Sermon
for 2 Easter
April 27, 2003
St. Luke’s Church, Jamestown, NY
When I applied to college I was
asked to write an essay
about the event that had
shaped my life to the greatest extent.
I don’t
remember the details of what I wrote,
but I
do remember the general outline.
I wrote about being adopted as an
infant, an event I certainly did not remember,
but which I felt had
been enormously influential in my life.
Being adopted,
I thought then, I was always aware of being separate.
Though
part of a wonderful, loving family,
I could never forget a sense of otherness,
apartness, aloneness.
I am aware that I have always
been interested in the tension
between being an
individual
and being part
of a community.
Because that is a struggle we all
share,
a tension we all must
deal with.
I grew up in the 1970’s, the “Me”
decade.
After the social
activism and intense community involvement of the 60’s,
individualism
was back in.
And it
has stayed in ever since
through the 80’s, 90’s and into a new
century.
In 1999 the New York Times
Magazine ran a series on the change of millennium.
One writer said that the
roots of individualism went back centuries,
that in fact
“We're living at the tag end of the ‘Me Millennium.’”
He went on to ask:
“So here we are…at the
end of [this] millennium,
having lived
with the consequences of a me-centered universe
long
enough to wonder whether this direction we've been
heading in for so long is a good thing.”
What do you think?
It certainly was not
what the earliest Christians had in mind
way back near
the beginning of the first millennium.
We read in Acts that the first
followers tried an experiment
in the most radical kind
of community—
they in effect
became communists,
giving
up private property and sharing their worldly goods.
How would that go over as our
stewardship campaign this year?
Forget 10%; this year we
want 100%.
Giving your
all…literally.
As we know, this brief experiment
did not last.
Those early Christians
expected Jesus’ return within months or years.
As time went
on, they began to return in some ways to normal life.
Over the centuries the church has
offered many different forms of community.
But the idea of
community was always paramount.
Today, in America at least,
things are truly different.
Today the whole notion
of community is in flux.
Centuries of
individualism have worn away our sense
that
we can only be ourselves when we are rooted in communities.
Today we change jobs, cities,
spouses, even gender at will.
We are proud of being
the freest people on earth,
and we should
be proud—freedom is a wonderful gift—
but it
only makes sense in the context of community.
In an influential 1995 article,
the political scientist Robert Putnam
warned of the
consequences of the decline in civic engagement.
He looked at
social groups of all kinds
and
saw people pulling out and going their own way.
This is not just a phenomenon in
churches.
Think of the groups to
which you belong.
Is any of them
not worried about declining membership
and an
aging population?
Heck, even the freemasons have
gone public with their secret lore
in order to attract new
members.
Obviously, these kinds of
arguments can be overstated and oversimplified.
But I do think this
accelerating growth in individualism is real
and I think it
has a profound effect on the church.
Let me put this change simply and
see what you think.
In ages past, people
came to church to find out who they were,
to be part of a
community which was large and all-encompassing.
They did not ask whether or not
they should go to church,
that was a given.
And not just on
those Sundays when nothing more important was going on.
Back
then, usually nothing else was happening on Sundays.
They did not ask which church had
the better sermons, choir or nursery.
They were baptized into
a church and stuck with it.
That also was a
given.
Now let me portray the new
reality as I see it.
Nothing is a given any
longer.
People already
know who they are before they come to church.
When they come to church, they
are coming to get their needs met.
They are looking for a
relationship with God, with Jesus, with the Spirit.
And they are
still looking for a community of sorts
But the community will always
remain secondary to the individual.
The service is measured
by what I get out of it,
as are the
programs, the pastoral care, the ministries.
Some people want to belong, but
also want to be left alone.
Recently we attempted to
visit every parishioner on our list
to talk about
our spiritual lives.
Virtually every visitor I spoke
to had one or more people on their list
(out of a total of four
or five) decline the invitation.
It’s hard to
know how to interpret that information.
Are people not interested in
their spiritual lives?
Do they feel alienated
from the parish? From God?
Perhaps they
thought they would be hit up for money.
As we try to reach out to new
members,
some things are also
clear.
People are no longer interested
in the denominational label on the outside.
Just as they change jobs
and cities with frequency
so they will
now change churches and denominations.
Let me ask those of you with
grown children.
How many of your
children and grandchildren
who grew up in
this parish, or another Episcopal parish,
how
many are still active Episcopalians?
How many fellow parishioners have
you watched
come into and drift out
of this parish over the years?
Now let me be very plain.
Like so many changes in
society,
I do not think
any of this is inherently “good” or “bad”.
It
just is.
But it means, if we want this
community to survive and thrive,
we must make a
compelling case,
because now we
are only one option among many,
even
for our own members.
This is too big a topic to deal
with in one sermon,
but I want to end today
by offering some of the things
I think are
important about community
and
our community of St. Luke’s in particular.
And I invite you to continue the
conversation.
If you agree or disagree
with anything I have said,
or have points
that I have missed altogether,
please
tell me in person or in print.
These are for me the necessary
ingredients to a healthy community.
1) Shared Values:
The first Christians had
a deep sense of shared values.
They were, or
they knew, actual witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection.
They
shared the zeal of new converts
and were ready to lay down their lives for that faith.
They struggled as time went on
with some of the same issues we do.
Who’s in the church and
who’s out?
What does it
take to become a Christian and to live a Christian life?
At St. Luke’s we need to talk
further about our shared values.
What are the things that
are important to you about this parish?
How do we
continue to change to meet the needs of a changing world
while
remaining true to our traditions and identity?
2) Shared Vision
This is closely related.
To be a
community we have to be pulling in the same direction.
We have attempted to elicit this
through the strategic plan you all received.
That plan is guiding the
actions of the vestry, staff and clergy
during these
three years.
3) Trust that comes from knowing
and supporting each other.
This, I think, is the
most important piece of the puzzle.
When people speak to me about
what St. Luke’s has meant in their lives,
they almost always
mention people’s kindness during a time of grief or crisis.
Parishioners
tell fond stories about the kindness and compassion
of the
many rectors and curates over the years.
But they also tell moving stories
of the lay people
who visited them, sent
cards and casseroles,
helped them
move and invited them back to church
when
they drifted away.
It is that person to person
contact in moments of trial and weakness
that has built the
community we are and are still becoming.
You see rugged individualism is
in the end pretty rugged indeed.
It can only take us so
far.
“I did it my
way” often leads us not to triumph,
but
instead to failure and brokenness.
And then, we need to know that
there is someone to rely on.
We need each other to
make it through the tough times in life.
We need God’s
love to be poured out
through the arms and hearts of real live human beings.
I pray with all of my heart that
we can be that kind of place,
that we can grow to know
and trust and love each other
and become the
kind of community God intends for us to be,
a
place of welcome and hospitality and compassion,
a place where the love of Jesus is known and
shared.
