St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen & Church of the Incarnation
September 10, 2017
Year A, Proper 18:
The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ezekiel 33:7-11
Psalm 119:33-40
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20
Our Special Vocation
Well,
there are way more than two or three of us gathered here today so we know that
the Lord is most definitely here among us!
Amen?
Amen!
But,
although the Lord is most definitely here among us, let’s face it: there are
shadows hanging over today’s celebration.
In
the last week, Houston and the surrounding area had barely begun to dry off and
assess the enormous damage and loss when our attention turned to another, even
more powerful and destructive storm.
As
you all know, Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc in the Caribbean, inflicting almost
unimaginable damage and loss, wounds and fears that are so personal for many of
us here in church, since we have such deep connections to the West Indies.
Obviously,
our fundraiser for Texas and Louisiana has now become an effort to help the
people of the islands, as well.
And
now, as Hurricane Jose is menacing many of those same islands, the
still-powerful Irma is churning and blowing its way through Florida, leaving us
anxious about the safety of people in another place where many of us have
connections…
Including
my wife Sue and me.
As
some of you know, we lived in Florida for a year when I served as the Episcopal
chaplain at the University of Florida and rector of a small church called St.
Michael’s, in suburban Gainesville.
To
be honest, it was uncharacteristically bold for us to up and move from New
Jersey to a strange new place and, although we didn’t stay very long, I learned
a lot about myself during that Florida year, learned that it’s important for me
to be close to family and friends even if I don’t see them as often as I
should, learned that I’m not really a college chaplain, learned that my
ministry is in the parish.
And,
I learned about the deep and lasting pain of division and disunity.
Where
two or three are gathered, the Lord is there.
And,
unfortunately, where two or three are gathered there’s likely to be conflict
and division, too.
St.
Michael’s, the small parish where I served, had a lot going for it. Our
committed and faithful members worshipped in an architecturally interesting
church with some of the best acoustics I’ve ever heard, located at a major
intersection and with a big parking lot that makes my mouth water just thinking
of it.
And,
it hadn’t always been a small church.
In
fact, it had been one of the bigger churches in the Diocese of Florida until a
split took place a few years before I got there.
Now,
I only heard one side of the story, but it seems that the election of the first
openly gay bishop in the church drove the priest at the time to lead nearly the
entire congregation out of the Episcopal Church.
They
started a new “Anglican” church just a few blocks away. Where there had been
one church, now there were two.
The
first Sunday after the split there were exactly four parishioners at St.
Michael’s for worship.
Although
that was a few years before I got there, the pain was still very raw.
There
was pain for those who remained, who were left with the enormous challenge of
keeping a church going with just a handful of people.
And,
there was pain for those who left, who abandoned the place where all of those
baptisms, weddings, and funerals had taken place, where all of those potluck
suppers had been eaten and all of those vestry meetings had been endured.
Part
of what made the split so hard was that both “sides” would run into each other
all the time, in the supermarket or the bank, at their kids’ soccer games,
sitting a table or two away at restaurants.
It
was like a really bad divorce, but one involving several hundred people.
Occasionally,
especially when I first arrived, some of the people who had left stopped by St.
Michael’s (probably to check out the new priest), and I would see them look
longingly at their former spiritual home, abandoned because of conflict and
disunity.
Well,
those of us who’ve been around for a while know that Episcopal churches of Jersey
City have had more than our fair share of conflict and division, too, right?
Incarnation
itself was born because, tragically, a century ago, African-Americans were not
welcome at the other Episcopal churches, including this one – an unpleasant
history that we will need to face and acknowledge and in some way repent for in
the months ahead.
And,
I don’t know, but perhaps there are things in Incarnation’s past that might
require some reflection and repentance, too.
Certainly,
for far too long our churches basically ignored each other. I know I had been a
parishioner here at St. Paul’s for about two years before I learned that
Incarnation was just a few blocks away. In fact, I know the exact date. It was
September 11, 2002 when the first anniversary service was held there. I
remember people being amused when I asked if I needed to drive there!
And, when we
didn’t ignore each other we competed with each other – I’m not sure which is
worse – in any event, less than Christian behavior that, in the end, left us
all in pretty bad shape.
We've come a long way, right?
We've come a long way, right?
Where
two or three are gathered, the Lord is there.
And,
unfortunately, where two or three are gathered there’s likely to be conflict
and division, too.
As
we heard in today’s Gospel lesson, there’s nothing new about this – conflict
and division seem to have been present in the Church from nearly the beginning
(depending on your personality, this is either reassuring or depressing!).
And,
in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus lays out a detailed procedure for how to deal
with conflict and division in the community, one that, if all else fails, would
mean the exclusion of one or more from the community.
But,
we are meant to understand that when that happens it’s a terrible failure
– a failure to be what God dreams we will be, a failure to be who we really
are: the Body of Christ, the community where, as St. Paul writes, all we owe
one another is love, nothing but love.
Unlike
my church in Florida, we at St. Paul’s and Incarnation aren’t embarking on a
split but something maybe even more challenging, a union – more challenging but
more faithful, an answer to the prayer of Jesus that we be one as he and the
Father are one.
During
this process, two or three will be gathered so we know the Lord will be there,
will be here, but we also know that when two or three are gathered there’s
likely to be at least some conflict and disagreement.
So,
we all need to pray – I’m not kidding, seriously pray – for the guidance and
grace of the Holy Spirit.
Because
here’s the thing, and something I believe with all my heart:
Since
I’ve been back in Jersey City, I’ve become convinced that our beautifully
diverse and yet, for the most part, remarkably harmonious congregations, we
have a special vocation.
Because,
of course it’s not just a couple of churches in Florida that have been broken
by conflict and division.
No,
our world and our country and even our rapidly changing city with its stark
division of haves and have-nots, all of it is so clearly and often bitterly
divided.
We
don’t talk to each other, don’t understand each other, don’t give each other
the benefit of the doubt, don’t much like each other, and we certainly don’t
love each other.
Now,
you and I, Incarnation and St. Paul’s, we’re not going to fix all of that, but
I really believe that we have a special vocation to show at least Jersey City that
there is another way – that even with all of our bad history, even with our
diversity in so many ways, even with our occasional disagreements and
misunderstandings, we really can be a united community of love – we can show
the world that when two or three or, hopefully, way more than that, gather
together, the Lord is indeed right here and right now.
Amen.
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