This is the sermon I preached on Sunday.  It goes hand in hand with the one from Saturday night.  I hope you enjoy it.

Proper 20B—150^th Anniversary Sunday

Last night in my sermon, I looked back on our 150 years, and especially the call for this place to be a house of prayer for all people, with no distinctions, as our founder Joseph Burnett penned it, “as to wealth, color, race or station.”  At the very end, I mentioned that I had recently learned that the mission statement of Canterbury Cathedral in the UK — what many consider to be the Mother Church in the Anglican Communion— is simply this: To Show People Jesus.  What a fantastic statement, and I would argue that we, as followers of Christ, are called to that mission too.  Sometimes though we forget that this is what we are all about.

Notice the disciples in our lesson we just heard from Mark.  They had been told by Jesus that he was going to be put to death, and then rise again. But did they miss it?  Because they don’t say anything, and soon enough the conversation changes to be all about them.  Which one was the greatest among them.  It went from focusing on Jesus to focusing on a competition.

They were concerned only with status and station.  They should have met Joseph Burnett.

And so Jesus, in his unbelievable compassion, sits them down and tells them the secret to the kingdom: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  And then taking a child, Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

This is one of the scenes many of us cherish.  The little child, full of innocence, comes before the disciples as an object lesson.  It may give you a feeling of joy and warm satisfaction.  But in that day, children weren’t given the preference that we give them now.  Kids were seen as a liability since they couldn’t add much in terms of economic value to a household and so had no status, much like a servant.  It’s no coincidence that we know the idiom “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”  Babies were washed last of all when water had to be hauled up to the house and warmed up over the fire.  After Daddy, and Momma, and the older kids.  And that bath water would have been well used by the time little Sarah got her bath.  It certainly wasn’t the bath time rituals we know today.

So Jesus is telling his disciples that they must become like a servant, they must welcome those with the lowest social standing, if they truly want to follow him.

And that, brothers and sisters, has major implications for us.

Because if we are called to show people Jesus, that means we need to do so without regard to status or station or age or color or any of the numerous things that can separate us from one another.  Because more often than not those are the things we are told by our society to notice most of all.  We hear messages that we should strive to be higher up on the food chain by what we do or what we buy or who we know.  And we tend to hear that those who are the lowest in our society—be they immigrants or homeless or people from depressed areas—should be looked down upon.

I think the very thing Jesus is getting at here most of all is that we are called to love deeply.  While we may spend our time ranking ourselves up against one another like the disciples, it’s not about that at all.  It’s about befriending the ones we think we’re better than, and listening to them and engaging with them.  It’s realizing that in Jesus’ kingdom the first is last and the last is first.  In other words, it’s not about status.

A minister tells a story that sheds light on this truth. “On one occasion I was responsible for making the seating arrangements at a head table.  At one end of the table a person with experience was placed next to a newcomer in order to make him feel welcome.  When the experienced person saw his place card, he promptly picked it up and moved it to the center of the table, next to the person who would be presiding.”[1]

For that gentleman, it was all about status.

If we are concerned with impressing others, or about where we end up in the pecking order, or how to make ourselves look good, than we cannot show people Jesus.  We’ll be too focused on ourselves to do so.

So what does that mean for us as we celebrate 150 years today at St. Mark’s?  What are we to hold onto as we move from this point of time into our future as a congregation?

I would say two things.  First, we must love without regard as Jesus has loved us.  When Jesus came, he broke barriers.  He spoke with women—like the one who was so despised she had to gather her water at the hottest part of the day.  He healed the haves — like the daughter of Jarius the centurion—and the have nots—like the woman hemorrhaging for 17 years.  He brought the best wine to the party, and was accused of being a drunkard.  He blessed children and fed people and got upset when the system showed a preference to the wealthy ones.  He loved and showed mercy and called people to amendment of life.

Jesus loved.  And we should too.

Second, we need to deepen our focus on reaching out and working alongside our neighbors.  Jesus told us today that our call is not to status but to service.  We have talked about doing an outreach day here at St. Mark’s in honor of our 150^th year.  A single day when a great number of us gathered and went out to places around our community to work with our neighbors.  Possibly serving a meal, or doing yard work, or building a home, or reading to kids or visiting a nursing home.  Imagine a day when we join forces to simply spread the good news of Christ by our deeds.  I would hope and encourage us to do so before the end of May next year, and we need your help.  Will you join with me as we envision such a day of service?

