Sermon Sunday August 3rd, 2025
Rev. Norman A. Michaud
When I read the Gospel selection from Luke this week, I thought of gathering and losing things, which I have done in my life. Luke focuses on the wealth. Jesus’ tells a parable about a rich man who stores his wealth in ever larger barns. The rich man asks his “Soul” to “relax and make merry.” Yet God has other plans. God tells him, “‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” We all confront this question. We believe that we are storing for generations to come, but we do not know what will come. We enter this world with nothing, and we cannot take our possessions with us. Our children may never have a use for what we have stored.
I then thought of the parallel parable found in Matthew 7: 26-27. That is the parable that speaks of a foolish man who builds his home on sand. “26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!” The wise man, who built his home on rock, survives the rains and floods.
Matthew’s parable led me to reflect on another passage from Matthew 16: 19-24, 19 “Honor your father and mother. Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 20 The young man said to him, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” 21 Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Jesus’ teachings regarding greed are consistent and clear. Do we heed Christ’s declarations? In our society, we find it nearly impossible to break away from our motives to accumulate possessions and wealth. These Gospel passages made me confront my childhood and adulthood and reflect on my soul.
I fondly remember playing on the beach when I was a child. It wasn’t any random beach; the beach was Wallis Sands in Rye, NH.
My mother’s father, Arthur Dedes was a very successful Greek Immigrant. He had the contract to supply the U. S. Navy with fresh fruit and vegetables, feeding the sailors who came and went from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. He also supplied Portsmouth, NH, and the surrounding area with produce.
My Grandfather, Arthur, purchased A Life-Saving Station in 1919. At the time, it was the only standing building on the beachfront, and he converted it into a breezy oceanfront cottage. It remains a summer cottage today. A massive seawall protected the building from the ravages of ocean storms. The vast and tall front windows overlooked the Atlantic and the Isles of Shoals. He also bought four additional lots behind the beachfront home, which still stand today.
My Grandfather built two additional cottages on the two lots that remained empty. These were guest houses. The extra lot on the beach remained empty. On the last quarter acre, the fifth lot, he built a two-car garage in 1921.
When my Grandfather, Arthur Dedes, died of cancer in 1939, he left his property wealth to my Grandmother and their only child, my mother, Helen. My Grandmother held onto these properties through World War II. Still, she sold them off, one by one, to maintain the lifestyle she had become accustomed to. She never drove, but she had a Cadillac and had a chauffeur.
My mother begged her not to sell off the lowly lot that had the two-car garage on it. She prevailed. After the passing of my Grandmother in 1961, my mother converted this garage into a humble day camp. It had electricity, water, and a partition used as a changing room. Her family’s past wealth was gone, but she lovingly named the garage Periwinkle Plot. We painted Periwinkle Plot the color Periwinkle, a violet blue.. It had flower boxes and curtains in the single window that looked out at the road. My father rarely came to the beach. He preferred lakes. He also worked all the time supervising his gas stations and car washes. However, my sister, mother, and I got to spend many summer days at Periwinkle Plot.
I loved to play on the beach. I loved building sand castles at low tide. The wet sand was easy to manipulate into grand and exotic castles. When the tide returned, these sand castles disappeared at the hands of the returning tide. It was part of the game to build a castle strong enough to withstand the incoming tide for a time, only to dissolve into the sea. This experience filled me with glee because I always knew that the tide would recede and I could build anew.
When my mother passed, she was only 57, the same age her father had died. I inherited Periwinkle Plot, and my sister inherited a colonial house in Portsmouth on Middle Street, where my mother, and then my sister and I, grew up.
The summer before my mother died, I lived in that garage on the beach. I began my teaching career at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, NH, in September of 1978. In August, I rented a newly built house across the street from the garage. The couple who built it were teachers from Connecticut, and they offered it to me as a winter rental. I planned to build a home on Periwinkle Plot, and I did. I finished the house in 1979. I lived there until 2008 when I had to sell it as part of the liquidation of my marriage. The garage, Periwinkle Plot, ended up in a huge dumpster after the sale. My ex-wife and I did well with the sale. But it broke my heart. It seemed the end of the fortune my Grandfather had accumulated.
However, this loss of my beach home did not crush my soul. This loss was the catalyst that led me back to the church of my childhood, to serve as a Deacon, and to decide to become a Pastor serving the United Church of Christ. I put my life in the hands of God and let His wisdom bring me to Iliff School of Theology, where I met Sarah. We got married in the Iliff Chapel more than a decade ago.
Our commitment to God and to serve God’s people did not make us rich. In fragile times, we have come close to losing things. Still, God has sustained us, found our calling, and settled here with our church family at First Millbury Congregational. Nearing each loss, God has provided enough so that we can live in quiet and experience New England and its lovely people and places. Through God’s grace, Sarah and I have accomplished this and found a place to call home which stands on a foundations of stones.