Jesus said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

You could hardly have a better set of readings for an annual meeting Sunday. Jesus setting forth his mission statement and witnessing to the empowerment of the Spirit with which God has sent him to inaugurate the Kingdom.  Paul laying out the truth that we Christians now are the living body that carries forth that mission statement, each and every one of us given the Spirit and the chance to be agents of God’s Kingdom in our world. Both of those show us the kind of church anybody would want to be in. I wish I could preach on them all semester. But we just have these few minutes to think together about the past 12 months. It seems obvious to me that as we pause for our annual meeting today, we have a lot of thanks to give. We can point to a season in which God has been surprising us with blessings, and maybe laying groundwork for future calls yet to be heard. We – you, really – accomplished a lot in 2015, as you responded to what God did.

Today is one of the great Baptismal days in the Episcopal Church.  Since Baptism joins us to the community of faith, the Book of Common Prayer recommends that Baptism should be administered within that community, as a public event, either when the Bishop comes, or on one of four major feasts.  And today, the feast of the Baptism of Christ, is one of them. So throughout our denomination, people are being baptized today. What are the other three days?