Finally, on this day of celebration, I simply want to say thanks.  In many ways I am preaching to the choir, to those who are faithful and seeking to serve and follow Christ and wanting to keep the ways of the world in check.  St. Mark’s is St. Mark’s because of you all, and I am deeply grateful to be your rector at this time.  I look forward to the work before us, and to all of the wonderful days God has placed before us.  Amen.

This past weekend we gathered to celebrate 150 years of worshipping in the same spot at St. Mark’s in Southborough.   We had a truly wonderful weekend together celebrating!  This is my sermon from the Gala on Saturday evening.

St. Mark’s Church 150^th Anniversary—September 22, 2012 

            On August 15, 1862, at 3:30 in the afternoon, a band of people gathered on the parcel of land that had once been home to a Mr. Heman Este so they could lay the cornerstone for St. Mark’s Church.  The Rev. Albert C. Patterson, new priest of St. Mark’s, and the Rev. Eleazer Mather Porter Wells from St. Stephen’s in Boston presided, while Joseph Burnett—Sr. Warden and significant patron—looked proudly on.  This Episcopal congregation had been one of his dreams for Southborough.  He wanted a parish to worship in the Anglican tradition, but just as importantly, St. Mark’s was to be a free church.  He had only one stipulation in deeding the property to be used by the congregation, it was to be “free to all, with no distinctions as to wealth, color, race or station.”

In the throes of the Civil War, Joseph Burnett saw that all were welcome in the kingdom of God.  That the worship of the living God couldn’t be limited to just the wealthy, or the ones with education or those who held positions; it was to be for all people.  All people.  With no distinctions.

If we were to write this today, it might look something like what Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Community in Daytona has for their church.  Let me read the words printed on their welcome bulletin each week.

“We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, yo no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying newborns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.

“We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or, like our pastor, can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re ‘just browsing,’ just woke up or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism.

We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but have not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up much too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organized religion,” we’ve been there too.

“If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and she wanted to go to church.

“We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down their throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!”

We might want to call this thinking “forward” or “diverse” or “pluralistic;” those are the buzzwords of our day and age.  But I would simply call them from God.  It was God who, through the prophet Isaiah, said, “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,  ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’;…  Thus says the Lord… ‘the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,  and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,  and hold fast my covenant— I will … make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

The supposed “Angry God of the Old Testament” said this.  God looked down at the Gentiles, the non-Jews, longing to worship and said that God’s holy temple would be a house of prayer for all people.  Joseph Burnett understood this completely 150 years ago, when he bought the Este house and tore it down with the intention of building a church on this site while war was waged in the country over slavery.  He got it.

The purpose of this or any house dedicated to God is simply to worship, to be a place of comfort and solace when we are distressed, a place to shout our thanksgivings, a place where we can be reconciled to God and seek forgiveness, a place to pray.  Is it surprising then that Jesus, when he saw the extortion and unfair money-exchange taking place in the Jerusalem temple called it a den of thieves?  He reminded those money-changers of the Isaiah text, that God’s house was a house of prayer.  Not a place to make only the wealthy feel welcome.  God longed for the prayers of everyone.

I can only begin to imagine the prayers said in this place since 1862.  Those who prayed for loved ones who were ill.  The ones giving God great thanks for bringing their sons and daughters home safely.  The prayers for forgiveness and a desire to make amends.  Prayers for rain, and for seasonable weather.  The ones praying for snow—if you were a child hoping for a day off from school—and those praying for no snow—if you were an adult with a commute.  Prayers of great joy at the beauty of Christmas and Easter, prayers of sorrow at gatherings on Good Friday.  Prayers for babies being baptized and for those who died much too soon.  Thanksgivings for couples being married.  Prayers of grief for those who departed this life.  How many thousands of prayers have been lifted up to the Almighty from within these walls? How many lives have been touched by the Holy One in these pews or at these altar rails as a result of Joseph Burnett and his colleagues joining together to build St. Mark’s Church?

