Sermon at St. Thomas

by Lynn E. Cunningham

1/15/06

Epiphany 2

I Sam 3:1-20

I Cor 6:11b-20

John 1:43-51

1.         In my sermon two weeks ago I talked about Kenny Chesney’s song, “you had me from hello”, and how sometimes love, human or divine, can start in a sudden moment. I talked about how intertwined human love with divine love can be, and how the Holy One comes into a person’s life and calls them, sometimes in sudden and unexpected ways.

2.         The mysterious calling of young Samuel to be the prophet of the Lord, and Jesus’ calling of Nathanael to be his disciple, are two more examples of this sudden, and irresistable calling of someone to let the Holy One come into their life.

3.         Several of you pointed out that Kenny Chesney broke up with musical star girlfriend, Renee Zellweger, a few months after he wrote the song.  Their love didn’t last too long, it seems.

4.         Well, what does it take to help make love last?

5.         Even in the Bible stories, lovers fall out with each other. Remember I mentioned in that sermon how the voice of Yahweh called to Moses out of a cloud on the sacred mountain, and Moses was smitten by his love for Yahweh? Do you remember Bob Grubb reading that passage so beautifully?

6.         Well, you read a bit farther along in the story Moses had some times of falling out with God.  Yahweh finally told Moses that he would die before the people entered the promised land, because at one point, Moses had disobeyed the Lord. A long term loving relationship takes some work, some efforts to grow and change.  Long term relationships call for you and your beloved to change and grow as time goes on, as Moses and Yahweh had to do in working on their relationship!

7.         I ended that sermon by inviting you in the coming year to let St. Thomas be a community where you can deepen your understanding of the relationship between your own soul and God, the Beloved One. 

8.         Turning suddenly to respond to the love of God, as Samuel and Nathanael do in two of our passages assigned for today is sometimes called conversion.  But many Christians have noted that conversion is not just a one time thing, not just Kenny Chesney’s first hello, but an ongoing journey of prayer, and study, and reflection, and close conversation with others.

a.         Continual conversion is needed, it seems, if during this life you and I are to come closer to God, even as God seeks to bring us closer.

b.         Put another way, after the epiphany, comes discipleship.

c.         This morning I want to spend a few minutes starting your thinking on the issues that will come up at the parish retreat Sunday after next.  Those issues are part of what it means to be disciples in this community of St. Thomas.

9.         If conversion to Christ is not just a one time thing, but is an ongoing journey of prayer, study and reflection, this retreat offers you and everyone here some time to reflect on how to let the Holy One more deeply into our communal life.

10.       Down through Christian history, one way of living designed to encourage continual conversion is to follow a monastic rule, such as the Rule of St. Benedict.  The Rule prescribes a code of daily round of living and prayer designed to encourage continual conversion of the monk’s soul to come closer to God.  St. Thomas is not a monastery --- as you may have noticed! --- We have not vowed to follow a monastic Rule governing our daily relations with one another.

11.       But the conversion of behavior, the redirection of the inward life of the spirit more closely to God, is something that matters very much to most of you, although I have rarely heard that language used for this here.[1]

12.       I would like to invite you in our retreat Sunday after next to approach the issues on the table not as if it were a city council meeting addressing governmental issues facing the town fo Dubois.

13.       I invite instead prayerful engagement with how to open our community more deeply to the work of the Holy Spirit.

14.       I have raised up three issues

a.         Parish growth, building use, and the opportunity shop and youth ministry.

b.         Phrased this way, these issues may sound more technical, and less prayerful.  But let’s use the phrasing for now.

And, actually, you all have raised these issues up, and I am really just mirroring them back to you.

Let’s take the parish growth first: some factual background.

c.         About 45 people attend our Sunday service during the winter, and about 120 households are on our parish mailing list.

d.         Church attendance has stayed generally steady over the past 10 or more years.

e.         In earlier decades, this was the only church in town, but now there are about ten other churches.

f.          About 1,000 people live in Dubois itself, and maybe another 1,000 to 1,500 people live nearby Dubois.  Maybe 2500 people in all.

g.         If 10 percent of this population were to come to church, that would mean 250 people, or five times our current attendance. Is 250 people a reasonable goal?

h.         Our church here holds about 120 worshipers maximum.

i.          But these are the externals. 

j.          How do you and I as members of this congregation need to change to open up the congregation to welcoming more people?

k.         At the retreat, I plan to share with you some procedures that have worked in other congregations for increasing membership.

l.          But before the retreat, I propose that you reflect on what might you most want to share with newcomers to our community?

m.        What do you most want to hold onto if the church grows in size?

n.         Bring to the retreat your reflections on what do you want to share and what do you want to preserve in the face of change?

A second issue: the Opportunity Shop and the related youth ministry:

o.         A proposal for a second hand thrift store was in the works when I first interviewed here last December, 2004.

p.         Ministry to young people was high on the list, as well.

q.         To bring these two interrelated ministries into being is going to take lots of volunteer time. Lots of my time.  Funds will have to be raised. And these ministries will change in some ways the way the parish operates. 

r.          The rewards for doing them, however, are enormous.  The poor will be better clothed, the hungry fed better, those needing help with the way they live will have less expensive access to affordable household goods and to better goods.  In an economy that is particularly rough on lower income families, and Dubois has plenty of them, the Opp Shop will be a godsend. 

s.         And the youth ministry. Let me tell you a little story.  I came to work as the chore boy at the T Cross in 1963.  Helping Florence Gantenbein out in the kitchen work and keeping the cabins supplied with firewood.  It was great fun.  I asked Mr. And Mrs. Cox, the owners then, why they did not hire boys my age from Dubois, and she said essentially that the kids from town did not make very good workers at the T Cross.  Since 1962 I have heard that story over and over again from the local ranch managers.  Get college kids from back east, they say, and don’t hire the local boys and girls.  They are not responsible, or words to that effect. 

t.          What if we had a youth ministry that could change that perception?  What if 5 years from now all the ranch manages were saying, well, I always try to hire local youth, because they really bring something good to my ranch?  A youth ministry can help redirect the lives of many young people in this town. The diocesan strategy to bring more and better youth ministry into being all around this state will be presented at the retreat.  The strategy is called Wind and Wings.

u.         In preparation for the retreat, I ask you to reflect on your own youth and what guided you into a better way.  And let’s try to create that process here in Dubois.

v.         I ask you to reflect before the retreat by looking at the inward realities of these two ministries: how will they change the way you are?  How will they bring the Holy Spirit more deeply into your life?

Finally, the third issue: our building use.

w.        St Thomas now owns and uses five buildings, plus the shed behind the Stewardship house.

x.         I personally have difficulty imagining a more sacred space than the church we are worshiping in this morning. 

y.         But all space is sacred.  God declared everything “good”, in the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis.

z.         Our stewardship for these sacred spaces raises some questions: What are our current use of these properties?  Are we making the best use of these properties currently?  Bring your thoughts to the retreat.

The retreat agenda allows for about an hour to reflect on each of the issues. I propose that the time for each be used to start these conversations, and then let there be task forces working after the retreat as a matter of followup.

Perhaps you, like me, prefer the quieter parts of church life, such as worship, reflection and meditation, and bible study, as we did yesterday with Sylvia’s class on the Gospel of Mark.  But these three issues present their own challenge for reflection in action on what it means to come closer to God in this life.

For 100 years now, St. Thomas has been a haven for people seeking to know God better in their lives.  The retreat is a time for dealing with some of the practical realities of making sure that that haven can be here for many more years.

In Jesus name.  Amen.