ANNUAL MEETING SUNDAY
You folks will remember that I coached lacrosse at the Academies for five years. I was an assistant coach for Varsity A and then Head coach for Varsity B. When they decided to combine the two into a single varsity team, I decided it was time for me to enjoy emeritus status and just consult occasionally. I picked up some responsibilities in Religious Life and became the girls’ basketball supervisor.
In lacrosse, once you are ten points up, anything more is almost unsportsmanlike in my mind. In Ohio they had a mercy rule to run down the clock. In Indiana, we did not have a mercy rule like this, and so I had to have my own strategy.
Once the score got lopsided in our favor, I would run plays and place seniors so people would feed them the ball. Even guys who aren’t very good deserve to make a goal or two when they are seniors just for sticking it out and contributing in other ways. Sometimes people who play defense want to trade positions and play offense for a change.
Now the point of doing this was to be inefficient. I did not want to run up the score, and so the point is that the people taking shots on goal are not the best people on the team to be taking those shots. I want you to understand the context here, and then I want to make a few observations.
I think that in general, we have a tendency to envy people who are not like us. Guys who play defense want to play offense just by nature. People who are engineers sometimes imagine they could have happy lives as teachers. There are a lot of “what if’s” in our lives. Things happen. We come to a fork in the road, and in the words of Yogi Berra, we take it.
A lacrosse game is one thing. Our life together as the body of Christ is another. The Epistle today tells us to strive for the greater gifts, but what does that mean? Forms of assistance and forms of leadership are lower on the list than teachers. Does this mean that people working the non-food pantry or serving on the vestry should quit and become Sunday School teachers? I say no to this.
I think the important thing is to play our position understanding that we are members of the Body of Christ. This is what is different from the lacrosse game. We are interested in doing God’s work. When we were swapping positions on the team, the point was to be inefficient. It was a game after all, and we were having a good time and trying to be good sports. If we try to play outside our position at church and mess up the balance, all we do is make it less likely that we are doing good work for the kingdom.
It might be fun to be a prophet, but if that is not where your gifts lie, you are not going to be very good. This is where it counts, and we can’t afford to mess it up. Here is another difference. “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.” There is intentionality here, and it is not just Coach Haynes assigning you to a position. This is God’s plan, and we need to discern His will for us.
We have those “aha” moments. There are moments of epiphany. We recognize something that is true.
Look at today’s Gospel and think of this as an Epiphany reading. Whose eyes were opened to see God’s hand at work? It was not Jesus being hit with the clue by four. If anyone was having an “aha” moment, it was the people in the synagogue. We are told “The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.” Something big was going on here. How many people there changed their lives and believed? We find out next week, and you are welcome to peek ahead if you don’t remember.
God lays his plan out pretty clearly to the people in the synagogue. Jesus is a player, He comes right out and says “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
God has a plan for Jesus, and he has a different plan for each of us. God has a plan for St. Thomas. Jesus can’t be something or someone He is not. We can’t afford to do that either. This is not a game. This is a serious as anything gets. We need to discern God’s will and do it. We need to appreciate the fact that the Body of Christ has many parts. “…there are many members, yet one body.”
St. Thomas faces a challenge. Our pledging does not support our budget. The vestry adopted a long-range plan several years ago, and we are moving into a period of discernment. The vestry will meet with Canon Terri (in April probably), and we plan to devote the May vestry meeting to setting a plan in place for 2020 at St. Thomas. The solution at this point involves a move to a part-time ministry model in January of next year.
What exactly does this mean for us as a church? What exactly does this mean for me and my family? I am not sure, but I do know this. God loves us and he has a plan. We are called to discern and exercise our gifts.
As part of the discernment process, we will be working with the Baptized for Life initiative. This survey and the work involved with it are being funded by a grant with the national church. We will have a survey go out in February to get an idea of just where we are and where gifts and needs are. There will be four workshops scheduled on Saturdays and a visit from a consultant who will probably be the facilitator for one of the workshops. He will preach one Sunday.
Participation in the discerning work is important for us as a community. When the future is uncertain, we need to have confidence in God’s providence. We need to be be prayerful. This not the time for Chicken Little to run around saying the sky is falling. It is time to figure out where we will be in 2020 and work toward that goal.
My first main point is that God has a plan for us. We need to discern it.
Second, God has given us what we need. We are given different gifts for a reason.
Finally, we need to play our position, because this counts. This is God’s plan after all and not a game. It is important.
I will leave you with the words from the Nehemiah reading this morning. “…do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
I have said these words in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon preached by Fr. Tom at St. Thomas, Plymouth
January 27, 2019, Epiphany 3
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21