Epiphany 3, Year B – January 25, 2009 (Annual Address to the Parish)

Mark 1:14-20

St. Giles' Church, Northbrook, IL – The Rev. Cynthia J. Hallas

This morning’s gospel, like so many in the early part of the season after the Epiphany, is a call story.  And I would like to begin this morning by marking the anniversary of a call – of my call to be your rector – because it was exactly five years ago this very day, January 25th, that I first stood at this pulpit and at that altar to preach and celebrate my first Eucharist as your rector.

Responding to a parish search process is one kind of call, as is discerning one’s suitability for a specific ordained or lay ministry.  Ancient stories of fishermen, tax collectors, religious zealots, social outcasts and the like following the summons of an itinerant rabbi, and doing so ‘immediately’, leaving behind everything familiar and secure, is yet another. 

And so are responding to an invitation to serve on a parish Vestry, or to plan and organize a church fellowship event, or work in Christian formation, or serve at the altar, or sing in the choir, or to help maintain our buildings and grounds, or so many other things that make our worship and common life faithful, productive, and meaningful.  So is the desire to fulfill our baptismal covenant by working for peace and justice, and the preservation of basic human dignity for those the world would ignore.  Some of us, I suspect, don’t even think about those things in terms of a ‘call’ – we want to do them, we like to do them, or in some cases we simply feel obligated to do them.  For those reasons, the idea of a response to the voice of Jesus saying “Follow me” may not be something we attach to all of these.

We hear a number of ‘call’ stories during the early part of the Epiphany season.  We admire the ‘instant faith’ of Peter and Andrew, James and John.  Perhaps their behavior leads us to wonder if we would be that bold: bold enough to give up everything familiar – family, friends, occupation, security – to follow a (relative) stranger on a dubious journey to an unknown destination.  There are preachers who ask their congregations if they’d do that today, as if saying ‘no’ exhibited a lack of faith.  In terms of the call of Christ on contemporary people, we simply cannot make that kind of a comparison with Peter and Andrew, James and John, or any of those other first followers.  Far too much has changed.  For us, Jesus is not an unknown newcomer but a known quantity – our Lord and Savior.  The Church is not a small, persecuted sect of Judaism, it’s an institution that has (or until very recently, had) global authority and influence on Christians and non-Christians alike, and not always in positive, productive, helpful ways. 

Following the call of Jesus in our own place and time cannot be compared directly to what happened on the shores of Galilee. But there is one thing that should remain the same: if we’re going to follow the call of Jesus in our own day with any kind of integrity, we need to be open to the kind of life-changing experience that a new conversion or a renewal of faith can bring. 

And we still need that sense of excitement and adventure hinted at in the gospels that for so long has been replaced in the Church by predictability, appropriateness, and a sense of duty.  The first time Jesus calls us is never the last; for those fishermen the summons “follow me” was not meant to be a one-time event but a lifelong commitment.

A lot has happened here at St. Giles as we have followed Jesus this year.  Over the past twelve months we’ve seen transitions in several of our ministry areas, saying ‘thank you’ to certain faithful servants and ‘welcome aboard’ to others.  We’ve launched the Sun Set Hunger Project. 

We are, I suspect, one of the few churches in the diocese to host both of our bishops in the same year.  We celebrated our fiftieth anniversary in this location.  We gave generously to help prevent the spread of malaria.  We’ve welcomed new members.  We’ve dealt with the challenge of a global economic crisis that has affected every area of life, churches being no exception.

So it seems to me that a logical question to ponder on this day of our annual meeting is this: where and how is Jesus calling us right now?  What are we doing now that we ought to keep doing; what have we been doing that we might need to let go of; in what new direction might Christ be leading us, and how can we discover all of those things?

One way is for us to be honest about what we don’t like to do or are tired of doing or can no longer accomplish, and then to stop doing it.  This is a variation on a theme I introduced last fall in my ‘not-your-father’s-Stewardship-sermon’, and it may sound anything from counter-intuitive to downright unfaithful.  But I really believe that the only way we’ll discover a new direction is by letting go of the old one.

Another way is to be attuned to the natural rhythms of life in the church.  All ministries, and all structures, have a life cycle. This is less about making intentional changes in what we do (though some of that may be called for) than it is about creating a climate where we are open to embracing the organic changes that do come, as challenges to be met and worked through, rather than enemies to be fought against and defeated.  Ministries, structures, and particular ways of life are dynamic, not static, and they do evolve over time.

