Several year ago there was a sweet little book titled Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I don't remember learning much of anything in kindergarten. Except for one thing, I learned to love chocolate milk. My mother had never let me have chocolate milk. She thought it was too exotic and would turn me into an unreasonable and demanding child. Since that happened anyway, it was a pointless prohibition. And now chocolate, like Kindergarten, is a thing of the past for me. I miss one more than the other. Guess. I am not sure things got much better after Kindergarten. I am not sure how much I have learned in any other year of my life. But I think perhaps I have "found out" some things over 60 years of my life and today, the 31 years of my priesthood. Some have been sad things, but most, far and away most, have been happy and good and precious to me. I learned that people mean well. It was not in Kindergarten, but it was somewhere - maybe in high school, maybe in college - that I heard some very guilty person say with regret and certainty: "You know, it is not enough to mean well, you also have to do well." I learned that was wrong. It is enough to mean well. We are human and we will make mistakes, terrible mistakes. We say about a child, or even a man, "Well, he meant well," following some awful mess, some predictable disaster. Usually we are being very condescending, trying to find some good in a bad situation, trying to find some way to throw some crumb to the miserable offender. "Well, she meant well." Meaning "that's at least something". I learned that's at least everything, to mean well. Largely from St Paul. No one but God can do well consistently and reliably and dependably. Only God. It is enough if we mean well, and occasionally do well, sometimes very well indeed. There are people in the world who do not mean well. Terrorists do not mean well, it is not that they have a different and skewed vision of what is best for their world or their understanding of life. They don't mean well, period. Most Christians, for all our hypocrisy, for all our sins and silliness or selfishness and short-sightedness, mean well. The people I have met in life and in our Episcopal Church over all these years have meant well. I have learned that is a treasure, and where your treasure is there will your heart be also. The Scripture lessons this morning are from that vague and variable time, called Sundays after Pentecost. But those lessons themselves - wow - not vague, not variable at all. And that epistle - now that is gift from God, a special little sign, I think, that he is with us today, and participating in our day here together. For there is that thing that I learned above all else. What St Paul learned that turned him from being a savage persecutor of the Church to its greatest defender, what our Episcopal faith is based on, what our hope of heaven is based on, what our only chance with God is based on. A man or woman is justified by faith alone, not by works of the law. In religion, in the Church, in our relationship with God, what matters above all is faith, faith in a faithful God. And in that faith we justified, made righteous, saved from sin and death. Faith, and faith alone, not works of the Law, not how good we are, not how much we accomplish, not how many wonderful and worthy things we do. We are justified by faith alone, not by works. This breathtaking simplicity seems to prevail in all our relationships. If you have faith in yourself, you well be fine, if you have faith in your spouse or partner, your love and your commitment to each other will survive and flourish, despite all the accidents and mistakes. If you have faith in your children and grandchildren, they will grow into fine men and women, and if some horrible tragedy prevents that, even with sadly as can happen, if they suffer accidents or even early death, they will always know that they were loved and trusted and believed-in, that someone they loved had faith in them, and tragedy will never be the final word, that faith will be the final word in this life and the first word in the life into which we all precede after death. A vague Sunday after Pentecost, a simple summer Sunday. But an Epistle, a word of hope and assurance that is not vague, a word not of sand, but absolute rock: It really all does come down to something we could have learned in Kindergarten, and if not, need to learn now this very Sunday: it does come down to simply meaning well, and then if you do well so much the better, but it is enough to mean well, and then to try your best. You do try though - mindful of Jesus's words in the Gospel - not enough to say Lord, Lord all day long, you need to try your best over and over to do the will of his Father, and ours, we need to build on rock, not sand. But this remains, for Jesus, for Paul, for you: You are justified by your faith, not but the results, or the works. By your faith. And faith alone.