Being Here, Being Light: Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany, and annual meeting

The passage from Matthew’s gospel that we heard today lends itself to a lot of possibilities in this season of annual meetings. It’s also a happy coincidence that the intersection of our Martin Luther King holiday coincides with preparing for our Annual Meeting, especially in terms of embracing a concept of the Beloved Community that was so espoused by Dr. King, and that grew out of his deep relationship with God and with scripture. His description of the Beloved Community is what we at St. Martin’s aspire to be: a light to all, a place where peace and justice are taken seriously and where ministering to each other and our neighbors is the highest ideal.

We are a parish rooted in this time and this place, facing the hoped for building of the kingdom of heaven, as Matthew puts it. But when Matthew talks about the “kingdom of heaven,” he is talking about a society right here, right now—not off in the afterlife. Jesus’s hometown was Nazareth, a landlocked village in the center of northern Israel—today, it is predominately Arab. Here we see Jesus move his home base to Capernaum, a fishing village along the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee, in the ancestral lands of Zebulon and Naphtali.

Capernaum, as an outpost on the frontier with Syria, was tightly under the control of Rome, and the synagogue there was built through a gift of a centurion who was a God-fearer. So where we just read about a church in Corinth being challenged by diversity, in our gospel we see Jesus in a town of ancient Jewish heritage under Roman rule. This area was called “Galilee of the Gentiles”—in our reading from Isaiah 9:1, above, it was called “Galilee of the nations” to reflect the diversity of peoples who lived there, either as conqueror or as the conquered. Thus, continuing our Epiphany message of the universality of Jesus’s mission, we have Jesus choosing to start his ministry in a diverse community, one that had known nothing but oppression and the destruction that is the result of that, first from the Assyrians, and then from Rome. 

It is in this improbable place that Jesus begins his public ministry, and where Jesus calls his first disciples. I am convinced it is a vital thing to point out, because it leads us to consider this vital question: how does our location in this place shape our understanding of our witness to Christ and ministry to our neighbors here at St. Martin’s? I ask you to ponder that as we review the previous year.

I want you all to consider that this is holy ground that we stand on. This building is the center of our spiritual and worship lives. It is where we learn together, and study scripture. It is where we grow hundreds of pounds of produce each year to feed the hungry. It is where we offer hospitality to the community. It is where our neighbors vote. It is where we celebrate the lives of our beloved friends and family who have died, and it is where many of our loved ones have their final resting places.

This is sacred ground, holy ground, hallowed with the prayers and praises and laments of thousands of voices and hearts over the decades. This building has been entrusted to us by the diocese, and more importantly by the generations before us who were instrumental in moving this community from borrowed space in an elementary school to the beautiful worship and meeting space we now care for. It is the home base for pastoral care and for our amazing team of lay Eucharistic visitors who help care for the spiritual needs of those in our parish who cannot attend worship. In short, it is where, just like in our reading from Matthew’s gospel today, we engage in the same holy work that Jesus engaged in: teaching, proclaiming the kingdom of God coming near, and healing those who are in pain, sorrow, or distress. I am particularly indebted to Lincoln Drake, Tom Warrington, and Kirt Beckman fort their incredible work taking care of this facility and her aging systems.

In the last year, this parish has made some important changes. We are in the process of replacing the roof, thanks to an insurance settlement, and the work is ongoing due to that same lovely St. Louis weather that vacillates between freezes and roasting. have begun to put in place a series of measures to make the building more secure. We moved our 10:15 service to 10:30, which has been a relief for your priest. Our music program has benefitted from being fully funded in the budget: our choir has grown, and Denise’s network of guest musicians from both within and outside the parish have worked together to create some outstanding moments in our worship life, especially at Easter and Christmas. Our incredible altar guild, led by Ruth Minster, continues to make sure our worship is beautiful and reverent, and they tend to the worship needs of this parish with incredible devotion. 

Over the course of 2019, St. Martin’s held over 200 services from gatherings here at church or at the Fountains to taking communion to people in their homes or in the hospital, stopped only by that pernicious weather. We have offered communion almost 6500 times. We celebrated the lives of beloved parishioners and friends at 7 funerals. We baptized 2 babies and 2 adults. We celebrated a marriage. At our rescheduled Bishop’s visitation, we confirmed or received 11 members of St. Martin’s, six youth and five adults. We already have a new confirmation class starting up, with at least six people interested in formally joining the Episcopal church through this beloved community. We’ve had three book studies led by Pastor Sally, who has shared her gifts with us with beautiful spirit and generosity.

As the great Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple noted, “The Church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of thoise who are not its members.” We finally got outreach funds to both Cuba and Puerto Rico after months of effort. We have provided aid and comfort to our neighbors who have benefited from the priest’s discretionary fund, and I give thanks to the wonderful women who helped put on the Christmas Bazaar and Bake Sale to help replenish and strengthen this fund.