Fifty years ago, in the Spring of 1963, then Bishop Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., wrote a letter published in the St. Mark’s Marksman for our 100^th anniversary. “The history of a parish never ends.  Life touches life and goes on.  It must be a challenge to us to make our contribution to the common life so that this parish can go on touching lives ever more fully and in wider circles.  May God guide you into this second century.  The world will not be easier—it will be harder.  A conventional complacent Christianity will not suffice for the days that lie ahead.  Christianity must be a movement of people who find in Christ guidance and courage for the perplexities of a new day.  These will be exciting times.  Even if they are hard times they are the kind of times in which Christianity can grow in deep ways.”

As we celebrate our sesquicentennial, as we look forward to the next 150 years, I want to echo those words from the good Bishop Stokes.  Life touches life and goes on.  We are called to let our lives as the people who worship Jesus Christ in this place touch others in wider and fuller circles.  Because we are all connected with one another.  We are connected with those saints who have gone before—the Burnetts and Fays and Choates—and we are connected to each other here and now, and we will be connected with those who come after, whoever they may be.  The days before us will not be easier; if that was true 50 years ago, it is even more true now.  We continue to be fragmented, to look tentatively at those who are not like us, to feel that our differences are too great to overcome.  We live in a time and place where Christianity has lost its luster and influence.  Yet this house is a house of prayer for all people, and we are called not to complacent Christianity, but to a deep and abiding faith in the one, holy, true and undivided Trinity.

We are here to make a difference in this community in the name of Jesus Christ.

We are called to live as his disciples, and to share his message of love, hope, forgiveness and reconciliation with the world.  We are not to be complacent in spreading that good news.  “Christianity must be a movement of people who find in Christ guidance and courage for the perplexities of a new day.”

As we gather here on this evening, and give thanks, and renew our baptismal covenant and share stories and celebrate, I hope we do not lose sight of that which is most important.  150 years ago a group of people came together to lay a cornerstone so that we would have a place to come and follow Jesus Christ.  By coming here and praying and having our faith deepened, we can in turn go out into the world to share by word and deed the good news of God in Christ.

I learned recently that the mission statement of Canterbury Cathedral in the UK — what many consider to be the Mother Church in the Anglican Communion— is simply this: To Show People Jesus.  I would argue that that’s our mission too.  May we share that wonderful news with everyone we meet: whether they are like us or not.  May we know that God welcomes each and every one of us into a deeper relationship with Christ.  And may the good work begun 150 years ago continue for 150 more, as we show people Jesus.  Amen.

 I’m continuing my sermon series on James.  This Sunday we read about the taming of the tongue.  I hope you find these words beneficial.

James 3:1-12—The Judging Tongue

In his letter to these believers of the twelve tribes of Israel scattered among the nations, James doesn’t pull any punches, and today is no different.  He’s pretty direct in these statements about what we say, and in case you think this is just directed to teachers, read the text again; this is directed at all of the brothers and sisters, with an added warning about teachers.

We all know that words can set off landmines in our relationships, or in our political landscape or even our world.  Imagine what happens when someone in our family says that they detest us.  It cuts to our core, because deep down we want to be loved for who we are, and words—no matter how many times we sing that childhood mantra about sticks and stones—words damage us.

James gets this.  He gives great examples about the tongue, and I want you to hear it again in a current day translation.  “A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!  It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.  This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!  My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?” (The Message Bible James 3:3-12)

That leaves very little space for wiggle room, and yet we often fall short.  But the question has to be why.  Why do we do this?  Why do we let our tongues run wild?  And why do our tongues often run wild against those we love best?  You can tame wild beasts, James says, but the tongue, you might as well forget it.  It’s a world of evil.

That reference to taming all kinds of animals would have set of alarm bells for those reading James’ letter, because it would remind them of some other verses given much earlier in the biblical narrative.  From the first chapter of Genesis, way back at the very beginning.  “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the ground.” (Gen 1:27-28)  And so when James talks about taming the animals, those hearing his letter would say, “Aha!  He’s talking about the work given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.”  Animal taming and domesticating is a breeze, James says, but taming the tongue, give it up.

A while ago I read a fabulous book called Transformational Architecture: Reshaping Our Lives as Narrative by Dr. Ron Martoia.  His main idea is that the Christian story needs to begin where God starts it at Eden, and not where many Christians begin it at the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the fall of humanity.  He suggests that when God created us in God’s image, what we received is three core longings within us, three ways in which we connect: namely with God and something larger than ourselves, with each other and a longing to be loved, and with our future, our hope that things will be better.[1]  And those longings come directly from God, are God’s imprint, the image of God, on us.

