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SERMONS

The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost
November 16, 2003

Some people thrive on change. They love the new and the different. They are the adventurers; they are the pioneers. And then there are the rest of us. Most people do not like much change. We are reassured by tradition. We are comforted by routine. We like to get up at the same time every morning. We have the same thing for breakfast. Our days and weeks have a pattern to them.

For those of us who do not relish change or notoriety, these last few months have been a time of high anxiety. The actions of our recent General Convention and the consecration two weeks ago of gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire have placed our church in the news in a frequently unfavorable light.

Such change causes anxiety. We are comforted by knowing who we are and our place in the communities of which we are parts. Too much change brings all of that into question.

In our anxiety we look for someone who will make things right. We seek someone who will fix things. Someone who will reassure us and tell us who we are and what our place is in the world around us.

The community for which Mark wrote his account of the gospel was also anxious. In Palestine the Jews are in revolt against Roman authority and Roman armies are moving toward Jerusalem. In Rome itself the emperor Nero has blamed the Christian community for the Great Fire. Christians are being arrested and executed.

In the midst of their peril and their anxiety Jesus gives them this advice: "Flee to the mountains." Mountains hold a special significance for Mark. Mountains are where Jesus goes to pray. Again and again through the gospel, as the pressure builds, Jesus withdraws. He goes to the mountains. He spends time with God. Then he returns with new clarity, new purpose. He returns with strength to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God.

Mark's advice is good advice for us also. Our security does not lie in institutions or in tradition. Our security lies ultimately in only one place; in the Lord. Here is the rock that is not moved by the swiftly changing world.

Concerning our recent controversies Father John-Julian, the founder of the Anglican Order of Julian of Norwich, writes:

All the arguing and all the debating and all the brickbat throwing is quite beside the point. I guarantee to you that the survival of the Episcopal Church has nothing to do with the decisions made by the General Convention, or the AAC, or the Global South, or the Archbishop of Canterbury. While the Internet simmers, and the listserve boils, and the Primates pontificate, and the attorneys plot, back home and around the world there are millions of quiet people gathering at all hours, literally around the clock, before the altars, or muttering their lonely way through the daily Offices in a dark little church, or spending wasted hours in silent prayer. And those people hold open the doors of heaven, and it is they who give God a foothold in the world - and that is ALL that is needed.

What in the world do percentages and growth curves and parish classifications have to do with that? Numerical growth is not "success" for the Body of Christ. It has probably never been healthier than when it numbered only twelve (and what a dysfunctional bunch they were!). Mission - if it is viewed (as most frequently it is) only as institutional growth, is an irrelevance. Faithfulness is the clue to mission - faithful lives and faithful loves.

In the early 1950's there was a young priest assigned to two mission stations in northern Minnesota. One of those stations was in a tiny town of 200+ population, and the entire Episcopal congregation there was made up of one family, numbering five. The town owned a Community Church building which was available for the services of any church or denomination, and that is where the Episcopal services were held. The priest was there faithfully every single Sunday and major Holy Day for Eucharist - through the rain and hail and snow and ice of northern Minnesota. He had been traveling there every Sunday for almost a year when it came to be Easter Day, and as he drove up to the church, he was surprised to see a crowd in front of the building. The part-time mayor of the town approached him and said, "Reverend, we have watched you all year through, coming down here through the worst weather and at the most difficult times to hold a service for just this one family. And the entire town has talked it over and we've decided that we all want to join you and become Episcopalians."

Tell me about "how far our decline has to continue before ECUSA loses its organizational and institutional viability." Tell me about the Episcopal Church's organizational dysfunction. Tell me about shrinking congregations and reduced budgets and dire predictions and all ubiquitous nay-saying. Tell me about all that, and then please excuse me, I have to get back to the chapel for daily Eucharist and the Offices.

Our existence and our future rest in the hand of God. God who created us. God who sustains us. God who loves us enough to die for us. When the world becomes too much for us, we too can flee to the mountains. We can return to the Lord. He will give us the strength to live in courage and confidence in an anxious and changing world.

John-Julian closes his reflections on the present state of our life by saying, "Before I go [back to the chapel], let me give you an absolutely solid gold, guaranteed assurance that you can bank on: [As Julian of Norwich said,] "All shall be well; and all shall be well; and all manner of thing shall be well."

David Christian
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi

Proper B
Daniel 12.1-13
Hebrews 10.31-39
Mark 13.14-23