| First Parish Church has a free pulpit. The views expressed in First Parish sermons are those of each speaker, and not necessarily those of the church itself. |
| It is fitting that in this harvest season, the time of All Saints and
All Souls, we gather to offer thanksgiving for the gift of life and to
hold in sacred remembrance those who once lived and walked among us, the
dead who are not dead, who live evermore in the undying memory of the heart.
I hold before you a silver-plated chalice that has been used to serve communion and as a Christening Cup for the dedication of children. Let this chalice be for us a symbol of the Cup of Life in which the living and the dead are held in sacred remembrance. The cup which is given into our hands and which we hold becomes ours to give to others in generations yet to come, that they, like we, may receive the cup of life, anointed and running over with goodness and mercy. Let us now pass the cup among us holding it for a moment in our hands as a symbolic gesture of communion with those who have gone before and have joined their lives with ours in freedom of faith and conscience. As the cup is passed let us share in litany the names of those whose lives are one with ours in memory and hope and the heritage of the spirit. As the minister concludes each line of litany with the invitation: STAND HERE BESIDE US, let the congregation respond: JOIN OUR CIRCLE OF FAITH. We call to mind those who gathered 284 years ago to form the South Parish of Bridgewater in 1716, and erected the first of three church meeting houses in 1717, on two acres of land donated by John Washburn -- to build them a meeting house -- and to use part of the land for a burying ground. To those courageous souls whose roots go back to the original New England settlement in Plymouth and Duxbury, we say: STAND HERE BESIDE US. JOIN OUR CIRCLE OF FAITH.
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