“I could just drift, he thought, and sleep and put a bight of line around my toe to wake me. But today is eighty-five days and I should fish the day well. 

Just then, watching his lines, he saw one of the projecting green sticks dip sharply.” And just like that, after 85 days, the old man in Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea has caught a fish.

So when I was in high school, a group of friends and I used to love going to watch professional wrestling. Now this was before it got really, REALLY popular. This was before Randy Savage was the Macho Man, or Dusty Rhodes was the American Dream, or Jerry Lawler was the King. This was even before Ric Flair was the Nature Boy.

So I've mentioned a few times that Brooks and I went to Israel for a two week pilgrimage back in our seminary days. Now, Brooks and I, well, most of y’all have seen us. You know we’re gonna make our way as faithfully as we can, but we’ll also sneak away or crack up in the back row. We’re not disruptive, we’re just differently attentive. But we are attentive. And, with God’s help, we try to stay open.

So, in high school, I had this friend named Kevin. Kevin was what we would call that big, silent type. Linebacker, a fairly good student, worked part-time at the local garage. He lived down the street from me in a nice split-level house with nice parents, a nice dog, and a nice cat. When he got his driver's license his dad bought him a used Alfa Romeo Spider that didn't run, but Dad was a mechanic and showed Kevin all he needed to know to get that car up and running.

So, this is a weird time of the year for me. It always has been. As a kid, I was coming up during the time when the commercialism of the holidays was really taking off. Holidays would start when “It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” came on TV, leading to Halloween.

So, I've told some of you this story before, but it bears repeating tonight. I have a seminary friend that would nightly read Bible stories to his children when they were younger. And whenever he got to a part when an angel appeared, his kids would laugh and cover their ears and hunker down, because he would always shout at the top of his lungs. “BEHOLD!” he would yell. “I'M A BIG HEAVENLY ANGEL!” he would mean.

Many years ago, when I was an engineering student at Georgia Tech, I worked for a year at Dow Chemical in Michigan. During that time, I had to spend the winter in the Upper Peninsula at Sault Ste. Marie. Surrounded by Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron, I got a pretty good idea of what lake effect snow was all about.

So, Brother Max was a street preacher in West Lafayette, Indiana. Or rather, he was a preacher who hung out on the commons of Purdue University.

So, I'd like to compliment my neighbor down in Chattanooga. As many of you know, I own my grandparents' house in Chattanooga, in a little town called Red Bank. And my neighbor is one of a kind. Her nickname is “Squatty,” because she's always outside squatting. Pulling weeds or planting flowers or getting things ready for yet another garage sale, she's always squatting while she works. I don't really know how tall she is, because I don't believe I've ever seen her standing.

So, I was pumping gas over in Norwich the other day, and a group of hunters were next to me, also pumping gas. And one of them came out of the store and was all flustered and got in the truck. As the other guy finished pumping and was about to get in, this other guy came whipping out of the store and started cussing the hunters. I mean loud! Everyone was watching.

Then he yelled, “If I see you around here again, I'm going to cut you!”

And then I did something stupid.

You know, if I were to let myself, I would be forced to admit that I'm pretty useless. Now, I know I'm fairly good at my job. I know how to preach; I know how to teach; I can make my way around a prayer book.

So, the Great War started in 1914, brought on by the growing economic rivalry and the fight for hegemony of the main European powers. The ongoing tensions in the Balkans eventually led to the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on June 28, 1914.

For some reason, lately, I've been thinking about my first time to visit what is now my home up here in Central New York. I was remembering watching everything so intensely, realizing that life up here is proof that Southerners don't have a corner on the weirdness market, but that wherever I go, as long as there are people around, there will be stories to be told. And sermons to be preached. And here's the first one I remember telling when I got back to Kingsport, Tennessee.

So, over the last three weeks, if you were paying attention, you might have noticed that we stumbled into a three-week Old Testament series on the Babylonian exile. If you missed the past couple of weeks, here’s a quick primer: as the Babylonian empire defeated Israel, they sent the People of God into exile. The Israelites wept and wondered how they could find God now that God's home in Jerusalem lay in ruins. And still, they prayed.

I can't count the number of times I have heard the story of the healing of the lepers and always I have gone to the experience of the lepers --- wondering at the one who was given eyes of faith and understanding enough so that he returned to give thanks. Wondering what ever happened to the others that ran to give thanks. Were they believed? Were they still given the side-eye every time they stepped into the street.

So, it's no small thing, it seems to me, to be able to uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea: particularly in the way that Jesus describes today --- with no effort at all. I know this for while there is no mulberry tree in my back yard in Chattanooga there is a stand of bamboo. It started out as a spiffy idea to my neighbor. She'd just plant a little bamboo, and it would remind her of when her husband was stationed in Japan and the whole family moved there for a few years. She eventually died. . . but the bamboo certainly did not.

So, hey, y'all! I'm happy to be here among you today. And I bring you greetings from down South in the civilized part of the United States. . . where the iced tea is sweet and the corn bread isn't, and the only thing that goes good in ninety-degree weather is spicy BBQ with some awesome hot sauce!

So, she came into the coffee shop every single day, even on the weekends. She was amazingly subdued and very quiet, unlike Angry Mike, the guy who gave her a ride to work during the week. She would sit in the corner with her seeing eye dog, Tanner, and drink her coffee and eat her cinnamon bagel with peanut butter.

So, I don't know if you've ever seen a movie by Frederico Fellini. His films blended fantasy, baroque imagery, and a sort of earthiness that always kept you off-kilter and a bit uncomfortable, unsure whether you should be enjoying yourself or not.

          So, when I was at St. Paul's Kingsport, there was a parishioner, Bill, who was all bent over.  Seems that several years ago, he was mowing his yard.  Now part of that yard was a small hill with a steep grade, and he took his large riding mower up the hill thinking he could save himself the trip of bringing the push mower up there later.  But he hit a bump and the mower up ended, tossing him off of it.  Then the mower came down on him and broke his back.