RCL YEAR C, EPIPHANY FOUR; ANNUAL MEETING, January 28^th, 2007

Jeremiah 1: 4-10; Psalm 71: 1-6; 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13; St. Luke 4: 21-30

St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church

The Reverend George F. Woodward III

A newly ordained priest was asked by the local funeral director to conduct a grave-side burial for a man who had no family. The priest agreed and on the appointed day headed out to the cemetery, but being unfamiliar with the town he got lost and arrived a half-hour late. He saw a backhoe and it’s crew but the hearse had already left, so he hurried to the side of the open grave where he could see the vault lid already in place. “Remove your hats, please gentlemen,” he said to the workmen, and proceeded to read the prayer book service, throwing in a general homily for good measure, and because he felt badly for being late. As he turned to go back to his car he heard one of the workmen say, “I ain’t never seen anything like that, and I been putting in septic tanks for twenty years!”

Maybe young Jeremiah was afraid of making mistakes once he knew himself to have received a call from God. “Ah, Lord GOD,” sighs Jeremiah, and you can nearly hear wistfulness, a sense of inadequacy, even despair, in his voice. The man is only eighteen and he is already world-weary and afraid he won’t measure up. When you’re eighteen you ought to believe you can do anything at all, and God is good enough to remind Jeremiah that he is more useful than he believes himself to be.

Jeremiah isn’t the first or the last to prove reluctant in the Lord’s service. When God called Moses, Moses said, “Why me? I am not eloquent!” When God called Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, Jonah protested that he loathed the Ninevites to whom God would send him. Elijah says he’s just too depressed right now to be about God’s mission, and St. Paul gripes about his unimpressive looks and his thorn in the flesh. We all seem reluctant to rise to what God asks of us in this world. We think we have good enough reason to demur.

Once, when the great pianist Paderewski performed at Carnegie Hall, a woman and her son were in the audience. The boy was captivated by the music, and at intermission, the mother realized the boy had given her the slip. Just then, over the noise of the crowd, she heard the notes of “Chopsticks” being played on the Steinway concert grand piano. He son had made his way onto the stage, and mother was horrified!

But then Paderewski came back onto the stage and sat down beside the boy. He placed his hands onto the piano keys beside the boy’s hands and added a beautiful accompaniment to the boy’s simple version of “Chopsticks.”

Our lessons remind us today that God has chosen to be our Paderewski, glad to see us dare the Steinway, insistent, in fact, that we do so. If we will just make our own music, if we will just begin to play “Chopsticks” God will expand our little tune with His great and mighty song. We have been created for a purpose: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you,” God says to Jeremiah. Jeremiah protests, as most of us do one way or another: “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak…I am only a boy.”

Each of us have been given gifts. In a very real sense, our lives are not our own. We are to rise to God’s call, acknowledge that we are purposefully created, step to the Steinway, and play. Helen Keller, blind and deaf from the time she was a toddler, once said: “I cannot do everything; but still, I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”

This Sixty-Sixth Annual Meeting of St. Edmund’s Church is as good a time as any to lay aside hesitancy and to claim the gifts God has given you for service to God’s reign. A great many of you are doing just that, and should feel affirmed that you’ve moved past Jeremiah’s youthful spirituality to the full commitment of mature faith.

I did not envy our President giving his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, and though I needn’t go on fifty-five minutes, Annual Meeting helps us take stock of the State of the Parish and I should offer something in the way of summary in this sermon. Many of you are using your gifts in God’s service here at St. Edmund’s, and it shows. Our parish is as financially healthy as we have ever been, and our parishioners have been generous in response to our 2006 Stewardship Campaign led by Brian Spaulding and Kathy Sweeney. Because of increases in pledges to the Operating Budget, because of many gifts designated to Father Rob’s salary, and because of lead gifts from Howard and Nan Schow, Paul and Katherine Johnson, and an anonymous parishioner, we have secured Father Rob’s financial package at least through mid-2008…time enough to bring our Operating Budget up to snuff.

