17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 22C (for St. Anne's Tifton)

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 22C October 6, 2019 What a delight it is to be with you today here at St. Anne’s! I have heard so many wonderful things about you from my friend Lonnie Lacy. His love for you and your love for him clearly shine through in the way that he talks about y’all. I have also heard that St. Anne’s is a special place here in the diocese of Georgia. Your mutual love and affection for each other is unique and well-known, and I appreciate how y’all have fun together. You can often tell the health of a congregation by how they play together, how they have fun, and y’all are certainly a healthy, and fun-loving bunch—people after my own heart! I’m here today, as I’m sure you well know, as your guest preacher for Consecration Sunday. You have been hearing talks these last few weeks about the importance of giving in the life of St. Anne’s. You have been reminded that each of us is made in the image and likeness of God; that it is God’s very nature to give and to give joyfully with abundance and abandon. And you have heard that as those who are made in the image and likeness of God, we also need to give-as a part of our relationship with God and each other and as a practice of gratitude for all the good gifts God has given us. Y’all know this; you remember this. So today, instead of talking about giving, I’m going to talk about faith. Because I know all of you find yourselves in a curious and uncertain position in this season of life at St. Anne’s. Your beloved rector is on the slate for the next bishop of Georgia (and that is both exciting and terrifying for all of us that know and love him!), and none of us knows what is going to happen in the future. I would imagine that there is some anxiety in all your hearts over this around the uncertainty for your future together, and I would imagine that it is tempting to wait and see what happens, to live your lives in a sort of holding pattern until after November 15th and 16th. Many years ago, when I was in my early 20’s, I was riding in my friend’s car on a rainy January 1st crossing Lake Ponchatrain—that huge lake that borders New Orleans—and I was wretchedly miserable. My friends and I had celebrated New Year’s with another friend in New Orleans, and we were headed back home; for my friends that meant returning to their apartment in Memphis, but for me that meant returning to my childhood bedroom at my parents’ home. I had come home from college with the certainty that I was called to be a priest. But often the church moves much more slowly than we would like it to, and I was left waiting for an extra year to learn whether or not I could go to seminary. So, I got a pretty good job at a local non-profit, and I came up with the very sensible plan that I would live at my parents’ house and save all my money to go to seminary sometime in the future. On New Year’s Day, as I was headed home to that reality, I realized that I was miserable, and as I looked out at the gray day and watched the rain droplets blur together on the outside of the car window, I had an epiphany, a realization, a manifestation of the wisdom of God in my life. I realized that the reason I was so wretchedly miserable wasn’t because I was living in my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house. It was because I was living my life as if it was on hold, as if the present did not really matter. I was basing all the choices of my life on some unpromised future, and I realized, in that moment, that that wasn’t really faith or a faithful life. It was not really discipleship. So I went to work on Monday determined to ask some of the other 20 somethings if they knew of anyone looking for a roommate. The first person I encountered was the Executive Director’s daughter, who was volunteering as receptionist and who I didn’t know very well. When I asked her if she knew anyone who was looking for a roommate, she looked stunned, and then she told me that she needed a roommate. So began our friendship, and while I did not go to seminary with as much money as I could have saved if I had stayed in my childhood bedroom, the three years between college and seminary for me that would have seemed like an interminable sentence passed with many adventures and mis-adventures, life-learnings and companionship. Those years and those experiences became an essential part of the priest and person I am today. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus’s disciples are feeling overwhelmed by what they think are the demands of discipleship. And so they cry out to Jesus and say, “Increase our faith.” Now it’s easy to read Jesus’s response to them as rather harsh, but what if, instead, we hear him saying it, as one who loves them and knowns them, as one who knows what they are fully capable of and is actually cheering them on? You have everything that you need, he is telling them. And now is the needy time. You just need to show up and do what you know you are supposed to do, what you need to do in order to live fuller lives of faith and discipleship. Because faith is not just saying “I believe.” It is living as if “I believe that…” I believe that God is still at work in the world; I believe that all the suffering will one day be redeemed; I believe that love is stronger than anything, even death; I believe that God is with us in our hope and in our fear, in our comfortable times and in our anxious and uncertain times. Faith is so much more than just showing up and going through the motions. Practicing our faith means choosing a spot to be rooted in and to grow in that spot, in giving, in prayer, in good works. You have chosen this unique community of St. Anne’s to be rooted in; God is with you and you have absolutely everything you need, no matter what happens. You just need to show up and do what you know you need to do. May you live your life in the light of that and give in gratitude for God’s good gifts. One of the things that my friends know about me is that life often reminds me of words to a song, and when that happens, I am known to break out in song to share the lyrics. (I know I’m not the only one to do this.) Your life here together in this present moment reminds me of a song, and so today, I want to teach you this song, so we can sing it together as you dwell in this unique season in this unique place. It’s a really simple song—the words are “Jesus, won’t you come by here. Oh, Jesus, won’t you come by here. Jesus won’t you come by here. And then you repeat it. It goes like this. Ok, let’s try it. The second verse is “Now, it is the needy time. Now, it is the needy time. Jesus won’t you come by here.” And you repeat that. Let’s try it. Ok, let’s put it all together. Today is the day in the life of St. Anne’s when you will practice your faith and make your commitment in your discipleship of Jesus Christ to be rooted and to continue to grow in this place, specifically in the area of giving. After communion is over, we’re going to end the service slightly differently today. I’ll just say a couple of more words, and then (the ushers?) will pass out the Consecration Sunday commitment cards to each individual or family here. I may start singing that little song we just sang, and you’ll be filling out the cards, prayerfully considering all that you have heard leading up to this day and the work you have done on your own—remembering the need of each of us to give, the importance of this community of faith in your life and in your own faith, considering what percentage of your income you currently give to God and if that is reflective of your gratitude, of the practice of your faith. Then, when you are finished filling out your card, you will bring it up to and place it on the altar as an offering to God of your gratitude and as a symbol of your faith, and then you can go on out to the Consecration Sunday lunch. God has already given you absolutely everything you need. And now is the needy time. Amen. Addendum for Consecration Sunday: I remember someone once saying, “Give until it feels good.” Now that can’t always be accomplished in one year for everyone, but for some people it can. Do what you can today to make feeling good about your giving a reality. As the ushers begin to pass out the Consecration Sunday commitment cards, I invite you to pray with your card, to think of this special place and the commitment that you can make to your common life here--to the work that y’all, the people of God, are already doing here to build up the kingdom of God in Tift County Georgia and beyond. Think about the ways this place has blessed you, and fill out your card as an expression of your faith.