Preachin'

This is the address that I gave at our church on 11/7/2010
The Gospel reading was Luke 6:20-31


For many months now, our church has been in a corporate discernment process. We used the Healthy Church initiative to help us discern the call for this Parish. During that process we came up with the words of the core values and mission statement. Our core values are:
Providing worship experience based in liturgical tradition
Forming Community
And Equipping for ministry.

When I think back on the reasons our family joined St. Alban’s several years ago, I can honestly say that these words described what we were looking for in a church, most especially the part about community. After I had my first child, I found a playgroup to join. We were a bunch of mothers, joined by a common parenting belief. We met once a week at a park and let the kids play while we talked. We soon realized that the real value of the play date was not for the kids, it was a place where we mothers could talk about our struggles raising children. We soon began to wrestle with the some bigger questions of life, including our own identities. We, slowly, over several years, built a very strong, intimate community of women. It was that same sense of community that helped fuel our search for a church community in which our children would be raised. When we first came here, I will admit to you that I was very hesitant about identifying myself as a Christian. I had spent my entire life being hit over the head with doctrines, creeds and statements of judgment. I was struggling to find a true understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. One of the first services I attended here, was the Good Friday Liturgy. I had never attended the Episcopal version of it, I was raised Lutheran and I knew most of the words being used, but the actions were much different. Because I had a baby in my lap, I could not hold a bulletin to read along, so I sat and watched the action at the altar with intense curiosity. I had never experienced a ‘reverencing of the cross,’ so I was quite surprised when Father Maltby walked over, picked up a wooden cross, carried it back to the altar and held it above him. When he turned his face upward in a picture of pure love and adoration, something cracked open inside of me. It was at that moment that I decided there might be something to becoming a follow of Christ.
At the time, it seems like a very simple sort of change. I would later discover that it was just a beginning of a life long journey of discovering who I am as a child of God and a Christian. I decided to dive head first into this Liturgical Tradition. I found the Christian Mystics, Saints and a depth of theology I had not expected. I started finding my spiritual community which was extended to include Nuns, Spiritual Directors, Healers, Brothers and Sisters found in the Baptismal covenant. I found the words of a covenant which challenged ‘Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?’ I decided to accept those words at my confirmation here, knowing that I would fail miserably every single day for the rest of my life, yet knowing that that was no excuse not to try.
During this intense period of change, I also experienced some of the darkest days of my life. Yet, I rested in the knowledge that I could spend every Sunday with people who had also spoken the words of the Baptismal Covenant which asks us ‘Will you continue in the Apostle’s teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers.’ One Sunday, I was so incredibly angry, that I refused to say any of the Psalm or prayers. Yet, at the time for communion, I overcame my own hurt and went to the rail to receive. After the service, I went to apologize to Mother Humbert, afraid that I had broken some sort of rule. He answer was simple, yet profound. “That’s ok, you community said the prayers for you.” The simple act of going to receive communion became my confession. It was my confession that I cannot give everything to myself. In fact, I would come to understand that nothing I do is truly by myself.
The words we speak are so important, yet it is with words and actions combined that we are able to transform people and communities. Jesus speaks the words of blessing in this passage from Luke. They are beautiful words, yet they are only words until you have experienced them. For in the years that I have been here at this church, I have come here poor, and been blessed by you. I have come hungry and been filled by you. I have wept among you, resting in the expectation that I would also laugh with you. Jesus goes on to tell us that we should expect to be hated, excluded, reviled and defamed on his account. Yet, our reward will be great in heaven. Loving people who don’t want to be loved is his challenge. It is our challenge as his followers. Jesus tells us to bless those who curse us and pray for those who abuse us. I think he knew that when we curse or abuse each other it is because we have forgotten how to love ourselves. He wants us to give them our shirt and our other cheek in these actions which remind us that we are to love one another.
In this spiritual journey of mine, I have managed to find people who did love me when I lashed out. They loved me when I didn‘t. I managed to fall into the hands of healers who helped me accept the healing needed for me to learn how to love myself. I believe that it is the act of truly loving ourselves that we are able to spill that love over to others. Even our enemies.
When we can match our words with our actions, we become Stewards, or agents of God. Being a steward is what you *do* after you *say* yes. In this Healthy Church Initiative, we have given this community words to work with. Now it is our turn as a congregation to give these words skin and bones. It is the call of this church to build the structure to receive each and every offer of a gift. We should receive each person, separate from their roles, vestments, jobs or ministries. We must value each other simply as a children of God bound together in a Baptismal Covenant. We must seek to have each person who enters here to find their own honored place as one who is beloved by our creator. It is through our words and actions, that people get to experience God’s love.
I have experienced the transformative power of healthy community. I stand before you a very different person from the woman who sat down for a Good Friday Liturgy several years ago. I find myself to be far more blessed than I could have possibly imagined. And I am at a loss as to how to convey my gratitude to this Church. I continue my journey hoping to find better ways of loving the people around me, hoping for Grace and mercy when I mess it all up. I will labor in the words of the Baptismal covenant which asks me to ‘proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ’.
And finally, I consider it a privilege to continue in the work of this church as we find the actions needed to meet the words of our mission statement. “In gratitude to God, St. Alban’s resolves to be a welcoming community, learning together and reaching out to other’s with God’s love”.