Sunday 16th November is going to be quite a day with three significant themes being woven into a seamless whole.

At the morning services we will be honoring our Ingathering Sunday. Ingathering marks the completion of the formal month known as the Annual Renewal Campaign (ARC). Year-long Stewardship begins with all of us undertaking a spiritual inventory, reviewing our individual attitudes to financial giving within the larger frame of our gratitude to God and our desire to live more generously. As you make your way to the communion rail this Sunday there will be an opportunity to place your pledge card for 2015 in a basket, thus symbolizing the true nature of the spiritual connection between your pledge and your experience of gratitude to God. You can read more of what I had to say about this last Sunday at relationalrealities.com or at stmartinsprov.org/sermons.

We kept St. Martin's Day in a low-key manner on the evening of the 11th. 14 of us celebrated his actual day and at 4pm this Sunday a fuller celebration of our patron will be flow seamlessly in the same channel as that of my Installation as 12th rector of the parish that bears Martin's name.

Martin was a 4th Century Christian who died in 397. In the Parish, we all know about the famous story of how one day on seeing a beggar he sliced his cloak in half and gave half to the unfortunate man. Later Christ appeared to him in a dream wearing the poor man's half of Martin's cloak. Martin was a monk who lived a style of life deeply influenced by the Egyptian solitaries known as the Desert Fathers. He might have happily ended his days in spiritual seclusion had not St Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers ordained him Bishop of Tours. Martin accepted becoming a bishop with great reluctance. The story goes that he hid among a gaggle of geese, who on discovering Martin in their midst, raised their voices to alert the townsfolk of Tours as to Martin's whereabouts. Martin may have been a reluctant bishop, yet being a bishop facilitated the spread of his spiritual influence for good in the Church of his day. Martin not only served the poor, he did something more difficult. He spoke to power! Speaking to power is the how Christians are called to challenge the way the unequal distribution of power in society, invariably supports systems of oppression and discrimination. In the spirit of Martin, I call all of us in the community bearing his name to not simply work to alleviate distress, but to be a force for good through agitating to make real in the here and now of the world in which we live, the values and expectations of God's Kingdom.

At 4pm on Sunday it will be my privilege to be installed by Bishop Nicholas as your 12th rector. In the Church of England, installation happens close to the time of appointment, which in my case would have been in June. Someone suggested to me that the delay in the Episcopal Church between appointment and installation represents a returns policy? True or not, the word install comes from an ancient practice, which we no longer perform, of the bishop seating me in my rector's seat or stall as a symbolic sharing of his ministry with me. Two weeks ago I wrote about the importance of the bishop in the Tradition of Apostolic Christianity, which we maintain in the Episcopal Church. Our priest and pastor is actually, the bishop. As rector I simply share in a part of his authority. Installation is the recognition that as your rector, I exercise vicariously, from which the word vicar derives, the bishop's authority within the bounds of the parish of St. Martin in Providence.

I look forward to seeing you at this service of celebration at which childcare will be provided to help our families be part of this great celebration. Miss this event, and baring misadventure, it's likely to be another 15 years before you'll get this opportunity again, please God!

Mark+