Epiphany 3, Year A

Epiphany 3, Year A

The Rev. Lois Keen

Key Scriptures: Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-23

This is the sermon I preached after returning from a week of intensive continuing education at my seminary, Seabury-Western in Evanston, Illinois. Before the sermon, I had the congregation complete a brief survey which would reveal what they believe are our greatest strengths. I also had them write down the answer to this question: What are the things you do in your every day life that make you feel good about yourself.

The result of the survey, which I shared the following week, revealed that those in attendance on this Sunday find our building, our parking lot, and our leadership are our greatest strengths.

The Sermon:

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and can’t tell where to find them. Leave them alone and they’ll come home wagging their tails behind them.

Two weeks ago I spent a week at my old seminary in the Chicago area, taking two intensive classes. Last week someone asked, “When are we going to hear what you learned?”

So today I tell you some of what I learned.

Evangelism is people telling their stories, to people who sit long enough to listen to them, and who see God’s holy hand in people’s lives. That evangelism is as much about listening as it is about preaching, and that the Word became flesh for relationships, not for creeds!

I learned that congregational development is the means by which we create spaces and places to hear another person’s story, and that the more stories we hear, the more opportunities we have to see God.

I learned that stewardship is the joyful reaction to having our stories hears. The outpouring of money and gifts is a direct response to having our stories heard as holy, our reaction to God’s action in our lives.

I learned that if you’ve died, you can be resurrected, but the problem comes when you’re dead and think you’re still alive. That churches must learn to embrace death as the most essential ingredient to resurrection, letting go of things that people no longer want to do, or for which the church has no one willing to do it. The alternative is to pay someone to do it.

I learned that churches pour most of their energy and resources into trying to fix the things at which they stink, the things they don’t do well. I learned that we must stop that! That we must focus our energy instead on the things that we do well, and for which there are passionate people to do them.

Relational things are more valuable than the functional. People things attract people. Functional things – buildings, grounds, finances, programs do not. People are attracted to churches that give themselves away. Get out of this building. Walk around the neighborhood – you the parishioners, walk around the neighborhood, get to know the people, find out their hopes and their hurts. That’s where your strengths are to be directed.
And have fun! Find the playful side of the congregation. Capitalize on it. Use it to address the hopes and dreams and hurts of the neighborhood.

I learned this: Little Bo Peep is NOT the Good Shepherd.

Most churches are Bo Peep churches, waiting for the sheep to come home wagging their tails behind them. That is not what the church is for. The church is meant to be the Good Shepherd.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus goes out walking and calls people to follow him. He does not found a church. He does not have any programs, except the example of his own life. He knows the hopes and hurts of the people intimately. He listens to them and he teaches and preaches and heals. This is what churches are for.

That’s what I learned while I was away.

I learned that God gives us everything we need, to do what God wants us to do in a particular place and time. And if we think something we lack is something we need, something that is important to us, but there is no one who is passionate about it, pray that God will send you someone who IS passionate about it.

The church we studied, All Saints Chicago, was dead fifteen years ago. The bishop sent the Rev. Bonnie Perry as priest in charge to close them. He met with the twenty remaining people and told them that they would be closing. Someone stood up and said, “I guess it’s true, then. We’re dead.”

That was the salvation of All Saints. Because we believe in the resurrection of the dead, but it’s darn hard to raise a dead church that thinks it’s alive.

The one thing All Saints had was a food pantry. Once a week they would hand out bags of food on the front steps of the church. Even if they were going to die, they would keep doing that as long as they could. Bonnie Perry helped them build on that food pantry. She connected it to a Eucharist for anyone who wanted to stay after the food was handed out. It made sense – the church feeding the poor, Jesus feeding the church and the poor.

One night it was bitter cold, and the people were lined up down the sidewalk. Someone said, “Can’t we at least offer them some coffee?” So they handed out cups of coffee. That grew into a soup kitchen. Now All Saints feeds 150 people and hands out 1,000 pounds of food every week.

All Saints made alliances with the neighborhood, with the alderman and other politicians and with a medical facility nearby. They formed a 501.c.3 charity and held a 5k run. The proceeds were split half and half, between their food program and the medical facility. In the beginning they raised like $500. I forget how many thousands of dollars they now raise because they made an alliance with the neighborhood and addressed its hopes and hurts.

The church is the one organization that does not exist for the benefit of its members, but for the next stranger or guest who walks through their doors. But it is not enough to sit and wait for that guest, like Bo Peep. We are to be as the Good shepherd, going out of our doors and walking among our neighbors, knocking on doors and listening to and addressing the hopes and hurts of our neighbors.

Last week I had a dream:

I dreamed I was at a new job. It was in a plant nursery. The nursery was owned by an old man. It was located in the middle of a huge estate, with gardens and woodlands and lawns for acres and acres. The building in which I worked was like huge greenhouse. A walkway led up to it, with small shrubs all along it on either side. Inside the entrance, the walkway continued, and so did the plantings. I had a desk job. I think I was supposed to be the receptionist. I had hardly begun to work there when it was time for lunch. A party broke out. Everyone was milling around. I didn't know what to do. I realized I’d better find my own lunch before lunchtime was over. I found a cafeteria line, which was supposed to be closed, but I went in anyway and there was food and no one minded that I helped myself.

I took my lunch back to my desk, to work while I ate. But there was a young man at my desk. He looked a little bored. I was scared. I thought I had already lost my job because I had stayed too long away from my desk.

But the party was still going on. I didn’t understand. I asked someone why this was. And he said, ”We have a benevolent boss. He loves us very much. He doesn’t care when we get our work done, just so long as we are having fun.”

I woke up.

I realized this was no ordinary dream. This was a vision of the kingdom of God. It was a vision of The Church. It was a vision FOR this church, for Grace Church Norwalk.

It said, Focus on strengths. Go with your passions. Have fun. And trust that God has already given us everything we need to begin to address the hopes and hurts of our part of Norwalk.

The exercise I had you do at the beginning of this sermon is the first step to becoming a church that is the Good Shepherd. We are going to focus only on those things we do well. God has given us everything we need to become what he most needs us to be to address the hopes and hurts of Norwalk, Connecticut. We will find those things in our strengths, and in the things we enjoy doing. So we are going to spend ourselves claiming and expanding and offering our strengths. And we’re only going to do those things about which we are passionate.

People are attracted to churches that give themselves away. In losing our life, in giving ourselves and Grace Church away, we and Grace will find ourselves. Even now, the Good Shepherd goes before us, both as individuals and as a congregation, and invites us into a future for which God has already prepared us. We still do not know what that future is. We are asked to say “Yes” to the invitation without knowing where we are going. The question is, do you truly believe that God loves you totally, loves your neighbor, provides all you need, desires you to use your passions to answer the hopes and hurts of others, and wants you to have fun doing it? That is the question.