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When Adam Eddington, a gifted marine biology student, makes the acquaintance of blond and beautiful Cali cutter at Kennedy international airport on his way to Portugal to spend the summer working for the renowned scientists. Dr O'keefe

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, he has no idea that this seemingly chance meeting will set into motion a chain of events. He will be unable to stop, caught between Callie's seductive wiles and the trusting adoration of doctor who keeps daughter

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Polly. Adam finds himself enmeshed in a deadly power struggle between two groups of people. Only one of which can be on the right have right on its side. As the danger escalates, Adam must make

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a decision that could affect the entire world. Which side is he on? Mhm. Mhm. Phone call. This is the description of the arm of the starfish by Madeline Lengel. I love to read

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as a kid. I read voraciously all the time . My parents used to kick me out of the house because I was reading too much. I read all kinds of books but by the time I was

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in early high school, I really enjoyed dramatic books . My home life was very stable. My parents are elementary school educators who created an extremely safe life for us. So naturally I was drawn to the

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dark stories of lowest Duncan and robert, Coram er like killing mr griffin. I know what you did last summer that Chocolate War, there are characters encountered , murder, clones, betrayal. I even won

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a prize for writing a depressing little story about a girl who discovers her mother's stash of cocaine. My poor mother, I had no such stash. My imagination was hungry for something, something more interesting,

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the routine of studying and chores, something important. I enjoyed those spooky books. I certainly didn't want to live inside of them. And then I read The Arm of the starfish. If I could have

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turned myself into letters and jumped inside the story, I would have. When Adam arrives in Portugal, he meets these incredible, loving, smart characters. It turns out Calvin O'keefe isn't so bad after all

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, he is after all, the young man from a wrinkle in time, so he never really doubted him. O keefe is working on scientific research on regeneration that greedy corporations would love to get their hands

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on. As Adam gets caught up in the drama , he has to decide who to trust. He has to show courage, he has to make sacrifices . What really drew me in was the relationships and

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the okay family and their circle of friends. They had a love for each other that had a quality I couldn't name, they trusted each other, had a casual and easy affection. Even saying together.

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Years later, after I had become a christian, I realized that the quality they had was the quality of love rooted in God. It turns out Madeline Lengel was a christian. While jesus is not a

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character in a book, she somehow was able to evoke faith filled relationships that were rooted in security and generosity. I wanted that Lengel testified to her experience of God not by telling people about her experience,

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but by evoking a world full of imagery and mystery . She drew readers in through rich characters who live full lives, rooted in God without having to talk about God too much. And the opening of the

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Gospel of john, the author evokes a world too . Instead of opening with jesus birth or the first miracle. The Gospel of john opens before time in a world where all that existed was the word in

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God. The writing is so visual, you can just imagine them whirling around together in the moments before creation and then all of life somehow spilling out from that relationship, john wants us to know the story

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he's about to tell Is a cosmic one. And then instead of introducing us to jesus, we meet john the baptist who's busy testifying about jesus for john testifying is what the followers of jesus are called to

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do later. We'll meet Nicodemus who has all the qualifications but can't quite get comfortable with testifying. And then we meet the woman at the well who has no qualifications, but immediately begins testifying about jesus to

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her friends and family. John's world is one where all the rules are turned upside down and you never know who will be able to follow the call of jesus. For john, your pedigree doesn't matter,

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but your willingness to testify does Testifying about God is a key part of our faith and not one Episcopalians are known for. You'll be getting a lot of practice and seminary learning how to preach how to talk

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about God pastorally how to communicate your story so that people can experience God, but I don't want to discount the power of other less direct approaches. Some of you are gifted artists, some of you are

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musicians, some of you are poets, some of you are videographers, some of you can do things on facebook and tick tock and you know, technologies , we barely understand our culture is so hungry for

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the imagery of the Holy. We're bombarded by images of violence and greed and any sense of goodness or holiness feels like a miracle. I've watched my Episcopal colleague, David Peters get mine early famous over the

