Going Home Again...A Celebration of New Ministry at St. John's in Vernon, CT

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to be back at St. John’s to join in your Celebration of New Ministry. It is a pleasure that I can assure you that I did not expect. Thank you, Virginia, for this opportunity.

If the truth be told, our time together today is also remarkable because the people of St. John’s do not celebrate new ministries very often. Forty some years ago the people of St. John’s came together to celebrate the start of a new ministry with a new rector and the blessing of this new church building. The long journey from the Rockville Hotel, to the old church on Ellington Avenue, the sanctuary that is now the children’s chapel and parish hall had finally arrived his in this place. A rector and a new church building.

Some twenty years later we came together again to celebrate a new ministry with a new rector in a service that was the first festival service after the consecration of this space. A new rector and a newly consecrated church.

We might be tempted to think that we come together today to celebrate a new rector and a newly renovated and refreshed building. Clearly new life has been breathed into this place: the rectory has been refurbished with new windows and energy efficiencies, our stained glass windows newly protected, and our ground wonderfully nurtured. Clearly this is a beautiful and welcoming parish campus. Do not stand still for too long….or you might receive a fresh coat of paint!

Yes, Virginia, you have breathed a new life into this place and it is reflected in the pride we all feel in these buildings and grounds. It would be easy to think that we come here to celebrate all that has been achieved in the past few years.

We might do that….but we would be wrong.

(Don’t worry, Bishop Laura, the people of St. John’s are used to being told that they are wrong…I have been saying things like that for the better part of 50 years….They are used to it by now.)

We would be wrong to think that this is a celebration of the revival and restoration of this physical place.

Celebrations of New Ministry are not about all that has happened…a kind of capping off of a time of discernment that is now finished and over. Celebrations of New Ministries are the start of something new. Something different. Something that you, Virginia, and the people of St. John’s are called by God to do and be.

Bishop Laura is here today not to witness the end of a story, but to give her blessing to the start of a new commitment to ministry and mission – a new way of being Church.

The world is a very different place than it was forty or even twenty years ago. The foundations of our culture, our communities, and even our families are different and we might be hard pressed to see many of these changes as positive or good. And even if they are good, they are happening entirely too fast.

The church is no longer the hub around which the community is centered. Anne Watkins, our friend and mentor, tells us that more than forty percent of the people in our communities are not associated with a church or other religious institution. Studies tell us that folks who don’t attend church aren’t staying home because they are spiritually fulfilled.

We live in a world where homelessness, violence, poverty, hunger, fear, intolerance, neglect, and abuse are a way of life for far too many of us.

Robert Frost said, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

The truth is that many of the people in the world around us have no church home to go home to – no place where they know that they will be taken in and loved no matter what. How many of the people you see at school, at the gym, or at the mall have not only no church home, but no understanding of what being part of a community of people centered in Christ?

The truth is being a beacon here on a hill in Vernon will no longer bring people to Christ. We need to leave the safe confines of this place to meet people where they are. To come to know them and their stories. To listen to their hopes and dreams and fears and longings. We need to come to know them…to know the Christ that lives within them. We need to welcome them where they are and how they are and no matter who they are. Luke explains it this way:
“…the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.”

We need to recognize the Christ that lives within them and within us.

We need to come to a new understanding of what we are called to be. We can no longer be people who define ourselves by the buildings we occupy, but by the relationships and the bonds we have established with God and with each other. We are at our truest core people who come together Sunday by Sunday to gather at the Lord’s table. We are people who come together to remember…to remember Christ’s words and God’s call to us. To remember our promises to continue in the apostle’s teaching and fellowship…in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers. To celebrate the Eucharistic community we have become.

Our gospel reading for this morning recounts part of the resurrection story. Christ has died. Christ is Risen… but the disciples are still in a place apart…reeling from all the changes in their world. Into that place Jesus comes again and says:

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. … And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going."

Then Thomas asks the question that weighs on our hearts too. "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

How do WE know the way we are called to follow Christ?

I believe that the people of St. John’s, like Thomas have been given a way to follow. The evidence of that call is all around us.

· God has brought to you and you have called a new rector who has a soul deeply committed to ministry in the world. She has ministered in schools and hospitals and in her home and family –places where the work of the church meets the needs of the world. I am not here to ask you to allow Virginia to continue these ministries. I am here to call you to join with her in seeking new ministry in the world for all of us. Do not let her go this alone.

· God has brought St. John’s into a new relationship with the other Episcopal Eucharistic Communities around us. There is new a new tension in the ties that bind us one to another. Please join me in giving thanks to Bishop Ahrens and all those from other Episcopal communities, especially the East of the River Initiative and the PMC program, who by their presence express their commitment to this new commitment to mission and ministry. St. John’s is not facing this new world alone.

· God has blessed us with rich scripture, a fine tradition, and the blessing of reason. We know how to order our lives by committing ourselves and our Eucharistic community to study, prayer and meditation. We can and will pray our way into this new way of being church.

· We have also been blessed by a clear understanding of the value of the relationship between a priest and her people. You know not only the preciousness and strength of your relationship, but also its fragility. Treat each other with dignity and respect. Take care of and pray for and give forgiveness to each other. Love one another.

· For many years, the children of this Eucharistic community gathered together each Sunday morning with the following words: “This is God’s house and he is here today. He hears each song we sing and listens when we pray.” Those simple words are still true today. God hears our prayers. God supplies our needs. We simply need to ask.

· What more do you need? Jesus told the disciples, “See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals;” and later adds, “…cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’

The kingdom of God has come near to us.

God loves us – every one of us –more than we will ever know. God is also doing for the people of St. John’s and for this community and for the world, better things than we could ever ask for or imagine.

Thank God for the opportunity and the ability to do more than we could ever imagine or hope for to fulfill God’s mission in the world.
AMEN.