cEpiphany 3 ~ January 21, 2007 ~ A sermon preached by The Rev’d Erl G. Purnell at Old St. Andrew’s Church, Bloomfield, CT
Nehemiah 8.2-10; Psalm 113; 1 Corinthians 12.12-27; Luke 4.14-21
Next Sunday is our 267th annual meeting. Just imagine. For 267 consecutive years—that’s 1/8th of the time since Jesus lived—people just like you and me have gathered in this place as the Body of Christ.
From time to time—and more often than you might think—I look out upon you, the congregation, from my vantage point over there. Of course I see your faces and I know your names. And yet, there are hallowed moments when your places are spiritually taken by others, unknown faces but not strangers. Your clothes are from another age—homespun trousers, bonnets, frock coats—; often the pews are packed but at other times people are sparsely peppered through the nave; there are summer times when the clear glass windows are raised so the breeze can cool you; there are winter times when you’re bundled in coats and muffs and when smoky foot warmers and the old stove are not enough to take the vapor of your breath away. When I am transported like this, it seems like I’ve even heard a horse whinny outside.
Perhaps you, too, have looked in this direction and not seen me, but seen The Rev’d Mr. Gibbs, Roger Viets, Ransom Warner, Karl Reiland, Raymond Cunningham, or George McAdams. Maybe you’ve looked and wondered what it was like before this beautiful sanctuary was carved, before any of the stained glass was installed, before the carpet was laid, and before our handicapped access was added. Did you know that for more than 130 years there were no candles on the altar?
Together we gather Sunday by Sunday to worship our God and to share in fellowship, not unlike good people of faith have done here for a very long time. How easy it is to think only of this moment, only of our own association and time with Old St. Andrew’s. And yet, we are here for but a breath of God’s time and little more than that in relation to the life of this parish. We are custodians, stewards of OSA if you will, in our own time. Because many have gone before us, we have inherited a rich history, and it is our sacred responsibility to build on the generosity and foresight of our faithful ancestors—Ezra Griswold, Eliphalet Mitchelson, Hezekiah Case, Jay Barnard, Harry Watson Case, Rollin Cowles, Ev Clark, Blair Wormer, and scores of others.
I’ve read and reread Bob McComb’s fine book The Word in the Wilderness, A History of Old St. Andrew’s Church 1740-2000. I have to imagine that the folks from yesteryear approached their tenure at OSA in much the same way we do today. Some people were visionaries and strove to insure the future of the church while others worried about getting new paint on the building every five years. Again, because I’m quite familiar with our history, I know there have been times when controversy about this or that has wrenched the parish. Did you know that this very building was first erected three miles down the road because of such a controversy? Still, the Body of Christ, as constituted in the St. Andrew Society of Bloomfield, has withstood these attacks from within and from without. I also know that OSA has celebrated times of abundance when it has been hope-filled and faith-filled. The life of this parish—all parishes—is dynamic. It ebbs and flows with the people who constitute it at any given time and in harmony with the movement of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those people.
A long time ago, Paul wrote to the troubled church at Corinth. He described the Body of Christ in a most eloquent way by likening the church to the human body. He talked about the physical members of the body and, and he talked about the spiritual gifts given to each member of the church. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.” He concludes his admonition, “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
We hear Paul’s teaching so often that I’m afraid we don’t usually pay much attention to it. ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that before. It’s about the body parts being the church. Wonder if I’m a hand or an eye or a knee?’ What if we listen with new ears?
Shifting metaphors from Paul for just a moment, this parish is knit together from strands of yarn made of many colors, textures, and strengths. The warp and woof of our life together depends upon the mix of the weave, that is, how we interact with each other. We are as strong and beautiful as the yarn woven to make us up.
Returning to 1st Corinthians, Paul exclaims, “But God has arranged the body … that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”
What difference does this make? It makes a lot of difference. Paul instructs us to honor each other and to work together for the greater glory of God in Christ. In other words, each of us is responsible for OSA. Not just the Vestry, not just the rector, not just committee members, but everybody. The parish is all of us together as one body.
Sometimes accepting the sacred responsibility of membership in the church happens in the joy of fellowship or at Vestry meetings or working in the community. On next Sunday, our sacred responsibility of membership happens corporately at our 267th annual meeting. It’s the time when we come together to do the business of the parish.
Jack Spaeth, a Canon of the Diocese, told the Vestry last week that the annual meeting of a parish should be a time to celebrate all that has happened in the previous year and to anticipate plans for the months to come. Over these 267 years, annual meetings at OSA have run the gambit (the good, the bad, and the ugly). No matter what, however, they are vital to our life together. I hope you, as a member of this Body of Christ, will accept your responsibility and come to the meeting with the Spirit of Christ in your heart. How else do we know the presence of Christ among us unless we, members of the body, come together?
Do you remember what follows the section of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that we’ve just heard? It’s familiar to all of us. Perhaps you have already knit these words into your heart: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.” He goes on, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.” And after further spinning his web about the attributes of love and what it is to be “baptized into one body … and to drink of one Spirit,” Paul famously concludes by teaching, “When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been known fully. And now, faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
… and the greatest of these is love.
Amen.
Copyright © 2007. Erl G. Purnell
All rights reserved.