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summer because he made some wholesome silly Tiktok videos that went viral. So Tiktok is an online platform that makes it easy to edit short films set to pop music, Nowhere in scripture does it say to make

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32nd videos of different investments, over laid with pop music and funny hashtags. But David decided to experiment with this new platform. His joy was infectious and communicated something about God to people who feel alienated from

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the church. So many people responded to his videos that he was interviewed by multiple news outlets like The Guardian interviewed him in each interview. He has shared humble and honest reflections that communicate his understanding of God

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in an even deeper way he spent all summer testifying . I don't think David considers his Tiktok videos art , but your art might affect people even more deeply than you realize it may write something in a person's

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heart that will affect them the rest of their lives . Remember as a child, I did not grow up going to church at all in high school, A little after I discovered lingle's writing, my parents

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started dragging us to military chapel. That's where like if it's a catholic service, they opened the box with the crucifix, it's a protestant service that closed the box with the groups of a Yeah, my

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senior year of high school, I became a christian and went to young life type group called club Beyond and then was involved in intervarsity, christian fellowship. In college, I went to church wherever my college

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buddies went often in an auditorium filled with cheerful music about how we would never fail to love jesus. I never felt quite at home in those contexts, but I didn't know an alternative. No one in

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my family was episcopalian. I did not know traditions that honored the mystery of God where music could be played in a minor key existed. So when I walked into ST James Episcopal Church in Richmond Virginia in

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my senior year of college, the liturgy felt like coming home. I felt destined to be a part of it, even though I knew nothing about the tradition. Well, friends, I reread the arm

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of the starfish in preparation for this sermon and I could not believe how thick with Episcopal imagery it is . Mhm Lengel was a member of ST john the Divine Episcopal Church in new york city. She ran

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their library. She worshipped with the music and liturgy that has become so familiar to me In my memory . The book wasn't particularly religious because at 14 I had no fluency with religious imagery. So it all

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washed over me. But when I reread it, well, you're some examples. There's a character called cannon tallis and people whisper whistle the tallis cannon to each other as a code. This is the 25th

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him in the Episcopal Hymnal, they visit a painting of Saint Andrew and saint Francis in the product. There's a rabbi reading martin Buber on a plane there's a character named Joshua who dies to save other characters

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. That same Joshua sings Beethoven's night during a scary flight, bom bom bom, bom, bom bom bom bom. There's a character named Mark Angelo. There's a dolphin named Macarena and her brothers are basil

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and Gregory. Of course there's a great stone table that has to be a reference to Narnia characters read warning prayer together and when they bury Joshua, there's even portion of the Episcopal burial service at one point

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, it's not subtle writing, I skimmed over all that imagery as a kid. But somehow, when I walked into an episcopal church at 22, I knew I'd found the world I was waiting for a

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world that celebrated the mystery of God, where people strive to be honest and kind to each other, where we could be fully ourselves and where we are called to be brave. It's also a tradition where

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we say the same liturgy week after week after week . So it's not for everyone. I didn't know it at the time, but when I read the arm of the starfish as a kid, the holy

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Spirit was writing a path on my heart. I was going to get to join Lingle's Universe. I don't get to do cutting edge research on starfish or Tesseract throughout space and time, but I do get

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to sing the talus cannon to my son every night as he falls asleep. I do get to surround myself with people who are brave and try to make the world a better place because they love God.

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I do get to worship with liturgy that has roots that are thousands of years old, Langen testified and she shaped my life. She had no idea she was making a future priest and you will have no

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idea how the testimonies you will hear from professors, students, staff parishioners, Your grandmother will shape you during your time in seminary and even now you are sharing your testimony every day with the way you treat

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people the dedication with which you study and work and worship the humility you show. When you hit a bump in the road, you'll make impacts far beyond your imagining. John the baptist could not have known

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he was beginning an international movement. The woman at the Well could not have imagined. We would remember her thousands of years later, but God's story is more powerful than any of us. And yet we're