Yesterday means little if we can’t find its message in our lives today. Of all the important events and blips in time, it’s the people who are the most important.

The Founders of this church were people. Their hearts beat, they shed tears, they laughed, and they squabbled. Just like we do today.

Like our Founders were 397 years ago, we are important, we matter, and what we say and do, one day to the next, makes a difference. I could call us out, one by one, but instead, let’s look into each other’s faces. Not just today for this one hour, but every time we come in contact with each other.

Let’s work at figuring out what makes each other tick so we can connect. When we consider the passage of time, a tick of the clock is nothing without its companion tock. Tick tock, tick tock, we are one person connecting with the next. You are the tick to my tock. She is the tick to her tock, he is…well, you get the idea. It is the people that has made this church work for almost 400 years, and our connections to each other are what will ensure that this church is still here and relevant one hundred years from now.

Every year, we come together on this day, the closest Sunday to August 6th, to remember the founding of this, The First Church in Salem. In recognition of Reverend Danielle beginning her work with us next week, we include her today as the next minister in a line of succession that goes back to 1629. And we can’t welcome her without giving a shout-out to us, the church members who actively engaged in the process of selecting our ministers, just as the people’s votes secured our first religious leaders and established this church.

The sermon this morning recognizes that we are engaged every day in the stewardship of this church. Faith-based congregations are, after all, about relationships, and this little Church of ours, like our Founders entrusted us to do, works every day to cultivate its relationships to ensure the continuity of The First Church in Salem.

Founders’ Day is all about getting from then to now.

Disruption and change have become routine. Chaos theory is present in our daily lives. Weather and climate, smoke billowing off a campfire, and pinball machines are all systems of chaos. Turmoil and unpredictability, although often uncomfortable, are part of the human experience. Chaos Theory can help us to better understand how the past is still with us in the present.

Edward Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist, first talked about the butterfly effect in the 60s when he posed the question, "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" We can revisit that question today by asking if our Founders set off a chain of events that led to the arrival of Reverend Garret here at 316 Essex Street in 2025?

Let’s not answer too quickly.

First, let’s call to mind a few initial conditions. In the interest of time, we’ll jump right into remembering those earliest ministers, as we add Reverend Garret’s name, yet one more player, to that long list of spiritual guides that this church has been lucky enough to hold dear in its evolution.

My apologies to those who have not yet heard the long and interesting tale of all that went on that August in 1629. I’ll put a shameless plug in here for the fabulous tours organized by Penny Bigmore, Alicia Diozzi, Jerrie Hildebrand, and many, many others as an option for learning all about it. We hope you’ll join us and bring your friends.

For now, consider the list of our first four English Puritan ministers. All deeply faithful men, they were: Samuel Skelton and Francis Higginson, Roger Williams and Hugh Peter. From our nonconformists to a proud conformer with an outspoken activist in between. Their stories would take more time than we have here today, but they set the initial conditions not just of this church but of this country. Understanding the tenure of these individuals sheds light on how yesterday shows itself in today.

And then, we are grateful to King Charles the 1st and his granting of the Massachusetts Bay Charter.

There is another flap of butterfly wings. We realize, along with Samuel Eliot Morison in his Maritime History of Massachusetts:

“With but a tithe of the bounty that Nature grants more favored lands, the Puritan settlers made their land the most fruitful not only in things of the spirit, but in material wealth.” (Morison 7)

Some of our Founders were called the Old Planters. We’ll hear more about them a little later. For now, let’s remember that they came to “found a New England, purged of Old England’s corruptions, but preserving all her goodly heritage. It wasn’t long, however, before farming gave way to exploiting the riches of the sea.

And the years passed, and the butterfly fluttered. The members of the First Church in Salem were among the proudest and most productive of the maritime trade of this nation. It sounds so simple. A nice, neat action of a King to empower his people to make choices so that his colonial project could thrive in keeping with the laws and practices of Mother England. To ensure his project would work, his charter gave our founders enough autonomy to control their destiny. No dust settled on our Founders as they set about shaping a world around the practicalities and economics of their time. (7:20)

What of those initial conditions do we see in our actions in 2025, and how did one thing lead to the next? We know it wasn’t always fun and games. Difficult choices had to be made, values were tested, character shaped, and actions distilled into the basic truths we hold dear today.

For more than 13 generations, we have known as members of this church that we inherited the dreams of our Founders. We are part of a legacy that made meaningful contributions to the founding of this country, and we are not yet done. The First Church in Salem continues today and into tomorrow as much because of the challenges it faced across the years as well as the moments of glory it celebrates.

Our Founders set great things in motion. The long and eventful history of this church requires us to show up and commit one week to the next to fulfilling the heritage of the Founders’ unfulfilled projects.

As it is written in the covenant, being together is the key. So, as we work this year to welcome and embrace Reverend Danielle, let’s make the most of what was obvious when she visited us in June and what we witnessed during her ordination, thanks to the miracle of Zoom.

Reverend Danielle made it clear that our voices matter to her. She’s a good listener, and we already know we are very good talkers. We’re a good match. As 2025 gives way to 2026, let’s walk, talk, sing, and listen together. Being together makes all the difference.