Sixth Sunday After Pentecost - My "Come to Jesus" Sermon

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 10 (RCL) Year B 2009
Amos 7: 7 – 15; Psalm 85: 8 – 13; Ephesians 1: 3 – 14; Mark 6: 14 – 29
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland OR
Sunday, July 12, 2009

WHO WILL WE BE – HOW WILL WE BECOME

Let us pray: God of our dreams and visions, help us to claim our ministry in this world. When we are frightened, give us direction; when we are stagnant urge us on. Help us to understand all that you have in store for us as we work to bring about the coming of your Kindom among us. Grant that we might always hear your voice in all that we proclaim in your holy name. Assure us that when we live out your vision for our lives you will be with us from beginning to end. Amen

(7:45 Service) I began with a story "telling on myself" about how I left the manuscript for my sermon at home and had to rush back, pick it up and drive back to the Church. I found a parking spot close to the front of the church and was begining to think I had "made it, without anyone noticing"; when suddenly as I rounded the corner to slip in the side entrance I came face to face with my Sr. Warden who must have wondered why I was so late in arriving for services as I was 7:40 AM!

(10:00 Service) I will climb up into the usually un-used pulpit and allow a few moments of light exchange. I will use my "blinking glassess" for some levity and then climb down off the pulpit and return to the usual area where I deliver my sermon.

Now that I have gained your attention – I wonder how many of you (by a show of hands) are aware that something was “up” this morning at St. Stephen’s and that a concerted effort begins to covey some important information about the future of this dynamic and special faith community? Well for those of you who were not aware; that is in fact, what my remarks this morning are going to be pointed toward. I don’t mean to imply that the scripture readings assigned for this Sixth Sunday after Pentecost are unimportant; or that I might not have some very wise and deeply relevant insights about them; only that we are not going to use our time this morning for that reflection because the Vestry and leadership of St. Stephen’s – the downtown Episcopal presence in Portland, OR for the past 146 years – has asked me to address some issues this morning that directly affect the future of this place and how we will continue to live out that presence and in what ways we need to re-fashion ourselves as the people of St. Stephen’s.

I’d like to start by sharing with you my own personal story about this place and what it has meant to me over the years. I arrived in Oregon in 1997 to begin a new relationship and a new life with my partner and my best friend, Michael. It was a pretty gusty move since he was the only person I knew – and I was leaving family, friends and a loving faith community that was more and more convincing me that I needed to seriously consider rekindling a long slumbering call to ordained ministry as a Priest in God’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Folks back home in the Diocese of Newark were pretty skeptical of my ability to do that in the Diocese of Oregon since the then Bishop was not supportive of LGBT folks being considered in that capacity. Then, I heard about the faith community of St. Stephen’s in downtown Portland and an ordination of an openly Gay male that happened in that parish; although the then Bishop did not participate in the ordination. That sounded like the kind of place where I could find hope for my journey. Next thing I knew was that St. Stephen’s had called The Rev. Larry Falkowski as their rector. Larry was an acquaintance of mine from the Diocese of Newark and I knew that he was supportive of the ministry of the Oasis of which I had been a member of the Board of Directors. So perhaps this community was one where I could find support. Michael and I found St. Michael and All Angels as a Church home and yet I knew that my relationship to St. Stephen’s was not over. Deep down in the core of my being (where we “know” things a much deeper level) I was sure that my link to the people and parish on the corner of 13th and Clay was still unfolding. Sure enough just about a year ago to this day – I began a conversation with the Search Committee that resulted in my being called as the Priest-in-charge of a Parish community that had dealt over the past five years with a plan for an 18 story high rise housing and church complex fully ready to break ground that was then brought to a grinding halt by a Bishop who was (well let’s just leave it at that); A visionary rector who had a massive stroke and eventually reluctantly retired; an embezzlement of a hundred thousand plus dollars – and despite all of that was still living out its ministry to God and the people of the downtown Portland community. Now I stand at the helm of this community and invite each and every one of you (present here this morning or not) to remember your St. Stephen’s story and how you came to discover what a wonderful place it was for you and yours. In that memory I invite you into a process wherein we can refocus and renew our vision of who we are as the people of God in a downtown urban Parish – and what God is calling us to do with our ministry and our resources for the next chapter in the history of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish. I truly believe that God has put me and each and every one of us in this place at this time to do the work that we are called to do, supported by each other to vision the next great thing for our ministry as baptized followers of the One we claim as our Savior and friend – Jesus the Christ.