Our relationships with each other are key to our lesson from James.  Dr. Martoia tells the story of being in the check-out at a grocery store waiting for his turn, and the woman in front of him had two kids running wild.  We’ve all been there.  The kids were touching everything, knocking over the candy and Mom was oblivious.  What really bothered him was that the kids were running into him as well and were making a scene.  Now Ron’s a former pastor and current ministry consultant and spiritual leader.  And this is what he was saying under his breath: “Are you kidding me?  Control your freakin’ kids.  I need to get you a parenting brochure.  This is a public place not an outdoor playground.  Get some awareness, lady.  These are your kids.”[2]  Those are some horrible things to be thinking, of course.  He writes, “As this frazzled mom paid for her items, she said to the cashier, ‘Thank you for being patient with me.  This has been a hard week. I’m taking care of my dying mother at my house, and my husband left me this week.’”[3]  He was bowled over, of course.  He was grateful he hadn’t spoken the words out loud, but he still felt like an idiot.

It’s that desire to judge that seems to be present in all of us.  Dr. Matoria points out that in the creation account, when God separates things—like light from dark or the land from the sea—everything is good.  Each day ends with that refrain, “And God saw that it was good.”  God sees everything, God knows everything, and what God sees is goodness.  Even when things are different from one another, when God looks at the armadillo and the lion on Day 6, God says its all good.  God revels in seeing that goodness.

And yet at the tree of knowledge of good and evil, of good and not good, Adam and Eve are told that they shouldn’t eat of it.   They are given the right to separate and name—that’s a giraffe over there, and this one is a prairie dog—but are told not to eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil.  “It appears from the text” Martoia writes, “that they would acquire the ability to make pronouncements that only God, with his perfect and infinite knowledge, would be all to make.  They would presumably be seeking to make the sort of pronouncements that God had made in the refrain of Genesis, namely ‘and it was good.’”[4]  But the problem is when they eat of that fruit, “they immediately begin to judge between good and evil.  And the results of their judging seem to be significantly different from God’s appraisal.” They look down and see their nakedness and are ashamed.[5]  Martoia concludes, “Part of the sickness introduced by Adam and Eve is our incessant desire to judge between good and not good (evil), even though we are incapable of doing so in any ultimate sort of way.”[6]  But that doesn’t stop us.  We let our tongues go wild.

We like to separate people into groups that we can then put down easily.  We use phrases intended to harm others (We’re in the political season, insert your own example here from the party you support).  We judge people based on the color of their skin, or their accent, or their status.  Unfortunately, we start young, and many just hope to make it through middle school without getting too many scars inflicted by the verbal attacks.  We certainly know what is good and not good based on what others tell us, or what we pick up from our families or what we see on TV, but ultimately it goes completely against what God has said.  Because God, when God looks around and sees us, when God sees the Democrat and Republican and Independent, and the 80 year old and the 4 year old, and the guy from Africa, and the woman from the Netherlands, God looks at all of us and says, “It is good.”

This judging, this determining of good and not good, it is a fire, a fire from hell, as James puts it.  We destroy one another with our words, which flow right out of our unquenchable desire to judge others. And we do it for no other reason it seems than to make ourselves look good or to feel better about our own choices or to seem bright and witty.  We do it even though we know how much we hate it ourselves when we’re on the receiving end.

Which is exactly why we need Christ.  James hits the nail on the head, “No one can tame the tongue,” he writes.  Try as we might not to judge, not to let hurtful words slip out from between our lips, we cannot do it alone.  We need God’s help.  You see, it’s God who purifies the brackish waters within us.  God brings about the change in our lives, often slowly over a long period of time, but it’s God’s work and not something we can magically do by mere will power.

It is by inviting Christ into our lives each day, again and again, and allowing Christ to transform us, that we can make strides in the right direction.  It is in being crucified with Christ, as Paul puts it to the Galatians, that we give Jesus the chance to live in us.  By hoisting up that judging nature on the cross, we say again and again how much we want to be the people God always intended us to be.  When we offer ourselves to God’s correction and love, we come closer to the way things were always meant to be, people who see others simply as what they—and what we ourselves are—the image, the icon, of the living God.  Amen.

