You all ready?
Every time you walk into this building, whether today
is the first time or you’ve been seeing it your whole life, you see this window
of Michael slaying the dragon: an icon of the words we heard today from the
Book of Revelation. Angels are messengers, remember. They offer a word from God
to God’s people. But the archangel Michael is no ordinary messenger! Michael is
something like the angelic version of St. George, taking on the dragon in
heaven, the dragon that represents the devil and evil and all that hurts or destroys
the creatures of this world. The window here depicts that story visually and calls
us back to these words from Revelation every week, whether or not we are
conscious of it.
I find the Book of Revelation endlessly fascinating.
But today isn’t the day for me to go all the way down that rabbit hole. I’ll
just say for today that I think the interpretive lens we need for reading
Revelation is something like how we read The Narnia Chronicles by C.S.
Lewis or Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter series
by J. K. Rowling. Which is to say that it is dangerous to read the Book of
Revelation literally as if it’s “predicting” some future date when the
world will come to an end. But it is important to take it seriously. What
it’s about is the cosmic battle between good and evil and Revelation insists
that in the end, good will triumph over evil. Michael defeats the dragon, i.e.
the devil, and there is no longer room for the evil one in heaven.
The challenge is that we are not so lucky on earth. So
we have to come to grips with, as the Baptismal Liturgy puts it, all that
hurts or destroys the creatures of God and draws us from the love of God. That’s
what evil does. It is real. But in the end, good will triumph on earth as it
already has in heaven. And so we do not need to be afraid. Michael’s victory (which
is of course part of the larger narrative of Christ’s victory over sin and
death) means that we can live with courage and faith and hope. In that end is
our beginning. Quite literally, in the life of this congregation, a new
beginning. We will have challenging days. But there is no need for despair. We
are a place of hope.
This beautiful building is located at the corner of
Church and Hope. But as I learned in Sunday School many years ago, even when
very beautiful and historic, the church is not the building, and the church is
not the steeple, and the church is not a resting place, either. The church is a
people. I am the Church. You are the Church. We are the Church together. It’s a
simple message, I know. It also happens to be true.
As we seek to live God’s mission we do well to ask
what Christian Hope is all about. It’s tempting to think it’s a version of
cockeyed optimism. It’s tempting to think that it is about insisting that the
glass is always full or at least half-full. But as William Sloan Coffin has put
it, the world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for
anything but love. We need to hold truth and love together, especially when the
world we live in or our own lives are a mess. As Dr. King said, “we must accept
finite disappointment. But never lose infinite hope.”
Hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is what inspires us
to do the work God has given us to do this day and then again to get up
tomorrow and do it again. And again. As followers of Jesus we may get weary and
we may have bad days but we do not lose heart. Because we remember always how
the story ends. Jesus has destroyed death that we might live. And good old Michael
has defeated that dragon. Every time we walk in here we can remember that.
I know that the past few years have been challenging
here in many ways. And I also know there are conflicting narratives about why
that is so. I know there has been hurt and disappointment and as your pastor
for the next year or so, I’m all ears. We will have a chance to unpack some of
that together when Canon Dena Bartholomew-Cleaver joins us in mid-November to
do an historical timeline and reflection to officially begin the process of
your search for a new rector.
But here is the thing: we cannot change the past any
more than we can control the future. We engage it to learn from it, for sure. But
our work is always about the sacramentality of this present moment and the work
that we are called to share, as priest and parish, starting today. That is work
I am committed to and hopeful about, as I know many of you are also.
Your website says that you are: Warm. Welcoming.
Inclusive. But websites can and do say lots of things. We are not
unfamiliar with false advertising and words that aren’t backed up by actions. Anyone
who has ever bought a “vine ripened tomato” in January knows it’s not like
having one in August.
I testify to you all today, however, that every
experience I have had so far of this parish is that this is true. Those are not
just words on a website. From the first conversation I had on Zoom with your
senior warden to the interview I had just three days later in the parish hall
with your vestry and to the work that has already begun since then when Hathy
and I were welcomed here on September 8 and we shared a meal together
afterwards: every single experience I have had here so far has felt warm and
welcoming and inclusive. That includes making the rectory feel like a home away
from home. And I am profoundly grateful for it all.
I want you all to know as we begin that I didn’t leave
diocesan ministry because I didn’t like it. And I didn’t leave diocesan
ministry because I was burned out from it. There was a great deal that I found
life-giving in that work over more than eleven years. And a lot that gave me
hope for the future of the Church even in a time when so many are feeling that
the Church is dying. I didn’t leave from; I felt drawn toward. For a few years
now I have felt like I needed to return to parish work, to all of it from
baptism to burial and all of the pastoral moments in between. I felt called in
my belly to be back in the mix of it and once I got clear on that, a way opened
up for me to come here. I’ve got some good years left but I can also see
retirement from here. I want to work hard and try to be faithful as an interim
here as I can be; to make a difference with more limited time constraints. But
I wanted to do all of that in a place that seemed ready. And St. Michael’s, you
seem ready. I don’t anticipate an uphill battle. I anticipate a life-giving
partnership that ultimately will lead you all to clarity on calling your next
rector. And that work energizes and inspires me. I pray we will savor every
moment of it, even on the hard days.
Words on a web page are meaningless if they are not
backed up by concrete actions. You all understand that. I realize that
sometimes the clericalism we have inherited from the past means that we treat
clergy differently than we do other guests. (That can go either way, in my
experience, but mostly I think the average parishioner wants to support their
priest.) I suspect and pray and hope, though, that St. Michael’s is as warm and
welcoming and inclusive of every single person who walks through these doors as
you have been to me. That is our why. That is our purpose. And if we are
focused on that, God will help us do the rest.
Let me just add: we aren’t warm and welcoming and
inclusive as a means to an end, in order to get people to fill out a pledge
card, although it’s great when that happens. We are called to invite, welcome,
and connect people because this is what Jesus has taught us to do. He spent a
lot of time at table and at parties. In fact so much so that some of his
detractors said he was a glutton and a drunkard. Look it up!
Have you seen the Surgeon General’s report from 2023
about our epidemic of loneliness and isolation as a nation? Pause on each of
those words and know that it’s not all about the pandemic. We are in the midst
of an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. And then, on the cover of that very
report, in small print, these words: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the
Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community.
That’s our language, Church! Social connection and
community That’s what we do! That’s what Jesus did. Some may despair about
the loneliness epidemic and the isolation so many in our community are feeling.
But a parish that takes its name from a dragon slayer, a parish on the corner
of Hope and Church, a parish called to be warm and welcoming and inclusive is a
people called to bring healing to the neighborhood by offering social
connection and authentic community, of welcoming people in to find meaning and
purpose and strength for the journey. And then helping those new guests join us
in becoming hosts to others.
That’s why we are focused on the theme of belonging
this month – that we belong to God and to each other. So we live in hope,
knowing with St. Paul that hope does not disappoint or as the New Revised
Standard Version of that verse from Romans puts it, “hope does not put us to shame.
because God’s love has been poured
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans
5:5)
One more thing and then I will take a seat. These words from Thomas Merton “You do not need to know precisely what is happening or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by this present moment and then embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.”
Are you ready?
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