(SUNG) WE CAN DO WHATEVER, WE WANT TO DO WHEREVER WE
WANT TO GO – IT’S UP TO US!

As most of you are aware we have been operating since our Annual Meeting this year from a budget that has a $60,000 gap in it. Tracking our income and expenses for the first six months of that budget does not indicate that gap closing and, in fact, it may be widening. At the present rate of expenditures the parish will effectively have spent through all of its reserves by the end of this fiscal year. While we remain in conversation with possible partners in a building project the feasibility of that project reaching fulfillment within the next year or two is little to none. The Building Operations Committee, under the faithful leadership of Father Palmer Pardington continues to seek out any and all possibilities for development; but that vision can no longer be the driving force for the mission and ministry of this Parish Community. We need to take the time to reevaluate our priorities; and to begin a conversation with our leadership and each other about who and what we will be as we move into the call of the Holy Spirit to bring to our Church and our neighborhood a welcome and a ministry of providing for the spiritual and physical hunger of all of God’s people within our reach.

The Vestry has been working and praying over the past six months about how we might engage the community in this work of envisioning our commitment to the Church and each other. After our service, at the coffee hour, you are welcome to talk with them and with each other about how we will move forward in this process. I’m going to briefly outline it for you now. Beginning this week small groups facilitated by Fran Anguilo, Jeanne Armstrong, Tom Bartlett, Mic Fleming, Sue Rossiter, Bob Tayler, and Mike Zula will set up time for 2 meetings that will help the groups to answer several questions that will lead to discernment of the mission and ministry that the community holds in deepest value. As a first step in this important work, I will call those individuals forward later in our service and “commission” them for the invaluable work on which they embark; as a community we will voice our support of them and the work they call us to. In August those small groups will reconvene and from the consensus of the discernment work will vision a way to implement that discernment into a workable plan of action. After those meetings are complete the leaders will gather with the Vestry and craft a plan of action that will be written with specific goals and actions and shared with the whole community at the end of September. After that we will be on our way to living out the mission and ministry of St. Stephen’s with a renewed energy and enthusiasm and a vision for our place in God’s Kindom essential to the people of downtown Portland and in cooperation with the greater Diocese and Episcopal Church. The details of this work lie in the hands of each and every one of us who are members and/or supporters of the work of God in this place; and I know that I speak for the vestry, staff and clergy when I say that with full confidence in God’s grace we will write this new chapter in our Parish’s history and hand our work over to the next generation of believers to continue God’s message of radical welcome to all who are hungry.

(SUNG) WE CAN DO WHATEVER, WE WANT TO DO WHEREVER WE
WANT TO GO – IT’S UP TO US!

US Anthropologist and faithful Episcopalian Margaret Mead is credited with the following “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Stirred by those words that have inspired generations of optimists, we believe that our future lies in our hands. God would ask of us as creatures made in the very image and likeness of our Creator – that we answer the call to carry out the plan of salvation by contributing our part in cooperation with others who vision a world far better than the one we have been given. Ours is an age of great promise and great challenge. Visionary leaders throughout our human history have encouraged and cajoled us to become all that we dream we can be; and the way toward that goal for the majority of us in Christian community is through the work of the Body of Christ, the Church. That work which has been lived out on the corner of 13th Avenue and Clay Street in downtown Portland, OR since 1870 is part of the very fabric of who we are and what we do – and so the call that I have been charged with giving you this morning is really a continuation of the work of God done on God’s behalf by countless others who have come before us and who knows how many others that are just waiting to join us; we simply have to figure out how to invite them in. I want to close my remarks this morning by “borrowing” a phrase that my wise Sr. Warden shared with Deacon Ken and myself at dinner earlier last week. Mic was talking about another search process that he was part of in the Diocese of California – but I think it fits perfectly with the work we will do together in the next months and so I offer it to you; “God knows what the ministry of St. Stephen’s will look like going forward; its only up to us to figure out what God already knows!” Let the Church, the Body of Christ, give me an Amen!