"Each part, working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love."               

Ephesians 4:16

Dear People of St. David's,

I pray that you and yours are well and that you continue to feel blessed by the presence of God in your life during these slower summer months.

As many of you know, we pick a theme each year to help us live into a particular part of the Christian life and our mission as a church (to know God in Jesus Christ and to make Christ known to others). The idea of having a theme is that it helps us focus our souls on an important aspect of the Christian life, rather than everything at once. This year, our theme has been One Body. We have been paying particular attention as to what it means to be a Christian community; how our community began 300 years ago; and how each of us brings gifts to the Body of Christ in this place for the good of St. David's and for more effective service in the world.

As we wind down the year of focusing on being One Body in Christ, I want to raise one final thought. This is so important to God's call on our lives and is so fundamental to the outward, or outgoing, part of our mission: to make Christ known to others. And that thought is this: our unity as a Christian community is not meant solely for our enjoyment and connectedness. We are a Christian community so that we may make Christ known to others. William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury said it something like this, "The Church is the only community I know that doesn't exist for its own membership. It exists, instead, for those who don't belong to it." And Teresa of Avila, the mystic, was fond of saying:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

We, as the Body of Christ, as St. David's Church, have this marvelous gift of community. Where we are loved, accepted, challenged and called to use our gifts. Where we also have a call in the world. There is no one better for God to call, apparently, than a community like us.

So, as we draw to a close in our year of living more fully into the call to be One Body, I invite us all to look at the community and world we live in and to recommit ourselves to being the Body of Christ in the world. If we will, then we will know God in Christ more fully, and make Christ known to others.

Grace and Peace.