Our Youth are inspired by Fr. Rob and our adult volunteers Dave Ford, Ben Henley, Eli Moreton and Denise Wadsworth, our children are well-served by Sunday School Director Cassandra Kirby and her wonderful crew of regular teachers, and by our Sunday School Music Director Richard Seymour. Our Music Program is on track with Debby Alonzo, who, though navigating an autumn of health challenges has worked with the Choir to give us fine music; and Bob Packer continues to provide quiet leadership as the renovation of our signature Aeolian-Skinner Organ unfolds. Sandy Linderman leads a renewed Lay Eucharistic Ministry whereby the Sacrament is carried from the Altar to our sick and shut-ins Sunday by Sunday, Diane McCracken has stepped forward to serve as Director of our wonderful Altar Guild, Kevin Lake leads a dynamic and engaged Mission & Outreach Committee, Robin Puri ran a heck of a fundraiser, and Senior Warden Judy Kerler, together with Junior Warden Michael Harrigian and an able Vestry have exercised tremendous leadership in our midst, and showed good support to Father Fisher as he ably led the parish in my sabbatical absence. I have not named nearly enough names to summarize the goodness of this year save to serve my point that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed in many and numerous ways at St. Edmund’s by those who have pressed their gifts and talents into Christ’s service.

Our President introduced for the first time in our nation’s history a female Speaker of the House Tuesday last during his State of the Union address, and the members of our Congress, Supreme Court and military rose to offer thunderous applause. The Episcopal Church introduced to the world this year its first female Anglican Primate, and while applause was thunderous at home, we’ve met with sullenness elsewhere in the world. Not all are pleased by the interpretation and proclamation of the Gospel found in the Episcopal Church, and tensions in our larger Anglican Communion continue. Our part is to offer faithful witness to the Gospel as God has stirred our gifts and understanding.

We all of us imagine that if Jesus appeared in this pulpit as a guest preacher we would be happy to have Him. He was a noted orator, fond of stories, and would surely leave us invigorated for the week ahead. We imagine this until we hear our Gospel lesson of the occasion when He preached in Nazareth, or other occasions like it in the Gospels, where Jesus was the guest preacher and enraged people! The congregation didn’t fold their arms and stoically wait out the message, they didn’t storm out of the synagogue in a huff and lower their pledge; they tried instead to throw Jesus off a cliff!

The congregation tried to murder Jesus because he challenged some of their most cherished social notions. He challenged their prejudices. I’ve never met a prejudiced person who believed they were prejudiced. Prejudice is by definition not self-critical. It is an opinion or feeling formed without thought or reason. We come by our prejudices through cultural osmosis, upbringing and temperament, and we are often unaware of them.

In the synagogue that day Jesus touched on the prejudice by which that gathering thought themselves better than others. Jesus seemed to want to provoke them when He talked about how Elijah went to Sidon, outside of Israel, where a foreign god was worshipped, and there sustained the widow of Zarephath while ignoring the suffering of Israel. The congregation was incensed at His interpretation. When He pointed out that Elisha didn’t heal any prominent Jews, but rather a Syrian general named Naaman, He touched the rawest of nerves.

Good religious folk can become murderously angry when confronted with their own provincialism and prejudice. We all prefer to believe that God is most at home with people like us, but now and again must be reminded that God loves those we are not willing to tolerate, and that those who are the most sure of their own piety are always those most in need of repentance.

In the consecration of a gay bishop in New Hampshire, and in the consecration of a female Primate for the Episcopal Church, we have followed in the footsteps of our Lord at Nazareth and challenged the provincialism and prejudice of many in our Communion, and some are enraged.

Some are enraged, but we have done the right and faithful thing. Corinthians reminds us that even faithful witness without love is useless, so we must stir ourselves to love those who have set themselves against us. Our witness is sound, our love must be also, and I believe the Lord will prosper and bless such witness. Good things certainly lie ahead for the Episcopal Church and for this parish.

Next time you see a flock of geese flying North for the Winter, or returning South for the summer, note they fly in V formation. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in V formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.

Whenever a goose falls from formation, it feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the whole.

When the head goose gets tired, he rotates back in the wind and another goose flies point. The geese from behind honk to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

This isn’t a bad analogy for the way a parish best functions. We’re meant to create an uplift for one another and share the flight. A fresh year of worship and service is before us at St. Edmund’s. There will be challenges from afar and some close to home. “Do not be afraid, for I am with you to deliver you,” God says to Jeremiah. As individuals and as a parish we have been formed for a purpose, meant to fly high and far. “Ah, Lord GOD,” we sometimes sigh. But the Lord encourages us to take courage, lay hold of our gifts, step to the Steinway and play, that He might come up alongside us and play His concerto around and through us. You cannot do everything for your parish this coming year. But you are somebody, and you can do something, and I hope you will do the something that you alone can do. Amen. GFW+