Photo Credit: Stock Xchng by leroy

In our tradition, we read from a letter in the New Testament each Sunday (in addition to other readings), and  James is the epistle we’re reading for all of September.  His letter is both wonderful and hard to deal with. I feel that he is writing not to some Jewish believers back in the 1st century, but to us some 20 centuries later.

In the portion of his letter for this week he tells us that we shouldn’t show partiality. That’s dang hard, especially in the current environment here in the US as we get ready for a presidential election.  We like people who agree with us, or who impress us.  And we look down on those who disagree or who don’t have the education we do or whatever.

And when we do this—when we judge others—well, that’s not from God.

This sermon also hits on a few “in-house” things here at St. Mark’s. Good sermons always have a context, or so I learned in seminary. But even though I address the good folks here in Southborough, I think the message is one all of us need to hear.

When you’re done, I’d love to hear your responses. How do you deal with the issue of showing partiality?

Based on James 2:1-17 & Mark 7:24-27

            It’s been a few years for me—okay quite a few—but I still remember what it feels like to walk into a crowded cafeteria with a tray of food all by myself and not see any friends to sit with.  If you’ve ever been the new kid, or gone to a conference by yourself, or if you recall those first few meals at college, you may remember it too. When the scan for a familiar face came up empty, I would look for an open small table.  If I was lucky, I went there, if I wasn’t, I headed to the least crowded long table that had an opening on the end.  I would pull out a book (nowadays, I suspect I’d grab my iPhone) to look busy and shovel in my food.  Inside I’d be feeling as if I somehow didn’t fit in.  (Those childhood insecurities die hard, don’t they?)

It’s tough walking into a place where you think you might not fit in.  But it helps if you look like you belong.  At least then you can hope that people will notice you or be kind or at least not give you the once over and dismiss you with the look of their eyes because you are clearly out of place.

But it’s exactly that kind of thing that James talks about in the bit of his letter that we read today.  It seems some of the early followers of Jesus were doing just that.  “Do you really believe in our Lord,” James asks incredulously, “with these acts of favoritism you show?”  He then creates this scene about a wealthy person and a homeless guy coming into a gathering.  The rich chap looks like he might be able to help the bottom line, or be able to offer an amazing network to connect with.  So the people there fall over themselves to help him, giving him attention and a seat of honor.  But the other guy, the one who looks out of place, who has a bit of b.o., and oozes with insecurity, well he barely gets a chance to say hello before he’s rushed off to the obstructed view seating in the back.

“Have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?”

That’s a rhetorical question, of course.  They know they’ve been caught.  And they’re left holding the bag.  Because when a guy shows up in Rolls Royce we notice.  The woman in the Pinto? Not so much.

James continues with this partiality talk, about how when they do it, they are in fact breaking the law; they are sinning.  With their actions, they dishonor the poor.  And when you defame them, you defame God.

But I cannot talk about this without ignoring the elephant in the room.  Jesus, in our passage this morning, calls a woman a dog.  There’s another, much more harsh word we use today that would result in getting your mouth washed out with soap.  Jesus called a woman that.

Trying to soften this—something a few commentators attempt, like claiming Jesus spoke with a twinkle in his eye, or that he really meant a playful puppy—doesn’t stand the truth test.  Jesus says that he can’t help her because she isn’t Jewish; thanks for playing, but no.

But this Syrophonecian woman cares much too deeply about her demon possessed daughter.  She’s not going away when a Jewish rabbi throws out a racial slur.  “Yes, Lord,” she responds, “but even the dogs under the table get the children’s scraps.”  And with that Jesus’ eyes are opened.  He looks at her with a new sense of compassion, and awe at being beat by her wit, and he recognizes that this kingdom that he is ushering in cannot be contained.  That there is more than enough to go around.  That even the ones seen as unworthy can share in the goodness of the kingdom.

We see Jesus’ human side in this.  He’s clearly showing some bigotry.  But when it’s pointed out to him, notice that Jesus doesn’t stand his ground and say, “Listen, lady, did you not hear me before?”  Instead he changes his mind.  Jesus hears her.  Maybe he had a tough day at the office, or was just run down, or still needing that break after John the Baptist’s death.  Whatever the reason, Jesus sees he’s in the wrong and corrects his course.  He realizes the beauty of his message even more so than before.  His kingdom is not about scarcity; it’s about abundance.

