I bring greetings from our bishops Tom, Bud, and Gayle, and from your brothers and sisters in the one hundred and ninety-four congregations that are the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. It is a privilege to be back among you once again. Maureen, you have the distinction of being the only priest in this diocese who has succeeded in getting me to preach more than once in her pulpit in my one and a half years here.
By now, most of you have learned that Maureen has decided to step down as priest-in-charge of Emmanuel Church on November 25, Christ the King Sunday. She has done fine work in this parish over the past two years, working with the vestry to bring the finances to heel, and playing a major role in helping to create a new vision here called the Emmanuel Center.
The Diocese of Massachusetts is truly grateful for her hard work and dedication during a challenging time. Thank you so much, Maureen!
This morning marks the beginning of a major transition in the life of this parish. I’m sure there are many questions in your minds. The announcement of a priest’s departure is a time of anxiety and speculation for congregations. Questions abound like: What shall we do now? When is the next priest coming? What will our new clergy be like? Will he/she try to change things?
Those questions are important and they will be answered in due time. However, these questions must be addressed as part of a wider and deeper discernment of where Emmanuel’s congregation has come and where it will go on its journey with God.
First, I want to assure you that Maureen’s leave-taking should not be viewed as a crisis for this congregation, but rather as an opportunity to examine afresh your own mission and ministry here at Emmanuel.
Jesus’ mission, after all, was to foment “crisis,” in the most positive sense of that word. Imagine, for instance, what the reaction must have been to this morning’s gospel! The well-heeled and the well-to-do were not at all pleased by the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Jesus’ story was deliberately intended to create crisis in the minds of his affluent listeners. And yet, the gospel also revealed that it was possible to change their behavior.
For the rich man, it was the crisis of being in Hell that forced him beyond his self-centered focus, his complacency, and his apathy. For the first time, he realized it wasn’t all about him! If only he had seized the opportunity to change his life while he was still alive! Now it was too late!
And our perceptions of CRISIS as opportunity can also bring us to a place of holy tension and realization, where only true and meaningful transformation is possible. The place where we stop asking “What will become of us?” and start asking “What is God calling us to be?”
Let’s remember above all else that we are God’s people — gathered together as a community of faith in Christ’s name.
Our primary concern as community is one of identity, that is: Who are we as God’s people? Our second concern must be one of discernment: What is God calling us to be? The final issue for us is missional: How do we live into God’s call?
My brothers and sisters in Christ, before we can even begin to consider who the next clergyperson should be, Emmanuel must be clear about its own identity, its own call, and its own mission.
Each of the faithful must ask yourself:
Discerning God’s call has everything to do with first preparing our hearts and minds to be receptive to the Holy Spirit. And then fashioning our vision, our core values, our hopes, and our dreams for Emmanuel from that holy encounter.
Making certain that our spiritual house is in order. That everything we undertake is prayer-centered and rooted in the Holy Spirit.
And we must also be clear about our mission:
Thanks to Maureen and your vestry, this parish has begun to exercise better control over its finances. “We ain’t out of the wood yet,” as they say, but Emmanuel is in a better place than it was two years ago.
But now I ask you to direct your energies to answering questions about vision, identity, and mission. When I last visited here in April 2006, I asked you what you wanted to be, what were your hopes and dreams, and most importantly, what were you willing to do to make that change happen.
Those questions must be explored by you — the congregation — not by the vestry, not by some committee, but by all of you, drawing on the collective wisdom, longings, and discernment of the Holy Spirit as the entire Body of Christ. You must meet together and discern together.
One of our clergy calls it “discernment by the apostolic collective.” Discovering together a broad vision that is inspired by the work of the first apostles. Work that engages us in inviting, forming, sending, and serving. Now where have we heard those words before?
Each congregation in our diocese has a story to tell and a story yet to be written. What will Emmanuel’s story be? Consider this: while your future cannot be written without remembering your glorious past, beware of sacred cows that can obscure your vision of the future.
Before you now is the vision of the Emmanuel Center waiting to be lived out. What do you believe the Center’s unique, divinely-ordained mission will be?
And I am certain that there are other visions vital to the life of this congregation that are just waiting to be birthed: visions that will expand the horizons of your present ministries.
One of the realities of our churches today is that many have ceased to become places of vision, ignoring the warning in the Book of Proverbs that “without a vision, the people will perish.”
So the question of the moment is: Are you ready and willing to become a people of vision? You have a holy choice before you.
Emmanuel can choose to embrace the status quo — to be preoccupied with the maintenance of church buildings and the preservation of sacred cows — or you can seize this time to challenge, to question, and to begin to transform the ways things have always been.
So I urge you to seize this time of transition to create opportunities to embrace the vision of Emmanuel as vital and alive; to be open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit; to embrace the belief that God is calling you to do a new thing; and moreover, to have the faith to believe that She will sustain and bless your endeavors.
Some of our churches appear content to have all the people in their pews look, think, and act just like themselves. Their undeclared motto is: The world outside our doors may change, but we never will. What we need are more churches whose doors are truly open to everyone, offering not just church space, but space in their hearts. I hope you will choose to be one of those churches.
So I am going to challenge you this morning to do a new thing on Newbury Street in the name of Christ. Look around you. Find out what this community is all about, and think about how you might offer a vital outreach ministry to it.
Consider the great numbers of people who pass by here every day:
The late great Pearl Bailey used to say: “ We see God every day. We just don’t recognize Him.” In today’s gospel, the rich man passed by God in the form of Lazarus day after day but never realized it.
The rich man was blessed with an abundance of good things, but selfishly kept them to himself. As one old preacher put it: “He had it. He ’bused it. He lost it. And he won’t never get it back.”
God didn’t ask him to save the whole world, just that little piece of it right outside his door. But the rich man didn’t want to be inconvenienced. He didn’t want to be his brother’s keeper. He didn’t want anything to disrupt the peace and order of his status quo world. And he paid the price!
My friends, God has blessed you both in the past and in the present with an abundance of gifts to do ministry in this place. Money, abilities, and talents in so may fields of endeavor. In fact, She has given you gifts that you have yet to realize. That’s how extravagant our God is.
And as the Body of Christ, both priest and people, God will make one demand of you: to make the most of the talents that you have been given in order to be the heart of Christ where you have been planted. So that you might convert the abundance that you have been given into blessings for others. And in that act of selflessness, you will be transformed and you will find blessing also.
Here is a parable for you to consider:
There was a stream that was working itself across the country, and experienced little difficulty as it went on its merry way. It wound its way around the rocks and through the mountains.
Then it arrived at a desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream assumed that it could cross this one. But soon it discovered that as fast as it ran into the sand, its waters would disappear.
After many attempts, the stream became very discouraged, for it appeared that there was no way that it could continue its journey.
Then a voice came in the wind: “If you stay the way you are, you cannot cross the sands, you cannot become more than a quagmire. To go further, you will have to lose yourself.”
“But if I lose myself,” the stream cried, “I will never know what I am supposed to be.”
“On the contrary,” said the voice. “If you lose yourself, you will become more than you ever dreamed you could be.”
So the stream surrendered to the drying sun. And the clouds into which it was formed were carried by the raging wind for many miles. Once it crossed the desert, the stream poured down from the skies — fresh and clean and full of the energy that comes from storms.
Let those who have ears — listen to what the Spirit is saying.
Amen.