Now, I know there are some here who are too young to remember this commercial, but some of us may remember it. Do you remember that commercial where two people run into each other, and one says, "You got your peanut butter in my chocolate?" And the other one looks and says, "You got your chocolate in my peanut butter." Some of us are obviously old enough to remember. Both people are outraged at the end of the commercial — until they taste what's happened.

Now, it's a funny memory. And it may not be the most obvious sermon illustration, but it's sticky. It sticks in the mind the way peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth.

How many years do you think have passed since that commercial ran? Twenty, maybe? Forty?

Many of us went for a walk in the woods this week, down at the Miner’s house on Silver Lake. As we walked, to those with eyes to see, we could see soil being made: Moss and leaves, mushrooms slowly turning duff into earth. A trillion decomposers doing their silent work, right at our feet.

I have been thinking about soil all week.

I am deeply aware that the blessing that is this church did not begin when I got here.

Yesterday morning, I was honored to welcome a couple to Emmanuel, one of whom walked through the doors of this church for the first time in nearly fifty years. He grew up here and spent 20 summers here.

Their names are  Owen and Sidsel Thomas. And I am honored that they are with us again this morning.  Owen’s father served as the Rector of this church for over two decades.  He taught systematic theology at EDS in term time, and came here every summer. He wrote some of his ten books here and found refreshment for his ministry of shaping students and the church for two decades.

Owen grew up here. Here and on the shores of the lake. And then life moved on, as it does and fifty years passed. He came back yesterday to show his wife where his earliest memories of his father lived. To stand in the place where the blessing of his life began for him.

He brought a copy of his father's memoir. He left it with me for the rectory library.

Most of us are praying in the wrong direction.

Not with the wrong words. Not with the wrong posture, or at the wrong hour, or with insufficient sincerity. The wrong direction.

We have put ourselves somewhere in the middle distance and God somewhere out past the tree line, and then we spend our lives calling across that distance, hoping the wind will carry our prayers in the right direction.

And that's backward. All of it. And this morning Paul and Jesus, working together, would like to turn us around.

Well, not around, but inward. Not behind us, but within us.