Dear friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Maryland has arguably the most colorful state bird in the nation- the Baltimore Oriole. The oriole’s striking orange-and-black plumage makes it one of the most recognizable and beloved. In the early 1700’s, the English naturalist Mark Catesby visited eastern North America and reported that people in Virginia and Maryland called this species “the Baltimore-Bird” because the males wore the orange and black colors found on the Maryland Colony’s founder Lord Baltimore’s family coat of arms. Perhaps as colorful as the oriole’s plumage was Lord Baltimore audacious dream for his colony.  In a world where kings and queens determined the religion of their subject, Lord Baltimore believe that faith was a matter of conscience and that Roman Catholics and Protestant could live peacefully and work amicably together.

In 1534, when King Henry VIII established the Church of England making himself sovereign of the Church, Roman Catholics and Catholicism didn’t disappear from English soil. In fact, after Henry VIII’s reign, England would have two openly Catholic monarchs. In 1553, Mary I, Henry’s daughter, who would be known in history as Bloody Mary, attempted to reverse the reformation her father began. She launched a campaign which executed hundreds prominent Protestants by burning.  When Mary’s half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I, was crowned and Protestants regained control, various measures were introduced to suppress Catholicism. The great fear was that Catholics would be loyal to the pope rather than the crown, and so Catholics were not allowed to hold public office.

George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore was the son of a Catholic Yorkshire gentleman of small means, had served as the principal Secretary of State for the Protestant King James I, and for his successful service to the crown, he had been made a nobleman, the Baron of Baltimore, with the heraldic colors of orange and black. In 1625 during the reign of Charles I, however, Calvert announced his conversion-or reconversion-to the Catholic faith which ended his public career forever.  This left him free to pursue the dream of a colony in the New World. Calvert had planned and financed a small settlement in Newfoundland called Avalon where Romans Catholics and others fleeing religious persecution could find refuge. In 1627 he moved there himself, but finding the cold unbearable, he petitioned for land from King Charles I further south. The king gave Calvert the territory adjoining Virginia along the Chesapeake Bay north of the Potomac River.  It was to be a self- governing palatinate under the Lord Baltimore with no state religion. It would be named Maryland after Charles I’s wife, Henritta Maria. Regrettably, George Calvert died before the colony was established, but his son Cecil, the 2^nd Lord Baltimore inherited the grant and his father’s dream of a religiously tolerant colony.

This morning’s bulletin cover is an allegorical depiction of the “The Founding of Maryland” on March 25, 1634 at the present day St. Mary’s City. The painter Tompkins Harrison Matteson colorfully combined the actual historical events with a romanticized vision George Calverts’s dream. Rather than portraying the actual day, this painting commemorates the defining event in the colony’s history, the passing of the Toleration Act or the Act Concerning Religion of 1649. This all took place, 15 years after the settlers had landed in Maryland.  Although Matteson portrayed real historical figures, they were never all together at the same time, and certainly not at its founding. Among these persons is Cecil Calvert, a devout Roman Catholic at the center the Second Lord Baltimore. He is seen handing the Maryland Toleration Act over to the Protestant Colonial Governor William Stone.  Lord Baltimore never came to Maryland, but his brother Leonard served as the governor of the colony until his death. Standing next to Governor Stone is the Jesuit Father Andrew White. He was there in 1634 to establish the Catholic Church, but he had left the colony by 1645. Still the painting, the Founding of Maryland, is remembered as a commemoration of the first law in North America requiring religious tolerance for Christians. “no person or persons  professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be anyways troubled, molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof within this Province …”

Now you may be wondering, why was it necessary to write such a religious law for a colony in America at that time? Earlier that year, on January 30 1649, the politics of England and the colony changed. On that day, Charles I, king of England, was executed by his own people, a deed that threatened the whole institution of monarchy. To many, the act was a social, political, economic, and religious earthquake. These fearful and conservative men sincerely believed that the very foundations of civilization were crumbling. And at the forefront were the religious and political Puritans who wanted to cleanse the church and England of anything Roman Catholic. It was led by Oliver Cromwell.

It was evident to Cecil Calvert who was living in England that his father’s dream of mutual respect and tolerance would soon be challenged by the Puritans in the New World, so he sent forth from legislation to be discussed and passed by the colony’s leaders.  On April 2, 1649, at St. Mary’s City, the General Assembly of Maryland meeting of Governor Stone’s house, voted to enact Maryland Tolerance Act. Sadly, five years after its passage, the Act was repealed after Protestant commissioners appointed by Cromwell and the Parliament who took over the colonial government.  Roman Catholics were banned from practicing their faith publicly, but in 1661, after the death of Cromwell and the restoration of the monarchy, Lord Baltimore successfully regained control of Maryland’s government and the Toleration Act was restored.

