St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
May 8, 2016
Year C: The Seventh
Sunday of Easter – The Sunday after the Ascension
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14,
16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26
Our Mission Statement: To Make God Known
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
The
other day, in the midst of lots of Mother’s Day posts, Facebook reminded me
that I have reached my third anniversary as rector of St. Paul’s.
That
milestone has gotten me thinking about all that we have achieved here at St.
Paul’s, with God’s help.
With
God’s help, we’ve stabilized and begun to rebuild the church, growing in
members and ministries and we’ve improved our financial situation.
With
God’s help, we’ve become known in the community as a place where absolutely
everybody is welcome, a place that cares for the whole community, not just our
own parishioners.
As
I’ve mentioned to you before, I’m kind of a glass half empty person, but even I
have to admit that this is all pretty wonderful – and I’m grateful to God and
to all of you for this amazing privilege, for this exciting faith journey that
we are on together.
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
But…since
I am a glass half-empty person, I can’t help but think about what hasn’t been
accomplished, at least not yet.
And,
I’ve been especially thinking about a challenge that Bishop Beckwith gave us
when he visited St. Paul’s last year.
He
challenged us to define our mission.
What
is our mission here at St. Paul’s?
I’ve
thought a lot about that – and I certainly see missions – missions that have
been in place long before I arrived here – and missions that have developed
over these past few years.
One
of our missions is to offer beautiful worship. Our niche among the Episcopal
churches in Jersey City is to offer traditional Anglican worship – not stuffy
or precious but beautiful, prayerful, and lively.
One
of our missions is to offer hospitality – to welcome absolutely everybody to
our already amazingly diverse community – a community that, for me and I bet
for you, is a powerful sign of the Kingdom of God.
One
of our missions is feeding – to feed people’s stomachs at our sometimes
over-the-top coffee hours, at our increasingly popular Stone Soup Community
Suppers, the Thanksgiving community feast, through our donations to the food
pantry, next week at our Pentecost Picnic, and more.
One
of our missions is becoming a community arts center, a place where God’s great
gifts of imagination and creativity are nurtured, celebrated, performed, and
displayed – and nobody has to present his or her baptismal certificate to come
and be part of it.
One
of our missions is to get out into the community and advocate for the poor and
the oppressed, to challenge the powers that be to do a better job of serving
all of God’s people.
So,
yes, we see many missions here – and you can probably come up with others.
But,
still I’ve wondered about the bishop’s question: what is our mission?
What
should be our mission statement?
And
then I started thinking about today’s gospel lesson.
We’re
still in John’s rather lengthy telling of the Last Supper, specifically Jesus’
great and powerful prayer for his disciples and for us.
Here’s
what caught my attention: Jesus prays,
“Righteous
Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you
have sent me. I made your name known to them and I will make it known, so that
the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
There
it is.
You
don’t need me to tell you that the world still doesn’t really know God. Just
open any newspaper or turn on the TV and see all the ways that we treat each
other as less than human, far less than beloved children of God.
And,
of course, although it has plenty of houses of worship, our city still doesn’t
know God, either. Just look at the ever-widening gap between the haves and
have-nots, the injustice baked into so many of our systems, look at the
unemployment and under-education, look at the bloody violence that erupts on
our streets all too regularly.
The
world and our city still don’t really know God at least in part because so
often the Church has failed - and is failing - in its mission, turning off
people by being at least as judgmental and unloving as the world, beating
certain people over the head with carefully selected Bible verses while
ignoring and even frustrating God’s great dream of a kingdom of love.
The
world still doesn’t know God.
Our
city still doesn’t know God.
But,
we do – not perfectly, of course, but we know God through God’s Word,
through the love that our diverse little church shares, and most of all through
Jesus who we welcome into our bodies and souls every time we come here.
So,
you know, actually, long ago Jesus gave us our mission statement: To Make God
Known.
Our
mission statement: To Make God Known.
Just
imagine if we looked at everything we do here at St. Paul’s through the lens of
making God known!
We
keep our church building and grounds beautiful not because we want everyone in
the neighborhood to ooh and ah, though that’s nice, but because we want to make
God known through God’s good creation of beautiful flowers and plants and
through this unusual and special building that was dreamed up, built, and
maintained by creative, talented and faithful people.
Our
mission statement: To Make God Known.
We
come here week after week not out of obligation or even because we like hanging
out together so much – though there’s that.
Each
week choir members sacrifice a precious weeknight and drag themselves in early
on Sunday morning not because they’re looking for applause – though that always
feels good.
Each
Sunday we try to offer a warm welcome to absolutely everybody and an often
over-the-top coffee hour not just because we’re nice, friendly, hospitable,
generous, and hungry people – though of course we are.
We
do all of this and more…to make God known.
Our
mission statement: To Make God Known.
We
feed people’s stomachs through our community suppers and we feed people through
the arts and music not because we want to be a restaurant or an art gallery or
a concert hall, but because through hospitality and creativity and beauty we
strive to make God known.
And,
we go out into the community, praying at sites of violence and death,
challenging our leaders to serve all the people not because we want our name
and photo in the paper or because we’re just another community organization but
because through our witness, and faithfulness, and courage, we strive to make
God known.
Our
mission statement: To Make God Known.
Long
ago, Jesus came among us and made God known by teaching us, by serving us, by
loving us, and sacrificing himself for us.
And
now, he has given us that same mission: to make God known in our world and in
our city by teaching, by serving, by loving, and by sacrificing ourselves.
It’s
a tough, even audacious, mission, but, as we’ll celebrate next week, we can do
it because we have the Holy Spirit - and we have each other.
Our
glass is way more than half-full
As
I begin my fourth year as your rector, I hope and pray that, with God’s help,
we will continue to make God known.
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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