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Sermon May13, 2018
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, LSW
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s, Newport, PA
Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year B
//lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Easter/BEaster7_RCL.html
And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. John 17:11
Some of you are aware that this year, Vestry has been going through a Mutual Ministry Review. This is something that needs to be done every 2-3 years. It’s a chance to look at how we are as a church. It’s a chance to note what we do well and what things we might want to do differently or in new ways.
Canon Dan Morrow, Diocesan Canon for Congregational Life and Mission, has been leading us through this process. He facilitated a session at our Vestry Retreat in March, explaining the process and providing information. The process has two parts. One part was to complete three short questionnaires that addressed areas of ministry regarding trust, communication and conflict. These surveys were completed anonymously and returned to Canon Morrow for compilation.
The second part was for Vestry to answer 5 questions regarding identified sources of transformation. The questions were:
1. Where do we see this in our congregation?
2. Is this a particular area of giftedness for our congregation? If so, how?
3. Is this an area where we have not concentrated in the recent past? If so, is there room for more concerted effort?
4. Are we doing things that take away from this practice in our church?
5. What is the one thing that we can either highlight or begin in the next few months, that will focus on this portion of the sources of transformation model?
The May newsletter has a report of the Vestry’s work and answer to the above questions.
All of the sources of transformation flow from prayer and worship. Canon Morrow explained that whatever we do as the church, it should strengthen our prayer and worship life, because everything we do -- study and learning, action and life in community – flows from our worship life. When we attend to prayer and worship and study, learning, action, and life in community, we continue to grow in faith and in our followship of Jesus Christ.
Canon Morrow came to our Vestry meeting this past Wednesday to go over the surveys and our work from the April meeting. He told us our survey results were fantastic. Among Vestry members, we have very high levels of trust; are good at communicating and have low conflict. He said these results mean we have great ability to take risks …try new things…experiment.
Now while the conflict survey results show low conflict, they also could be interpreted as that we as a community try to avoid conflict…that we have a low tolerance for conflict. He encouraged us to explore this area further…to be curious about this. He encouraged us to put some things in place to handle conflict. He also explained that conflict is not necessarily major disagreements; conflict can be just raising an issue that is uncomfortable or may have many viewpoints within our parish. A recent conflict which we navigated together is in choosing the organ. There were many ideas and viewpoints from which kind of organ we preferred to how much of our resources we were willing to use to address the issue of our old organ.
Canon Morrow emphasized over and over again that conflict is normal and necessary and if it’s not okay to disagree, then we’re in a cult. Canon Morrow will be sending us some materials to review and Vestry will continue to look at this area of our life together. And I am sure there will be times when sermons about this area are appropriate.
Attending to our life together is something that Jesus prayed about for his Disciples and for we who are the heirs of these disciples. That’s what our Gospel reading is today. This prayer for the Disciples is part of many teachings of Jesus’ at the Last Supper. The portion we heard today is right before the disciples go to the garden.
Jesus’ prayer for protection and unity for the disciples is important. As we hear this today, we hear Jesus praying for us. It’s an amazing prayer, I think. We all have our flaws. We all have our times when we don’t think we are necessarily at our best. We all have times when we feel like we have failed in our efforts to follow Jesus. Yet, Jesus continues to pray for us. Jesus continues to call us. Jesus continues to love us.
I mean, if you were Jesus, from what you’ve read in the Gospels, would you be confident in leaving this group in charge of carrying the message to the ends of the earth? Jesus IS confident. What a blessing for us. We are not and will never be perfect and yet we are perfect in our discipleship. Therefore, Jesus asks that we be protected from the many things in the world that can pull us away from discipleship.
Jesus also prays that this group of disciples be one. Yes, they are individually different and they can be one when they come together, live together and follow Jesus together. We know from our Bible and ages and ages of history how very difficult this is. Oftentimes, it seems easier to go it alone in our faith, rather than be part of a Christian community.
How many of us like to hear that conflict within a group is normal and should be expected? That truth doesn’t sound very exciting to me, I’ll admit. Jesus knew that going it alone was not possible, nor healthy. Jesus knew we need each other to strengthen us and to guide us.
It doesn’t mean that we are all alike, though. Unity and oneness means that we remain unified in our difference…that praying together, coming to the table together, working together, learning together, having fun together, and living as disciples together is possible and necessary, even if we have widely diverging personal views…widely diverging ways that we live out our faith in our everyday life.
Oh my…that’s such a challenge, isn’t it?
One of the questions Vestry raised, I think it was Bill Rohm, in our discussions about sources of transformation and in our conversation with Canon Morrow was, if we are such a great parish, then why aren’t people streaming in the doors? Why aren’t we growing by leaps and bounds? Canon Morrow said this question is about how we don’t want this thing we love to go away. We need to remember that Jesus created a movement, not an institution. Canon Morrow suggested that it is in the way we build disciples and encourage discipleship of Jesus that is the key. Disciples attract other disciples. So how do we build disciples? That’s the question we need to continue to answer and explore.
Today, let us be blessed by Jesus’ love for us through this beautiful prayer for our protection. Let us remember Jesus’ prayer that we remain in unity. Let us attend to the work of building disciples. Thus, we carry the good news of abundant life to the ends of the earth.
Amen