Nearly 30 years later, in 1692, after the Glorious Revolution in England which forced the last Roman Catholic King James II to flee, the Protestant Revolution found its way to Maryland. The Toleration Act was once again nullified and Catholics were denied the right to vote. More dramatically, the new government stripped the 3^rd Lord Baltimore Charles and the Calvert family of their proprietary rights, making Maryland into a Royal Colony. The Church of England was made the official state religion, and the capital was moved from St. Mary’s City to Annapolis. To add further insult, ten years later in 1702, the Act to Prevent the Growth of Popery was enacted. No, not Pot Pouri, but Popery. This further disenfranchised Catholics by making it illegal for priests to perform public masses or run schools.

In an odd twist of fate, the 4^th Lord Baltimore, Benedict Leonard Calvert decided to reclaim the hereditary properties in Maryland, by converting to Protestantism. His devout Roman Catholic father disowned him for this act, but in February 1715, upon his father’s death, Benedict became the 4th Baron Baltimore. He immediately petitioned George I for the restoration of Maryland to his control. However, before the King could rule on the petition, the younger Baltimore died aged 36, outliving his father by just two months. Shortly afterwards the King restored the title to Maryland to Benedict Calvert’s young son Charles who was raised a Protestant.

In this morning’s gospel we read that the crowds who once heard Jesus in the synagogues, followed him and gathered about him as he taught along the Sea of Galilee.  The crowds grew so great that he got into a boat, pushed off from shore and sat there.  The whole crowd stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parables, saying, “A farmer went out to sow.”  Yes, Jesus likened God to a sower.  But Jesus didn’t stop there; surprisingly he invited all his hearers to follow the example of the sower.  You and I are included in that number. We too are invited to be God’s sowers of the seed.

George Calvert understood Jesus’ Parable of the Sower perhaps more personally than many of us. His father was a tenant farmer. He knew from his childhood that no farmer expects every single seed to take root, to germinate and to bring forth fruit.  He understood that some will be blown away by the wind, and some will fall into places where it cannot grow; but that does not stop him from sowing.  Nor does it diminish his hope that there will be a harvest one day- and neither should you.

There is an old saying, “Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.” My friends, that all begins with little deeds. None of us can accomplish all we would like to do.  You can’t sow every field you see. But you can drop a few seeds by the way as you pass along the way. Indeed, through the little acts of love and charity that you perform, the words that are said, God good seeds is planted.  There is no seed so small that it does not propagate and multiply itself. That small seed that seems almost nothing in the great scheme of things can become a harvest – thirty, sixty or a hundred times what we have sown. The Sower trusts in the power of the seed and God’s abiding hand.

Unfortunately, life is often dominated by failure, discouragement and questions- even with those we know and love. Perhaps you have tried so hard to show kindness and charity to others, but you wonder if you are merely casting seed upon the wind. Some of the seed lands on the beaten path.  Your witness simply passes over those you would help, but their minds and hearts are closed.   Prejudice, pride and personal history can erect a barrier with an unteachable spirit. Perhaps your witness falls upon shallow ground.  Friends and neighbors are at the mercy of every craze.  They are enthusiastic for a while, they are excited and active, and then one day, they move on suddenly to something new.  Or perhaps your witness falls upon thorny ground.  Your loved ones have so many interests that far too often the most important things in life get crowded out.  Too busy to pray, to worship together, to spend time with family. If you are blessed, your witness lands as seed on good soil.  The mind of the hearer is open, he is prepared to hear and willing to learn, he understands and then translates his hearing into action.  Then the miracle occurs. The promising good seed becomes the harvest one hundredfold.  That is encouragement for us all.

My friends, you cannot look for quick results.  The harvest may not come tomorrow, in the fall, or next year. Indeed, we may not see the final harvest. Thankfully, it does not all depend on you and me! Understand me right: it is a privilege to be called to be partner with God in his work in the world.  And it’s your privilege and invitation as well.. If you don’t fulfill your calling, sowing the seeds, some things simply will not get done. God needs you, he needs your hands, your heart, your sweat and your toil, for the work of his kingdom Remember, it’s just the little things you and I have been called to do.  And then you must simply “Leave the rest to God.”

Lord Baltimore’s dream of a refuge in the English Americas for Roman Catholics would not come in his lifetime The right to vote and worship freely would not be restored until 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed and the Calvert’s own family proprietary government would end. Interestingly, only one of 56 signatories of the Declaration of Independence was Roman Catholic and that was Charles Caroll of Carollton.  He was a lawyer and a planter, and reportedly, the wealthiest man in America. He could not vote, practice law, nor hold public office, but he was selected to represent the Maryland Colony to the 2^nd Continental Congress because his political beliefs echoed the thoughts of his fellow colonists.  In Baltimore in 1832, at age 95, he was the last of signers of the Declaration of Independence to pass away. The seed of the Sower was finally harvested. Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.