We are people who live in the Tall Grass. Our lives can be accurately characterized by the word "driven." We work long hours in demanding jobs with ever expanding responsibilities, shrinking paychecks and a security not guaranteed. We worry about our children's futures when we are not overwhelmed worrying about our own. We are an anxious people. And in the tall grass of the busyness of our lives, we often feel isolated and alone. We can get discouraged when we live as people without hope.

The mission of the Church – its purpose – is to invite people to climb up out of the tall grass and to challenge them to choose life. The Church, when she is true to her best self is a radically counter cultural institution which chooses to live out of abundance rather than scarcity. This abundance is but a foretaste of the abundance to come in the kingdom of heaven.

I would remind you of several places of abundance in our life here at St. Augustine's. For our littlest ones, our nursery is not staffed by bored teen-aged girls with bad skin and even worse attitudes but rather by professional sitters – licensed, bonded and skilled in infant CPR and first aid. Our nursery is a safe, clean, attractive place parent's feel good about entrusting their children to and to which the little ones look forward to going on Sundays. It is a place of grace.

For children over age four, each Sunday they are invited to follow the cross down here to Pierson Hall for church school. Staffed by a volunteer pool of teachers who agree to commit to showing up for 5 or 6 consecutive Sundays to care for children who are often not their own, our Sunday school is open to all children, whether they are kids of members or visitors, whether 3 or 30 show up; our teachers under the direction of Jennifer Pavia, create a space in which children learn the stories of our faith in art, story, devotion and song. When there is no church school during the summer recess, parents volunteer to provide supervised play for our children on our gem of a playground.

In both nursery care and church school, children get the message that this is a safe place where they are loved and valued – so different from the church environment some of us grew up in where we received stern glances, admonitions to hush and sly pinches when we became bored or restless.

When these children rebel and leave the Church as adolescents, the foundation we are establishing will call them back when they have children of their own.

We have an awesome music program here. We are blessed with two brilliant instrumentalists in Paul Baker and Greg Schreiner who bring competence, creativity and passion to their music beyond what is even reasonable to hope for. Our choir, under Bunny Thornburgh's artistic and spiritual leadership, produces music of great integrity and charm. I heard this story some years ago: a young person in the music program at UCLA asked her professor where she could go to find a high quality classical church music program. Without hesitation, the professor replied that there was only one place he would recommend – St. Augustine's. An amazing legacy to take pride in.

We are blessed with the best office manager any church could pray for. Carrie's joy, good humor, steadfastness and high standards for all she does are a gift beyond measure. Outsiders often say to me: "who is that woman who answers your phones? Is she as wonderful as she sounds?" Yes. And when you are tempted to take her for granted, randomly call some other parishes in the phone book. It can be a bit scary.

The Books and Gift store has become a center of our life together here. Whether it's to buy a unique gift, browse new books for adults or kids or just hang out and visit, our volunteers staff: Chia Evers, Ann Shepphird, Pam Schmidt, Judith Lyons, Christa Buswell, Janet Lonsdale, James O'Connell, Jacque Myers, Lorrie Shundich and Suzanne Edwards –and above all, Marla Murphy – have done a remarkable job of modeling abundance for us.

Parish events. Here I'd mention the Homecoming Sunday Brunch, the St. Nicholas Breakfast, the Mardi Gras Party and the Pentecost "Tongues of Flame" Barbeque. These four annual events are the only time when the 8 and 10:30 tribes gather together for fellowship and fun, other than this annual meeting. They have become touchstones throughout the year. One year, we just didn't get it together to host the Mardi Gras Party and that was not a good thing.

I also would lift up our various educational programs and especially the Lenten series over the years. Maybe some of you were here the year we invited various religious leaders to come and give a talk about their faith traditions. That year, our first Wednesday night speaker was a Muslim who came to speak to us about Islam. That night, our country bombed Iraq and our community of Christians and Muslims stood and joined hands and shared prayers for peace in both Arabic and in English. Several people later remarked how glad they were to have been here the night the war began rather than home alone in front of their TV sets. If only for a moment, an interfaith longing for peace resonated louder than the guns of war in our human hearts. That is the church of abundant hope.

Our various groups have been places of abundance. The Seniors Group, the Men's and Women's Fellowships, the Healing and Prayer Team and the Altar Guild continue to provide avenues for care and connection. Other groups are presently sleeping – the 20/30's group and the 40/50's group – someday they may come awake again if new leadership emerges.

How often do you check out our website? Steve Koeppe, our webmaster, continues to expand the capabilities of our electronic communications. Those beyond our church community most often come to us these days by way of our website. Just last week, a woman at the door said that she discovered that we have a labyrinth via the WebPages and could she bring her students by to walk it. And from time to time, I receive an email from a stranger from another state entirely, saying that they had read this or that on our site and asking quite thoughtful questions about the Episcopal Church or about matters theological or spiritual.

One was a high school student in the East who asked for help with a high school religion paper and saying "If you can give me some quotes, that would be great!" Former members who have moved away identify themselves as part of our extended church community through the website – a virtual electronic community of abundance.

And finally, outreach. The Corazon build, the Susan Tree Christmas gift program (thank you Valerie Behrens) for the kids at NYA, baking pies for the thanksgiving meal at the Civic, the Sunday Ingathering of canned goods for the Westside Food Bank, the Xmas Eve Dinner for Homeless Persons now in its 24th year and now a new ecumenical, interfaith outreach group you'll be hearing more about – S.H.I.P. – The Santa Monica Humanitarian Interfaith Project – composed of four churches and a synagogue; all these efforts remind us to celebrate abundance by sharing it with others.

These ten things: nursery care, church school, music, our office manager Carrie, the Bookstore, our annual parish events, our educational programs, the affinity groups, the website and charitable outreach are all intersections where we experience the abundance of blessing.

But, of course, the greatest abundance is you.

I met a man who had been a student at the St. Augustine's Parish Day School and here on the day of the fire on March 9, 1966. He told me that Fr. Hogart told the children that the church is not the building but is rather the community of the people who carry the church in their lives. The Body of Christ, the Church, cannot be destroyed by an arsonist's flame – only we can do that through neglect, indifference or a lack of charity. For two years, the church met at the library to worship and give thanks even in the midst of great loss. Worship sustained community then as it does now. The vision, hope, dedication and sacrifice of those who preceded us in their journey through the Tall Grass provided for us this sanctuary so that we might be sustained by word, sacrament and community in our generation, in this our season of loss and anxiety in the grass grown tall.

Now, when we crawl up out of the tall grass, we have a choice. We can either see it as a respite from the trek through the jungle of life, take a deep breath and descend again into the thick of it and slog on – for in very truth, slog on we must – or we can reach out our hands to one another and build community and travel together.

For in very truth, to enter into abundance requires some measure of sacrifice - to give of our time and our talent and our treasure to sustain it – but most significantly perhaps, to let die the illusion that we can make it on our own; that without mentors and guides and companions on the way, that we won't get hopelessly loss in the tall grass and maybe even perish there; for the spiritual journey was never meant to be undertaken alone.