Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
2 Kings 4:8-37
Psalm 142
I Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39
The epistle begins with a remarkable statement: “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel.” I have a confession to make. Moving so often exhausts me. Eight interim assignments are too many. It would be a great pleasure to be able to stop, to settle, to see to completion those things which God enables me to begin with God’s people. But here I am in this beautiful place, Kansas City, Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. There are times when I am ready to hang it all up--to stop serving these short assignments, to find a way, any way, to settle in one place and live life in a more normal fashion. But there is a caveat that prevents me--an obligation; a calling is laid on me, that I cannot deny. Perhaps every priest has it, who can tell? But I know how it is for me, and I, like Paul, have an obligation laid upon me, and so I come to share the good news of Jesus Christ with you—not that you haven’t heard it, not that you yourself cannot share it with others, you have and you can—but because that is what Christ has called me to do. It is my life whether I stay a short spell or a long one. None of that is a credit to me. It is just the way it is.
And how about you? Do you come to this place voluntarily? Do you really? Do you give what you give in terms of time, of leadership, of your financial substance voluntarily or is there some compulsion upon you as well? Let me say to you, that I do not and will not consider you, any of you, as volunteers. You are either under the same commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ as I am, or you ought to be, and in God’s time, you will be. I have not come to work with volunteers. I am not interested in working with volunteers. I am here to work with the people of God, who like me are servants at the beck and call of the Master. I am here to grow in Christ and to share the good news of that same Christ with those who have not yet heard it in such a way that their lives have been changed, changed so they too may know the grace and resulting joy which comes from serving under the divine obligation that is common to the people of God.
I have agreed to come for eighteen months. What can we do together in eighteen months? We each have the same amount of time to do what God has for us while we are together. Both you and I must get right to it. I don’t know what God has for us in 2003 and the first half of 2004. It usually takes me three to six months just to find out what is needed. So, God has placed upon us all a glorious challenge to begin immediately with candidness and good will the common work of the Church in this place.
You are in the middle of a series of changes: your Dean has left under a cloud. For some that has been extraordinarily difficult. For all of us, that departure has become part of our identity. The staff is in transition with you. Roughly, half of the staff is new within the past year. Those changes do not come easily in the life of a staff or of a congregation. Many of you have been holding your peace for much of that time until stability returns. For some of you, the transition has been far more difficult than for others. But for you who come to seek the solace of God, such transitions are difficult. With a new person in the Dean’s chair hope tends to rise that all matters of dissonance will be resolved. That, my friends, would be a miracle were it to occur.
I sort of feel like the redneck who had not been to town very often. One day he had a day off from the lumberyard where he worked. He went to town and wandered through the local hardware store pausing at the shelf where several tall cylindrical objects were on display. A clerk walked by and asked if he could help. The young man pointed to the cylindrical object and wondered aloud, “What is that there thang?” The clerk, trying to help replied, “That is a thermos.” “Well, what does a thermos do?” “It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.” Amazed, he asked the price, the clerk informed him it was $9.99. Responding, the young man said, “I think I’ll take one of those thangs.” And he did. The next day at work, he brought out his lunch at noon and sat down with a friend. He placed the thermos proudly beside him on the lumber pile. “What is that thang, Jack?” asked his friend. “That there is a thermos, Bud,” he said. “Well, what does a thermos do?” “Well, Bud, a thermos keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.” “Golly gee Jack, what ya got in it?” “Two cups of coffee and a popsicle.”
From one moment to the next, I’m not sure whether I’ll need the coffee or that popsicle. But I sure do hope they will both be accessible as needed.
Welcome or not welcome, another new face at this altar is unsettling and within a year and a half this will occur all over again. The work is not simply beginning all over again, however. You have been here, perhaps for a long time. God has had many laborers in his vineyard. It is just that with my coming one of the players has changed, the team must be re-forged, the plays learned anew, the ability to work together learned in quick order, for I am not here and you are not here to hold our own, to tread water, to keep the status quo. Life goes on. God continues to work his purposes within us and within others. I have no intention, and I trust that you do not, to ignore what Dennis Schmidt or Earl Cavanaugh or Linda Yeager or Jon Schaefer or Ben Newland have contributed. It is just that God has now put the work in our hands.
And as Paul would say, everything that we do and say should be done and said to the benefit of the spread of the good news of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I am free, but for the Gospel a slave. I am a Jew, but for the Gentile I will turn my back on Jewish ways. I am free of the law, completely free of it, but I will obey it rather than hurt a brother or a sister who misunderstands. Paul said, “To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.” Lets each of us take that for our pledge in the coming months, and we will know that the kingdom of God has come near. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.