Epiphany 3C sermon

Annual Parish meeting homily/Rector’s report January 27, 2013 This year, I want to try something a little different in terms of my homily at the Eucharist for the annual parish meeting and my rector’s report. The purpose of the homily is to preach the good news, the gospel, in connection with the readings assigned by our lectionary. It is to help people connect the good news of the scriptures and stories with the good news of their lives. And as I sat down to do this for this Sunday, I could not think of any better way to do this than to combine my rector’s report for our annual parish meeting with the homily, because it is all, truly, good news incarnate in the individuals and various members in the life of this church, what we call the body of Christ. The apostle Paul has an interesting image of the church in the portion of Corinthians that we read this morning. He talks about how we are like a body, each member having different functions and gifts, but how we are all interrelated and necessary for the body to work. Through baptism, we recognize our belonging in the body of Christ, and that is such good news, because we all so deeply long to belong. But an important part of that belonging isn’t just sitting in the pew during worship. Belonging, as we see in our baptismal covenant, means working actively as a part of the body to fulfill Jesus’s own mission. As another writer put it, “As far as 1st Corinthians is concerned, there is no such thing as belonging without participating. That [annuls] the nature of the body. A body does not work when one part checks out for a few years; not only will its function be unfulfilled, but the rest of the body will be thrown out of balance. Belonging is not a one-sided affair. We are given the gift of belonging at baptism, but we are also signing up for the responsibility of functioning as part of the body of Christ.”i Another way of putting it is that in our belonging, we are not called to believe a certain set of beliefs. In our belonging, we are called primarily to live like Christ. In our passage from Luke’s gospel this morning, we see Jesus, newly baptized and tempted in the wilderness, return to his home town of Nazareth, where he reads the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he publicly announces his mission or purpose: “The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” If we, as the church, are truly the body of Christ, then that must be our mission to. I recently read an article about the struggles of the church in this post-modern, post-Christian world. Because let’s face it, both the church universal, and our unique, individual church here have our problems, our struggles. But the writers of this article wrote about how we are called, in this challenging time which they called “the dark night of the church” to evaluate the gifts that we have been given and how we as the church might truly make a difference in this needy world. They write, “To put it somewhat differently, the purpose or end of the church is not something we choose or achieve. God gives us our purpose; it’s something we receive. It’s what we have been created for. In the dark night, we may discover or rediscover the end for which God has created the church. That means that our primary mission is to be the church: a community that worships the God of Jesus Christ in a culture that worships other gods.”ii This is good news! Because it is a call that we are living into and continue to grow into more deeply. This parish, this body of Christ, is very much being the church in this community. We are thriving and growing in all areas. Our average Sunday attendance has continued to increase. Listen to these numbers: in 2008, our average Sunday attendance was 125; 2009-139; 2010-131; 2011-148; 2012-150. After analyzing these numbers, I think that the jump is actually bigger between 2011 and this year than it looks (as opposed to the jump between 2010 and 2011) because of how Christmas eve fell and was counted as a Sunday service in 2011. Our programs are growing, and as you will see in Candace’s outreach report, we are making a tremendous difference in the lives of the needy people in our community. In addition to that, we collected an unprecedented amount of money and redistributed it through the parish discretionary account. In 2012, we collected and gave away $17,940.00 to people in need. A good portion of that money went to people in our own parish. This shows that there is great need in our parish and in our community, and that there is great eagerness in the members of this body of Christ to help people and to spread the good news and to be the church. Also, as you will hear from our treasurer, this is the first year since Katrina that we have ended the year with money in the bank, not having to borrow out of any of our savings. That has been thanks to your generosity, your belief in the work that we are doing together, and the hard work of our new fundraising committee. I don’t have the final numbers yet, but I believe that we will have an incredibly large class of people who will be baptized, confirmed, received, and reaffirmed when the Bishop comes later next month. We have so many visitors every Sunday, many of whom come back again and again and begin participating in the life of the church. I’ve often asked them how they came to St. Peter’s and why they stayed. Did you know that 3 out of 4 people who visit a church come because they are invited by someone they know? And that has been the case here as well. You are inviting people to church because you are excited about what we are doing here, and they stay because they are excited too. I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about this, and thinking about what we are doing as a church. First, I have realized that it is not really us; it is the Holy Spirit at work in this place. And that God is using our willingness to be a place where all are truly welcome for whom God has created them to be to bring new life in this church and in all of our lives. It hasn’t been easy; giving ourselves over to death and resurrection never is. But it is that which matters most in this life and how we find true meaning as people of faith and followers of Jesus Christ. I have said it before, but it is worth saying again in this particular moment. I believe that God continues to call us to be a resurrection community, a beacon of light and hope in our community. We are called by Jesus to live into his death and resurrection, to live as a church and as a people the truth that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead makes a difference in our lives and in our world because it proves the great lengths to which God is willing to go for us to truly belong to God. It proves that there is meaning to be found in giving our lives away. It proves, once and for all, that God’s love is stronger than anything, even death. So it’s all good news. But we still have plenty of work left to do, plenty of work in being the church God calls us to be. My one goal for the parish this year: to support the systems and structures through which you can be connected to the body of Christ that is the church, encouraging you to use your gifts for the spreading of the good news through the work of this church and in your own life and callings. I believe that this is a critical moment in the life of the church. It is essential for our leadership to grow our structure to accommodate our growing numbers, so that each of you is invited and encouraged to use your gifts as a full member of the body of Christ and fully participate in the life of this place. Thank you for being committed enough to the life of this parish to be here this morning. Thank you for your support, your energy, your prayers. Every day, I wake up grateful for the opportunity to walk this way with you. You all continue to teach me about what it means to be a resurrection people, and my life and my faith are so much richer and fuller because of you. i.Feasting on the Word. Ed Bartlett and Brown Taylor. Homiletical Perspective by Raewynne J. Whiteley p. 281 ii.Christian Century Dec. 26, 2012. Dark night of the church. By L. Roger Owens and Anthony B. Robinson. P 29