October 15, 2007 What Was I Thinking?

What was I thinking?  This next weekend, The Reverend Donald Purkey will be coming up from Portland to attend worship.  I have asked him to read scripture.  He has been an extremely important mentor for me.  I was his Student Assistant Minister in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey from 1967 to 1969.  He encouraged me and believed in me at a time when I did not believe in myself and was very uncertain about ministry as a vocation.  It happens that this coming Sunday will be the 40^th anniversary of the first sermon I preached at the Presbyterian Church at Franklin Lakes.  So this week my heart is filled with gratitude for Perk, for the 40 years I have been given to practice ministry, for my successes and yes, perhaps even more for my failures and the wisdom I have received to learn from them.  As I read over Psalm One, I am reminded once again of just how much of my life has been framed in substance—it has been full and I have really felt like a tree planted by streams of living water. But I know that I have always been only a step away from the emptiness that is also described in the psalm.  The mercy of God and the grace of people like Don “Perk” Purkey have helped to keep on my path.  Because of this, when I hear the words from I Corinthians 13, Paul’s essay on love, I am filled to overflowing.  My sermon and my week are framed by these thoughts and feelings.