One aspect that is currently evolving is our Vestry commission structure.  The Vestry will be taking a good hard look at that this year, because it no longer seems to be working for us.  Several commissions are currently without leadership, with no one on the horizon to step into those roles; and several commission chairs currently have no one to work with.  I think there are more productive, more collaborative ways to be in ministry together, and we will work to find and implement a structure that serves us, and our mission, in a better fashion.

The outreach commission is one such example.  The parish leadership has reconsidered the way in which outreach is administered – conversations on this topic have been going on for years.  An examination of the 2009 budget will show that while the cleaning for outreach is still funded, the $4500 allotment for contributions is not. 

This has

little to do with the financial picture of the parish,

less to do with the fact that a new outreach chairperson has not emerged, and

still less with the worthiness of the organizations funded.

And it certainly doesn’t mean that we will not be reaching out to those in need.  Eliminating outreach as a budgeted item will no doubt be disappointing to some of you; not all of us, myself included, are totally comfortable with that decision. But the truth is that outreach is often better funded as a non-budgeted item. The hope is that all of us will be able to become more involved with and aware of those whom we assist; that our efforts will become more public. To that end, we may be looking for someone to serve as a “Parish Missioner” to work with the entire parish, not just with one group of people.  I cite in particular this past season’s Bishop’s Malaria Net Challenge as an outreach ministry to which this congregation as a whole has responded with great generosity.

Another way in which our ministry is evolving involves use of our property.  I’ve mentioned in the past that we designate a significant portion of our operating budget to maintain our physical space, most of which has gone largely unused during the week and most of the weekend.  That began to change this year, as the Campanella Choir became a ‘tenant’ here.  Other opportunities for such sharing of space may present themselves in the future.  But good stewardship of our physical resources goes beyond sharing them with others.  In the current climate, both for financial and ecological reasons, we cannot continue to do business as usual. 

During the coming year we will be looking at ways to be more ‘green’, to foster more sustainability projects.  Parish Administrator Esther Freilich and I have been talking about ways to cut down on paper consumption and copying costs – we may be looking at a greatly condensed Sunday bulletin in the coming months, with increased dependence on those Bibles and other books that often sit largely unused in the pews.  Vestry member Andy Rogers has recently joined Building and Grounds and he has begun sharing some creative and workable ideas for maintaining and sustaining what God has blessed us with.  He details some of this in an article in the February Bells and I commend that article to all of you when you get it.

Unexpected repairs to the rectory and the church building left us with a shortfall in 2008 – had it not been for those things we would have come in under budget!  Giving to the parish continues to be generous, but people are understandably more cautious and costs of operation are going up.  Thanks to the anticipated refund of an unintentional overpayment to the Church Pension Fund over the last five years, we will have more breathing room in this year’s budget than we anticipated. But this is a one-time windfall and it’s clear that here in the church, as in other aspects of our lives, we need to be careful and discerning about how our money is spent.  To quote a line from the movie The Philadelphia Story, “Belts will be worn tighter this year.”

When I first stepped up the plate (or rather, the pulpit) here at St. Giles there was tremendous resistance to and fear of any kind of change.  That fear and resistance was rooted in the uncertainty of what new leadership might bring, in whether the parish would in fact recover from recent loss and conflict, and perhaps less obviously but just as surely in the knowledge that outside forces and cultural and societal shifts were affecting life in the church.  All this is understandable.  We had a bit of a rough go at the beginning and there’s no point in sugar-coating any of that.  But what I noticed early on, and what I continue to observe, is that this is a creative, devoted, faithful, and fun-loving congregation that cares deeply about its worship and fellowship.  We care about one another, and about those outside our four walls.  My vision for the parish has always been and continues to be that St. Giles will be a place of vibrant, creative worship; caring, welcoming fellowship; and compassionate mission and outreach, all for the glory of God and in the name of Jesus Christ.  I believe that that vision is a shared one. 

But I also think that while the plane is sitting on the runway with a full tank and with all the engines going, we have yet to discover how to take off.  Achieving take-off will require that we keep on looking at change – change as variation, change as flexibility, change as response to the unexpected when it occurs, and to the expected when it is planned for. 

Here’s a fact about change: it’s a certainty.  We can be reactive, and allow change to manage us;

or we can be proactive, and manage change ourselves.  The first course of action leads to fear, inward focus, and loss of energy – a kind of spiritual hand-wringing; the latter leads to increased faithfulness, vitality, and the kind of bold curiosity that keeps us constantly asking, “Where is Christ leading us, and how can we more faithfully follow him?”  Those are the questions that will keep us lively and engaged, with one another and with the Gospel, and I encourage all of you to join me in keeping that question before us in the year, and years, ahead.