The winter storms on March 2nd set up the need
for double duty on Sunday, May 18th, as I set off early to Iowa
Falls and later that afternoon to Emmetsburg. They are hardly neighbors, but
given my schedule has me traveling east through the summer, I did not want to
delay the people of Emmetsburg too long. They were excited about their two
candidates for reception and confirmation, and it seemed important to honor
their preparation and readiness.
It was an easy seventy-five minute drive to St Matthew’s Iowa Falls for a pre-worship breakfast and conversation. Their Senior Warden, Larry Meyer,
had prepared quite a list of topics for discussion, and the congregation had
actually responded to my own set of questions that I sent out at the beginning
of the year. These became good talking points. St Matthew’s is
beautifully set just off the bridge as you enter Iowa Falls on US 65. When the
bridge was restored a couple of years ago, the church was given an opportunity
to rework its small outside space, and put in a columbarium and small garden. I
remember sharing in that decision one visitation when they were in the middle
of choosing from a series of options.
The congregation has been led by a series of strong Senior
Wardens over the years. They have also benefitted from Episcopalian families
that have come to work in the community college. These have come
and gone with their positions, but there has always seemed a steady flow. Of
particular note has been their ability to draw brilliant organists, including
world-traveling recitalists. Their current organist is no exception. He
composed a centenary hymn for the parish in honor of this past year of 100
years celebration. The parish holds recitals for the community, and each Advent
features a lessons and carols service, which, up to a couple of years ago, was
led by members of the Choir of the Cathedral Church of St Paul.
These are exceptional high points for the parish, but they do not mask the
concerns of the parish for their future.
Preserving a critical mass within an aging congregation was
their primary issue for discussion. The church has a couple of families with
growing children, but most of the population is older, and energy levels are
not what they used to be. They work well as a team and are very appreciative of
the leadership provided by clergy members Elliott Blackburn and Warren Frelund,
who both travel from Mason City. Warren has introduced the course “Wading in
the Waters” during Lent. And more broadly in the community he is developing a
ministry project focusing on older adults. This is part of his connection with
the Older Adult ministriesof The Episcopal Church where he
serves on the Standing Commission on Lifelong Learning.
The congregation questioned the suitability of their Chapter
placement. They are in the Northwest Chapter, which seems to be centered too
far west for them to participate well. As older folk, they find that driving
distances become increasingly important. They wondered about a more
north-central configuration that might benefit Mason City,
as well as Charles City and Iowa Falls. These are the three congregations that work together through
shared clergy at the moment, with Netha Brada, formerly of Iowa Falls,
supplying as a priest to Charles City. The congregation wants to share in
diocesan affairs, and see a more appropriately located Chapter as one way to do
this better. They are actually asking for clearer lines of accountability to
the Diocese, and wish that we had not removed the distinctions between parishes
and missions. They see some sense in what they called “the discipline of
mission congregations.” At least it meant that someone was paying attention to
them, and it would lessen the sense of being on their own with diminishing
energy. It was a lively and creative discussion. They have been paying
attention to the conversation about smaller congregations that had been going
on. On another note, I realized as I turned around after processing into the
church that St Matthew’s is the church where my miter catches all the dangling
light switches as I come up the aisle, and I leave them swinging from side to
side throughout the opening hymn.
The drive to Trinity Emmetsburg took about two hours. It took me on roads and through towns I don’t normally
see. I always find myself wondering about our mission fields, and how easy it seems
to start a house church in those places where our Episcopal members drive
distances to church. All you need is a prayer book, a rhythm of communal prayer
time and the readiness to converse over scripture and our daily lives. Throw in
monthly pilgrimages to the “big church” (which might be St Matthews or Trinity)
for Eucharist and we may have a mission strategy.
The people of Trinity Emmetsburg had also agreed to meet
over what was, by this time, afternoon tea. The candidates for confirmation and
reception told their stories to the excitement of the congregation, and I was
able to affirm how much the faithful members of Trinity had prayed and waited
for their coming. These were two people who really felt that God had brought
them to Trinity—one as a young adult who had once considered a call to
priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church, and the second as the wife of a new
Baptist pastor in town who has been drawn to the Episcopal Church as a place
from which to serve God in the community. The congregation was also welcoming
home a couple who left several years ago and was now returning in their
retirement. They left one month before I became bishop.
Somehow, our conversation came around to issues of prison
reform. On the corner of a table in the fellowship hall was a pile of new
clothes that were intended for inmates at the Fort Dodge jail. The congregation had begun working with the Damascus Road prison ministry from Fort Dodge on providing clothes
for prisoners to wear as they come out of prison and re-enter society. The
people have been collecting clothes for a year without a single recipient, but
suddenly they have three people being released this month. We talked about the
difficulty of re-entry for many inmates, and I shared the prayer for prisoners
and correctional facility workers in the Prayer Book. I invited them to prepare
something to share at Convention as we focus on prison ministry as part of the
Matthew 25 theme.
At five o’clock we went to worship, led by the local brass band called “Biblical Brass.” As I drove home I thought about the possibility of a Ministry Development Team at Trinity. With the new members and returnees, along with the faithful members who have held things together down the years, perhaps this could consolidate their ministry potential and future. The link with the prison in Fort Dodge is no coincidence. Peg Jackson, their priest in residence, has supplied regularly for the past six years, making the weekly drive through all weathers from Fort Dodge. When God called her to the priesthood after retirement, she promised ten years of active service. As she reaches that priesthood anniversary at the end of the year, she feels it is time to hand over to someone else. Her contribution has been priceless, and it is a big part of what has drawn this new life to the congregation.
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Congratulations to Chris Grethen (received) & Laurie
Schmidt (confirmed).
Photo by Melanie Flynn. |
Before us today, we have a surprising story, an uplifting
acclamation of human purpose and two questions that disappointed Jesus.