It’s easy to see the scarcity though.  It’s way too easy to recognize that the best thing to do when you don’t think there’s enough for you and yours is to grab as much as you can and push others away.  Jesus came primarily for the Jews, but his message of repentance, reconciliation and restoration couldn’t be contained for the Jews alone.  Even then that message was so much larger.

We do this in church, of course.  We live thinking there’s not enough.  And so we play favorites and find the people we think will bring us more status or clout or money or whatever and focus all our attention on them.  We dream small dreams because we think we don’t have the people, the bandwidth, the energy to do anything more.

But there’s a better way.  I think what James is getting at in this passage is this: when we focus in on a certain person or individual, we don’t allow ourselves to see the way God can use the other, especially the one deemed too different from us.  To say it plainly, we limit God.  We don’t see the image of God in that other person because of how we view them based on their clothes, or their car, or their education, or their children, or their hairstyle, or the color of their skin, or the choices in their lives.  So we think they are useless to us, and we ignore them.

But God sees them as integral to the kingdom Jesus ushered in; the same kingdom that couldn’t be contained just to the Jews.  God’s kingdom oozes abundance.  More than enough.

I’m seeing this play out here at St. Mark’s.  I’ve heard from some a message of caution or fear or disappointment or frustration that there aren’t enough people here to take active roles in our community right now.  We don’t have enough in the way of readers or chalice bearers.  We lack people to help our youth program, or to sing in our choir, or to serve at the homeless shelter or to organize the library.  When there’s not enough, our anxiety spikes.  Maybe there are hard conversations, or we feel like we’re not being heard.  Some may suggest that people are just too over committed or can’t make the time or don’t want to help out.  With a bit of feeling overwhelmed we might even call someone a name we know we shouldn’t.

But I’m here to tell you there’s more than enough.  It’s not just crumbs falling off the table, it’s a meal.  We need to look beyond those who think like us or share our views or who live in the same neighborhood or have always done the work.  We all can share in the work given to us by God here at St. Mark’s at this time.

Because God doesn’t show partiality.  Oh we might.  We might think that Sunday School is to be taught just by parents, but we have a number of excellent retired teachers in our midst who could help share our faith for an 8 week session.  Or maybe you think you couldn’t teach at all, but if you had the support of someone else with you, you might give it a try.  Or perhaps the thought of dishing up a plate of food in Marlborough or Boston scares you but you feel called to face that fear and recognize that God doesn’t have favorites.  Or maybe you could sing with the choir, or take part in the Christmas Bazaar, or use the gift of meticulousness for God’s glory by signing up for a turn on the altar guild.  Or you might have time to visit a shut in and bring them communion, or help out at the Bargain Box sorting through donated clothing.

I know there is enough talent, enough compassion, enough love for God in this congregation to do the work given to us, and even more.  But not if we show partiality.  Not if we look down at one another.  Or even worse, not if we look down at ourselves.

Which is, I think, one of the biggest challenges today.  We don’t think we are capable, or we think that others don’t want our help, or that we don’t have the same skills that someone else has.  So we bow out, defer, skulk away.  We figure that the group is set and is not in need of others.  Sometimes we might even feel a vibe coming off that a group doesn’t want new people to join—like we’re walking back into a crowded cafeteria alone.  I know this is simply not true.  Every person involved here in some way or another has mentioned how they would love to have more people involved.  People who have been here a long time or those who joined last month.  Adults or kids.  Women or men.  We have the gifts we need and then a lot more.

We can change the world, but first me must change our minds. About other people, about God’s kingdom, and about the amazing reality of abundance.  “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

We are called to so much more, and so on this day, the first Sunday back in this program year, I’d like to invite you to fill out that form you received.  Even our younger members.  And the ones who have been here more than 40 years.  How can you share yourself in the abundance of the kingdom?  What ideas do you have for us?  In this, our 150^th year of worshipping on this piece of land, we can make a difference.  As those called to be members of Christ’s body in this place, we must make a difference.  If we don’t, if we merely pay lip service or come and go without working toward the kingdom, then our faith is dead.  I hope you’ll join alongside me in sharing in the work of Christ.  We can do it, but only together.  Only when we see the abundance of the kingdom and the reality that Christ’s good news is for us all.