Last winter, we offered our first ever Ashes to Go station out on Clayton Road, and over 50 cars stopped to pray with me during the course of Ash Wednesday in between services. One woman stopped, and later came back with her entire family, including her daughter, who had never had the imposition of ashes before. Several people shared that this was the first religious action that they had participated in years due to previous painful experiences with organized religion. It was a wonderful witness to our community, and a wonderful way to start Lent with those who might otherwise have not been invited to participate in this solemn ritual.

We have maintained a nursery to be inviting and welcoming to young families, and Sherrie Algren continues to oversee children’s ministries with a dedicated an varied cohort of volunteers, hosting Breakfast with the Bunny near Easter, a vibrant Vacation Bible School in July filled with crafts, music and stories, as well as Breakfast with St. Nicholas. We have a vibrant soft space for worship in the nave, and a new soothing space for people of all age to be able to sit, pray, play, and read out in the narthex. We had a fantastic Trunk or Treat and Garden Harvest Festival just before Halloween, organized by Chelsea Raiche and other garden committee members.

In late spring, a core group of parishioners attended training in the Invite, Welcome, Connect ministry, and several training sessions were held to disseminate the principles behind this ministry as widely as possible. 

Under the leadership of Ruby Downs and Laura Limbaugh, we sold St. Martin’s shirts and used an investment from the budget to host a wonderful Homecoming Celebration in September. It is my hope that all of us will take responsibility for inviting friends and neighbors to St. Martin’s and commit to the ongoing support of this ministry, not just for the sake of this parish, but for the sake of the gospel, which calls us to make disciples for the life of the world.

Just as our gospel passage today depicts Jesus going to people where they are, so too we are called to not sit back and wait for folks to come to us, but to share the good news of God’s love with those around us, and invite them to “Come and see” what the Way of Jesusis all about as a force for change in the world, as we talked about last Sunday.

Our facility continues to be a central location for diocesan events, and that is part of what makes our physical plant a blessing. We host Standing Committee each month, and during the bishop’s search we hosted Search Committee and Transition Committee events, as well as an all-diocesan clergy meeting in March. We also hosted joint social justice meetings with our neighbors at St. Timothy’s as well as an outstanding Syrian dinner. We share our space with AA groups and the River Blenders, and as we get ready to restart the capital campaign that this parish family put aside in late 2017, we look to making our spaces more inviting in order to be able to serve this congregation, this diocese, and the community in an even greater capacity.

We continue to face budget shortfalls, which is an ongoing source of concern for all of us. Our capital campaign and our new roof will help alleviate some of the uncertainty in our budget, by providing funds to replace systems that we live in fear of failing—and when they have done so in the last 20 years, that replacement has had to come out of our investment fund. Your treasurer, Bob Ecker, your steadfast and faithful vestry, your stewardship leadership led by Steve Brunkhorst and Ralph Trieschmann and all the trail bosses have done an outstanding job in seeking to connect with every member of St. Martin’s and encourage the sharing of information and goals to move us toward better stewardship and sharing of our resources for the good of the overall community.

In the late summer, our communications director, Jill Gould, left us for full time employment in the business world, and we miss her very much and are so grateful for her gifts to us. But since then, we have revamped the Beacon to make it more user-friendly and comprehensive, and we are currently working on a revamped parish website which will be more nimble and easier to navigate and update. I continue to be indebted to both Janet Theiss and Wendy Sain for supporting this parish in its day to day needs and in helping me in my ministry to you all in ways both great and small.

These are only a few snapshots of the wonderful things going on here at St. Martin’s. We are here in this place for a reason. Jesus locates his ministry in a specific place at the start of it—where there are ordinary people living ordinary lives, working as fishermen there along the shore, wresting a hard living from a small lake.

St. Martin’s, too, just like Capernaum, is a place where God is fulfilling God’s promises, as our passage from Isaiah relates. Jesus doesn’t just call the perfect, but he does call everyday people to follow him and place his teachings of justice and healing at the core of their identities. Jesus continues to call us to use our gifts for the glory of God, and to be willing to meet people where they are and invite them into the fellowship of faith.

As we look to the coming year, I want to challenge us all to wonder at the steadfast faithfulness of God beside us throughout our joys as well as our pains. May we consider how we understand the call that each of us receives from Jesus today. How do we understand following Jesus as a core part of our identity?

More specifically, how do we grow into deeper faithfulness and mindfulness with the three core parts of Jesus’s mission as laid out in today’s gospel? 

• How do we bring light to those in darkness?
• How do we announce the coming of the reign of God and call ourselves and the world to turn our minds toward God’s reign in our own lives, what is called “repentance?”
• How do we follow Jesus in his example as a human perfectly aligned with God’s dream for creation as disciples, and call others to discipleship?

I am convinced that each and every person sitting in a pew is there because God’s call to all humanity is working within them in some way. Jesus is still calling his followers to share in the work that makes the kingdom of heaven visible and real in the eyes of the world. Let us join together and stand together in faith as we seek to make St. Martin’s ever stronger in its witness and ministry in the year ahead.

Amen.

Preached at the 9:00 am Eucharist at the start of the 2020 annual meeting, St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 5-13
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23