State of the Parish Address
January 23, 1994
Mark 1:14-20
Stephen Vincent Benet’s novel, The Devil and Daniel Webster, opens with these words: ‘Yes, DanieI Webster’s dead – or at least they buried him. But, every time there’s a thunderstorm around Marshfield, they say you can hear his rolling voice in the hollows of the sky. And they say that if you go to his grave, and speak loud and clear, ‘Dan’I Webstu. . . Dan’1 Webster!’ – the ground ‘ II begin to shiver and the trees begin to shake. And after a while, you’ll hear a deep voice, saying: Neighbor, how stands the Union?’ Then you better answer: ‘The Union stands as she stood-rock-bottomed and copper-sheathed, one and indivisible,’ or he’s liable to rear right out of the ground.”
On this, my 16th annual State of the Parish Address as I stand not 20 feet from where George Ferguson, the first Rector, is interred – it’s almost as if the beams of the church seem to shiver and the floor shakes, and I hear his deep voice saying: “Neighbor, how stands the parish?”
A lot has happened in the past 57 years and we’re going to have some fun a little later sharing some memories. But what I want to start with is to realize the vast changes since George Ferguson’s day.
Just in the last 25 years, we’ve seen tremendous Changes. Not too long ago, there was a 25th anniversary of the Rowan and Martin television show called ‘laugh in.” Some of you may have remembered it. One of the regular sketches was of someone prophesying the future. Oh, how we laughed at these wild and crazy future speculations. They played back some of these absurd prophecies that brought down the house 25 years ago – an unemployed actor named Reagan would become President; the Berlin Wall would come down; Israel and Palestine would come together; there would be 500 channels on television. Not so funny now. Now we would simply nod and say that the comedians had a good vision or insight into the future. What seemed unbelievable 25 years ago is highly believable today.
And so it was true in George Ferguson’s day. He had a vision that predicted about small intimate groups. He was not interested in the parish following a traditional model. He started this parish with people leaving their neighborhood church and coming out – traveling a good distance to be a part of St. Philip’s. All of these ideas might have seemed strange in 1936. Today, we say they were visionary concepts.
Eight years ago, when we had our last expansion and celebrated our 50th anniversary, we were looking for a phrase that would describe our life. And Harry Sinclair, one of the saints at rest, suggested that St. Philip’s had always had a tradition of Christian vision, a vision of what God was calling us out to do and to be. This is what accounts for our health, our growth, our uniqueness as a community. Without it, we’re just another pretty place that holds services. With it, we’ve become an exciting, spirit-filled, future-oriented community.
There’s a biblical injunction from Proverbs that goes: ‘Without a vision, the people perish.” I’m convinced that is true. Without a clearly held understanding of what God wants for his people, we’re just spinning our wheels. It’s a vision that determines where you’re going and makes sense of all that you are doing.
Two years ago, the Vestry took our vision and reduced it to three words so that we might place it on a banner. They did that and, thanks to Betty Hunter’s skills, we now have it. The words they chose were: Rejoice, Renew and Reach-out.” And they were chosen because we saw ourselves set on a journey. A journey that began with George Ferguson and a few courageous souls and continues into the future. A journey that is characterized by worship, whereby Sunday becomes the most exciting day of the week for our parishioners. A journey whereby we are constantly renewing ourselves and building a caring community. (To renew means to take what already exists and change it – render it.) Renewal is important because the parish is never complete – we’ve never arrived. In one sense, we are always re-inventing what this community looks like. (I admit that is somewhat unsettling for those who want stability and permanence, but for those of us in ChIiSt, we know there is nothing permanent this side of the grave.)
Lastly, the Vestry used the term “reach-out” as the challenge of our joint ministry to the larger community. Our vision is to do no less than transform the city of Christ and bring into our community all who are strangers to the love of Christ. Rejoice – Renew – Reach out. A tradition of Christian vision. St. Philip’s – that’s what we’re all about.
Last week I took some time off and went to San Diego with Peggy while she attended a conference. I spent three days by the beach just doing a little writing, reflecting and praying. I reviewed in my mind the past year and the past 16 years. How far along have we come? How close are we to our vision? And I began to remind God of all that we have accomplished. After all, he/she may have forgotten how great a staff we have, how we’ve survived a financial crisis, how we’ve become the eighth largest Episcopal church in the country, how we’re known as one of the model parishes in the nation, how we’ve grown spiritually and educationally. On and on went the list.
But, somehow, God interrupted me, and it wasn’t (as usual) the kind of interruption I was expecting. God interrupted my laundry list of accomplishments by asking three questions:
(1) “Is the world-or your corner of it – it-a better place to live in than it was last year or 16 years ago?’
(2) “Are there more people who know me and love me than there were in 1977 or 1987 or 1993?”‘
(3) “How many people are there who are not part of this caring community or any Christian community? How many non-Christians are living around the homes of your people?”
These are tough questions, and they certainly stopped my comfortable reflections. What I began to see is that I was counting people who come and God counts people who don’t come. We count what we have accomplished and God counts what could have been
Right at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus gives his disciples a task and a vision. It’s important to have both. The task is to follow him. The vision is to become fishers of people. Those aren’t easy marching orders – but without them, none of us would be here today.
Someone told me about seeing an old weather-beaten sign carved into the walls of a church in Sussex, England:
“A vision without a risk is but a dream.
A task without a vision is drudgery.
A vision and a task is the hope of the world.”
Well, we have a vision to “reach-out” – to reach out to all those who are not part of God’s caring community. And I have a task for each of you – to bang at least one new person who doesn’t have a relationship with God bang them into the community of faith this Lent.
And, I have a second concrete challenge – risky as it may be – and that is that by next year, we be in a position to expand our facilities, which are already over-burdened. These are tasks that I believe God wants us to accomplish in order to move closer to our vision. Can we do it?
Well, neighbor, how stands the parish? The answer is that St. Philip’s stands as it has always stood – rock-bottomed and copper-sheathed – one in the spirit of God and indivisible in its vision. I say this, not to keep George Ferguson in his niche, but to convey to you the necessity to keep moving forward – to become more and more the community that makes a family out of strangers – the community with a tradition of Christian vision – the community that knows itself to be fishers of people. AMEN.