”. 

The only other person who does it is my son, Jeffrey.  Bad genes, I guess. 

But this time around I wasn’t reading.  I was just thinking, reflecting about a seminary professor, Reginald Fuller, who had died at the age of ninety-two, earlier this summer.  Beverly Ann and I had lived in his home for nine weeks in the summer of 1984 when I was in the doctoral program at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, while he and his wife were vacationing in Vermont for the summer.  I had known him for years, not well, but as a renowned New Testament scholar, author and teacher.

I remembered him sitting quietly and unobtrusively in the rear of the chapel at seminary following the scripture readings from the Morning Prayer service in his Hebrew Bible and his Greek New Testament. 

Living in his home for those weeks in 1984 reminded me of him over and over again.  The pictures, the family photos, literally thousands of books, some in every room of the house.

I was even reminded of his cats for which we “cat-sat” ... and how convinced the cats were that they owned the place, and only allowed others to share it at their convenience.

All of this reminded me of Professor Fuller and his wife ... and pointed to them ... and reminded me of whose house we were occupying. 

And as I walked around that beautiful peninsula,

a part of a cove within a bay

 in the early morning hours

surrounded by the sand

and the sea

and the trees.

I heard the birds

smelled the flowers

I saw a tiny rabbit now and then ... who let me get real close.

And I was thinking about who the true owner of this whole place was.

That it was not the people who had legal deeds to the houses and the land.

The owner of it all was surely God.  I considered that all that is ... belongs to God.

I thought about the baptism a few weeks ago when James and Teddy, the Scott twins ... one year old ... were baptized.

And how they behaved so well, even when I poured water on their heads. 

I decided that if there were a gift I could give to James and Teddy it would be for them to know that it was indeed God who is the owner of all things,

the birds, the flowers ... and even their toys 

That all that is belongs to God and that we merely manage it.  We are merely stewards who care for it for a very limited time.  Things are never ours to own or possess ... and that if James and Teddy were to learn that early, they might save themselves a lot of grief. 

I remembered the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 95. 

“For the Lord is a great God,

and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the caverns of the earth,

and the heights of the hills are his also. 

The sea is his for he made it,

and his hands have molded the dry land. 

Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee,

and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For he is our God,

and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand

Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!” 

I thought about how true this is for all of life.  Even our children are gifts from God for us to give roots and wings to for a limited time.  But they are not ours, any more than were the birds singing their morning songs or the bunny scurrying off to the side of the path as I walked.

And that whenever we see something as ours ... as our possession, [MINE, MINE, MINE] ... it tends to possess us and make us captive to it.  And that doesn’t make God or us one bit happy. 

How to teach James and Teddy and all the children of God up to the age of 103 that all that is belongs to God ... and that when we try to possess it and grasp it too closely and make it our own ... we lose it ... or it loses us.  This is a basic rule of life, whether we like it or not.

In the same way that the Fuller’s house for which we “homesat” and “catsat” in the summer of 1983 at Virginia Seminary reminded us over and over again of the Fullers themselves ... and that beautiful peninsula around which I was walking reminded me of God, his greatness and majesty and power. 

How good it would be if we could always remember ... that I could always remember ...that all things belong to God, that

the Lord himself is God

that God has made us

And that we are his

That we are God’s people and the sheep of his pasture. 

That God has entrusted us with the care and protection of creation, but that it is not ours, but God’s ... that we best hold all things lightly ... and for God’s glory ... and for the common good of all his children.