Mary

 The story about Mary is about Marry.  You know several years ago when I started giving these messages I wrote them down for several reasons.  I have been preaching now mostly the third week of the month for longer than I can remember.  We were all on zoom I know that.  

The first reason I wrote them down was maybe I could re-use them.  Making a message is hard enough it seemed silly to use it once.  Another reason: I have sermons my grandfather took the time to type out.  I want my children and grandchildren to have that.  I got to know my grandfather even better after he died,

He was an incredible man and even more if you know him then he ever showed you.  He is still providing for his family.  When my daughter passed the bar he helped me with my gift for them.  I gave them one of the clocks I had got from him.  It is a very special wall clock.  Designed by Seth Thomas and manufactured by the Ball Watch company.  This comes from a time when everything was made in Cleveland.  My grandfather knew this world well.  When he wanted to buy an instrument for his son to play he went to the local manufacturer of trombones.  

Yes we used to make trombones here in Cleveland, but before I get too far off track I want to tell you the story of the Ball Watch Company.  This was a time before computers as we know them.  Clocks were our first real computers.  We don't appreciate the world we create when we all just agree what time it is.  Time pieces allowed ships to chart their course with increasing accuracy leading them round and round the world.  Everything in that world ran on the Ball.

That expression on the Ball.  It is like the context we lose from the scriptures.  The things people just knew.  To my modern ears being on the ball is just a simple expression of someone like my Sara who has always been on task.  Will this strategy continue to serve them well?  I believe it will.  Well now to the story of The Ball Watch Company of Cleveland, Ohio.  If you were on the ball you were on time.  As Debbie discussed two weeks ago God is on the Ball actively working for good.  We don't know what is coming, but we know it will be good.

A funny thing happened these last years even as I arrived to the same spot on the liturgical calendar.  Now this takes years for it to happen that the third Sunday of the month is the same scripture in the calendar, but now it has happened many times to me.  I find myself not repeating even one message.

A message is singular as is Mary.