We risk being called paranoid if we are forever looking back over our shoulders. We risk being called reactionary if we long only for the way things were when they were better. If we can go on nothing more positive and forward-looking and ongoing than a sad wistful nostalgia for what once was, we will be, as St. Paul declared in another context of faith - "most to be pitied of all men."

But, old, great, grand, and glorious it was, and so it remains If we forget, if we do not remember, if we do not recall, we risk amnesia. We have a past, we have a glorious and comforting and challenging and encouraging past, and while we must not simply, and only dwell, on that, we must remember it. Always.

Yes, every committed Christian focuses on Jesus-in-our midst today, the moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives now. We look for Christ to come in glory, we look and pray for the Kingdom to come, and the Father's will to be done, on earth as it in heaven. We trust in a trust-worthy god, and so we look forward in faith and confidence and trust. But we remember, we must. To acknowledge and rely on Christ's abiding presence among us now, is not to overlook THAT - the sacrifice he offered, once for all, for all people - in the past, in an actual datable past - a past that is over. But not forgotten, AND it must never be. All the rest means nothing if THAT did not happen, if that was not real, if that is not now remembered and made real among us now.

I spoke of amnesia - you know what that is. We dread it and we worry of the day when it will be an affliction. We may not be as aware of its opposite, its technical, theological opposite - anamnessia. Amnamnesis it is called in the Church, and it is the heart and soul of our Christians life together, Every Mass, every Celebration of the Holy Communion depends upon our remembering, for in remembering, we make real. Remembering his Death and Resurrection, remembering that "on the night when was betrayed he took bread." The Church is scrupulous to remind us that remembrance makes real - because we remember his words and repeat and re-enact them, he is then among us again. The Eucharist, the Mass, is not a memorial meal, it is a living, saving, genuine, real, encounter with the saving glorious Christ. And all of this in and by and because we remember, we recall, we say again and believe again and still. We make his Presence Real and vital and available and believable by - remembering.

So it is here, today, especially. You, we, should not merely wax nostalgic about "the good old days" at St. Mary's - those old days, when everyone went to church, and when you yourselves had living spouses, and great numbers of young children at home that you were raising as good young Christians. We miss and mourn the time long past, when our dear the nation was secure and confident and optimistic and safe and a haven for all. Yes, that was glorious and grand and much to be loved and treasured. But that is gone - those days, that wonderful time - gone for our nation, gone surely for the world, gone even for Church, gone it, seems, for this parish as for almost all parishes throughout the Episcopal Church. We live in a different world, a different community, a different time.

But we do not forget, as we move on, and move forward. We do not, should not, must not, ignore the past, forget where we have been, what you have done here, in this place for the faith and for our Lord. It abides, it endures, it remains, it is to be carried forward. It looks and feels, and will be, different - as we all are - few of us are recognizable as the people we were in 1956 at the Founding of the parish, or even in the late 1960's during this parish's greatest, best days. But we are still who were are, who we were, and secure about who we will be. That is the great promise of the Resurrection to eternal life, as St. Paul says - "it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know, we shall be like him." That is enough to know. We do not know what will happen to us here, what we will be able to offer and sacrifice and work together toward, and what we will be called to set aside and give up and pass by. But we know that we shall be like him - doing the will of the Father who sent him and sends us to be faithful witness to our Lord and stewards of the mysteries of Christ. And heirs of the eternal kingdom. We do not, cannot know where it will all lead, but we DO know that he is the one leading. And so, we are safe.

This is, and should be a day to rejoice and remember and recall and celebrate where we have been, and where we came from, and what we carry securely forward, and what we must soon, or one day, set aside and what we called to preserve and what we are called to change.

A time today, together, then to rehearse and remember and call to mind, and call in to the present that great and lasting heritage. A Sunday to recommit to that heritage and the faith and glory and grandeur of this place. To offer and promise and pledge to each other, and to our God, our strength and hope and resources to serve him here, and to secure and strengthen and renew and refresh, and possibly to re-fashion, who we are, what we do, where we go. But it will be, and will only ever be, so long as I am here - utterly faithful to what we have been, continuing what we have done and believed, and how we have lived and loved in ages and times past, and now gratefully recalled. That will not, as long as I am your priest, be abandoned - though it may be changed.

A look at our history makes us sure of our heritage, and perhaps less insecure about the changes we face and must make and accept. We remember that we have changed much and often and quite dramatically over the years of our witness, from that October day in 1956 when a group of 12 Anglo-Catholic men approached the Bishop and asked his permission to begin a new church in that, up-to-then overlooked glory of high-church anglo-catholicism. And in this place, that fidelity remains, and continues to this day, and always will, In what form we do know. But we do know, beyond any doubt or any forgetting, that we can be confident of the love and help and support of God in his Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, expressed within the holy catholic church on earth.

Will we keep this building? It is our third. We have moved and begun again and anew twice before and built anew and in a different place, and each time the parish was only made better. If we must reconfigure ourselves again, we will do so with the faith of those founding fathers and mothers of our parish sustaining us. Some of them are with us still, though their number is now small - but what a connection they provide to the ongoing, unfolding, unafraid history of change and growth and new life and different ways we have lived though and thrived throughout as a parish! These great veterans of our early life testify to the endurance and commitment this parish has always had, regardless of the actual earthen vessel in which it is lodged, regardless of the address or the look or feel of the buildings. We, as a congregation, will survive and flourish and continue our witness, worship and service to our good and gracious God. How, where, in what fashion - and by whom - all that remains to be revealed, discovered, and then faithfully acted upon with courage and faith and confidence and love and devotion equal to that which those Founders showed us and those to come.

This is our 49th year, there will be a 50th. I hope it is here in this very self-same spot, in these good and well-done and much-loved surroundings. But I and you do not know. God knows. And he will show the way. But we will be a faithful group of St. Mary's parishioners who will in some good and faithful and wonderful way celebrate the 50th, with courage and conviction and compassion. Maybe with consistent continuity, and maybe with new challenge and direction. But we will do more than endure, and muddle through, or limp along. We will prevail and flourish - not because any one of us is that talented or good or clever or devout. No. Because, St. Paul reminds us, "we can do all things through him who strengthens us, our Lord Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and honor, forever, and to the ages of ages." Amen.