Sermons

Jan 20 - The Rev. Brian C. Taylor - The Second Sunday of Epiphany

2 Epiphany, January 20 2008
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42

This is part one of a two-part sermon. I’d like to talk these two Sundays about where I think God might be calling us to go next in our continuing evolution as a community. I’m leading up to next week, our Annual Parish Meeting, and I felt I needed more than just one sermon to address this topic.

The scripture readings for these two weeks are all about being called. Today God calls Israel to be a light to the nations; Paul is called to be an apostle and the members of the church in Corinth are called to be saints; Andrew and Simon Peter are called to be disciples of Jesus.

Every person of faith is called. Each of us is called to be in relationship with our Creator; we are called to grow spiritually; and we are called to serve our brothers and sisters in this world. In our own unique ways, we are each called to be a light to the world.

What is true of every individual is also true of every faith community, including St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church. We are called to be in relationship with God together; we are called to grow spiritually together; and we are called to serve others together. As a community, we are called to be a light to the world.

So much for generalities: what are the specifics of that call, today, for us as a parish? Well, to answer that, it might help to have some context. We are now 58 years old, and have a long history of being a diverse place, with a strong emphasis on helping our individual members live out their spirituality in authentic ways. This is an important part of our corporate vocation, and we will continue to live into that call.

But I believe another calling is now before us. If we respond to this calling, we will even more of a light to our diocese, our city, and beyond, for generations to come.

Picture, if you will, a solid foundation of hundreds of faithful individuals. That’s what we are: a strong bedrock of people who have, for years, been growing spiritually in an atmosphere that is forward-thinking and yet traditional, open-minded, diverse, challenging, real.

Now picture us working together to build on top of this foundation a kind of structure that houses activities that are accessible, well-organized and well-funded, all designed to help people move more deeply into faith and service. Over decades to come, people enter this structure and are welcomed into these activities, welcomed into a community that not only encourages them to grow spiritually, but knows how to help them grow.

I’m asking you to imagine broadening our emphasis on faith development by individuals, to emphasize faith development through community. I’m asking you to imagine more effective ministries. I’m saying we are called to more mature ministry that will be characterized by accessibility, depth, and consistency. In short, it is time to join our individual lights together, in order to be a more powerful combined light to the world.

Two years ago, your Vestry and I had a vision of significantly developing our education, spirituality, fellowship, and outreach. We felt it was time to grow up, as it were, from a parish that had a rather informal and spotty history of program development to a higher and more formal level of thoughtful planning and organization.

And so we searched for an Associate Rector who could help us fulfill this vision. We found Fr. Christopher McLaren, who obviously has tremendous gifts in this area, among others. He has worked very hard with many of you to do what we’ve asked him to do. People are definitely responding; the need for what we are doing is made obvious by the large number of people who are participating in new offerings. It’s working.

But here’s the rub: our resources – in the form of committed volunteer leadership, office staff, materials, and physical space – have not caught up yet with our vision; they have not yet caught up with the leadership we have in Fr. Christopher.

And so he frequently puts together brochures himself, makes reminder calls, sets up video players, and scrambles to make sure people are there to help run his programs. Every day he runs into limitations in office technology and available staff time. He has to creatively juggle the use of very limited meeting space for 7 different classes on Sunday for various ages, and numerous events during the week and on Saturdays. We’re thin on volunteer leadership, staff, materials, and physical space. Our resources have not yet caught up with what we are called to do, and what we are, in fact, doing.

This is a good problem to have. Leadership should always be a little in front of what is currently possible. Our job is to push the envelope. A parish should never have all the space and money it needs; these are signs of a community that doesn’t challenge itself enough.

I’m also certain that God eventually provides us with the resources to do what he calls us to do. But sometimes we have to do some self-examination to access those resources. Sometimes we have to change our habits.

One of the habits that I think we need to change is to become more realistic about what it takes to provide consistent and effective programs that help people grow in their faith. We begin with this by each one of us asking ourselves whether this is something we value. If we do value it, we then ask if we are willing to commit to it. And what would this commitment, this habit of realism, look like?

More of us will make the connection between the enthusiasm and gratitude we feel for this place and what it takes to run it. More of us will look at the percentage of our monthly income that we give to this parish and see if it accurately reflects the importance that this community has in our lives every month. More of us will look at our investments, wills, and other potential for planned giving to see how we might benefit this community in significant, long-lasting ways. More of us will offer our personal gifts and our time and volunteer to take full responsibility for an area of ministry. More of us will look beyond our own individual spiritual growth and want to provide the same for others not yet here, not yet even born.

The result of this new realism will be powerful; it will enable us to be a stronger, more effective light to the world, through the generations to come, beyond the period of time that you and I are here.

This will not happen overnight. The culture of a parish changes slowly. But this is exactly the right time in our history to begin, because we’ve got a stable, healthy, happy, generous, involved, and sizeable membership. We have strong lay and clergy leadership; and, most of all, we have a solid spiritual foundation. Laid before us is a golden opportunity, and this doesn’t come along too often. Let’s take advantage of it.

We are called, like Isaiah, like Israel, like the church in Corinth, and like all the saints, to be a light to the world. We need resources to live into the next level of this calling. We need to improve our physical facility, we need more lay leadership to step up, we need to add a little staffing, we need to bump up our operating budget and add depth to our endowment. None of these are dramatic in themselves, but they add up.

I’m not talking about radically changing who we are, but simply maturing in how we do church. We can do this. But it will take a change of outlook, a change of culture, a change of many individual habits.

So let’s keep talking to one another about this over the months ahead. For I’ve discovered that when some of us begin putting something positive out into the middle of the community, when we pray about it regularly as individuals and as a group, when we live with the question and don’t settle for easy answers, when we keep talking, things begin to shift. The Spirit moves among us, and we are changed in surprising ways that we cannot plan out ahead of time. The people of God come through.

I trust the process, and I trust that God will provide us what we need to fulfill what we are called to do, if it truly is of God, and if we respond to that call.