Fitting together all three lectionary readings is not always
an easy thing to do, but today I want to try and I hope my logic doesn’t overly
confuse or mislead you. I admit to being surprised by coming across the passage
in Acts this week. I was prepared for the continuation of witness to the Risen
Christ, as we have been hearing in the various sermons presented in the readings
from Acts of the Apostles. Instead we are faced with the death of Stephen
without any reference to his preaching content which, of course, included
mention of Jesus’s resurrection.
Stephen was a deacon and an evangelist. He was also the
first Christian martyr, and as such we recognize him the very day after
Christmas in the Church’s calendar. Barely has the choir of angels stopped
ringing in our ears, or the sight of the baby Jesus in the manger—meek and mild—faded
from our sight than we are reminded of the cost of following this child.
Stephen the martyr marks the day after Christmas. It surprises me then, and the
story of his death as told today surprises me now.
I am ready for more testimony from Acts of the Risen Lord,
but I am not ready to see the cost of following Him. Stephen was killed for his
words; there is no doubt about that. It makes me wonder how many of my words
uttered in public even cause a ripple of public reaction. There is quite a gap
between that faith of old and how we experience and are able to express it
today in our comfort and ease. Not so everywhere of course, as we remember the young woman threatened withexecution for her faith in Nigeria this very day, and of course of the circumstances in which the Risen Christ is
proclaimed in our companion Diocese of Nzara where only a
couple of years ago parishes had to be abandoned because of the violent threat
of neighboring warlords.
The witness of Stephen, however, implicates all of us for
even as the crowds rush in to stone him, he looks to heaven and prays “Father,
forgive them.” This is a disposition we can all aspire to. But how was he able
to turn from any sense of fear and look to heaven for forgiveness? He could do
it because he let his life become a spiritual house, if we are to turn and use
the words of Peter in our epistle today, and thus being able to link our first
two readings.
Stephen let himself become a living stone and as such to be
built into a spiritual house or a sacred living temple. In these days of
digital computerization we can more than imagine Peter’s illustration. Just
think of your computer imaging stones being picked up out of the earth, getting
cleaned up, shaped and polished in to shiny gems, then lifted into place into a
structure which, as it is built, becomes an awesome temple—a holy place. Each
stone found its place and its purpose within the whole. Peter calls them living
stone—because God builds God’s temple with living beings, the likes of you and
me, shaped and fitted through our baptisms to take our place as a royal
priesthood, a holy nation. Where did Stephen find the courage to forgive?
Through his readiness to be shaped by the gracious love of God in Jesus Christ.
So imagine stones that come alive and move into place until
their faithfulness to God’s purpose helps them create an awesome temple—a place
where people come into touch with the holy, and all that holiness offers:
forgiveness of sins, restoration of relationships both with God and with fellow
human beings, meaning and revitalization in life, confidence and compassion to
care for this world and those within it, a people who were once strangers now
becoming a people of God.
The keywords in all of this for me are almost passed over as
we read it without much notice, and they are “let yourself.” There is nothing
automatic in this process of being living stones that God uses to bring God’s
holiness into the world. “Let yourself” is the invitation. Stephen let himself
be a mouthpiece of God’s witness; and so he found his place in that foundation
of the Church which we call the apostles, prophets and martyrs. And the
strength he found to do that came from the very One whom he served and of whom
he witnessed.
He discovered what Jesus sought to drum home to his
disciples in those days captured by John before His death and resurrection.
“Truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do
and in fact will do greater works than these.” And so we arrive at the Gospel
passage for today.
Jesus promises to continue His work but He will be doing it
through us—the living stones. He will continue to ask and receive from the
father that same ability and capability that He enjoyed during His lifetime and
makes that accessible to us who live in His Name and through the gift of the
Holy Spirit. That is why in a few minutes I pray over those of you being
confirmed or reaffirming your vows that the Spirit strengthen you to do what
God is calling you to do—and to confirm you in God’s service.
Ministry is always Jesus continuing to work—only through us
as His living stones who make up the people of God—and as a holy presence in
humanity. These are not easy words or concepts to accept or to understand. In
fact, we are more aware of our capacity to mess things up than we are confident
about claiming our inherited purpose and power in Christ.
And yet even that cannot stop us from offering ourselves to
let God build His holy place through us. For, ultimately, it is God who
inspires and enables us to be who God calls us to be. Therefore “let yourselves
be built.”
Finally, we come to the two questions that disappointed
Jesus. Thomas wondered about Jesus’s statement about the way and wondered where
he was going. Philip questioned Jesus about his reference to the Father and
asked to be introduced. Jesus’s disappointment was that they were both looking
for answers that lie outside of their relationship with Him. His responses—I am
the Way the truth and the life,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father,”
indicated that their future identity was to be in their relationship to Him. He
was to be their on-going way forward and their source of revelation or knowing.
They had not connected with what he would soon define as “Abide in me and I
abide in you,” in John chapter 15. In other words,
it is together as one that the Kingdom gets built. It is together as one in
Christ that we see the Way unfolding before us and get to know the truth about
life and enjoy life. It is together as one in Christ that we come to know the
nature and character of God whom Jesus calls Father. So Stephen turned to
heaven itself as his enemies rushed in violent outrage upon him and united with
Jesus could declare “Father, forgive them,” echoing Jesus’s own words and
action upon the cross.
The bottom line is that we are not the ones in charge of all
these things. We are simply asked to “let ourselves be built.”
Will you then give God the time and space to make of you a
holy people—a people who bring God into the heart of things—both within and
beyond these church walls and this religious organization? It is the way Jesus
continues His work; you are the way Jesus continues His work—as His living
stones, His royal priesthood, His holy nation. So let yourselves be.
Amen
