Last Pentecost 2007 Zion, Washington

Ah well, it's come to this. Our little experiment has failed and most of us are the wiser for it. It's too bad that the diocesan advisors encouraged you to use the Endowment Fund principle, rather than waiting until, like the Harvey Trust, it could produce enough income on its own. But you've gotten to experience what it's like to have a full-time, resident priest. Charlotte and I got to spend four years as part of a great parish family; and it's the leave-taking from you, individually and as a parish family, that is the most painful part of all this. But it's been my experience that "There is no wisdom without pain." So it is essential that we all gather the right wisdom from this little experiment: Don't give up on the goal of a full-time, resident priest. Keep focusing on building up the Endowment Fund. Be generous in your stewardship, if you have the vision of Zion being a thriving parish in the foreseeable future. It really is possible!

(As the rector, I do have access to the financial contributions of this parish, because that is one of the most important factors in judging where each of you are in your own spiritual journey. It's not a matter of how much you give to Zion Parish, it's a matter of how much you give, relative to what you are capable of giving that reveals Jesus' "acid test": "Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also." Believe me, there is enough commitment in this parish to do anything that you put your mind to doing. There are the resources to do anything you want to do; it's just that you will not attain all of your goals without taking the appropriate intermediate steps to attain those goals.)

This is a spiritual matter that pulls back the veil and exposes the heart of this parish family. It's not as bad as you might think. It's just that it needs some different nurturing. You must consider alternate possibilities to annual pledges, like the various forms of deferred giving, in addition to annual pledges. You must commit yourselves to broadening your vision of the ways to place your treasure where your heart-for-Zion is.

Ignore the stingy, miserly people who will try to convince you that there is no hope. Bypass the people who want to talk more than act. Resist the people who are, quite obviously, blatantly self-serving. Encourage those who are genuinely generous with their time, talents and treasures here. Listen to the people who are as positive as they are realistic. As a parish family, you should get to know people like Rob Powell, over at St. Paul's, Greenville, who will open up wide vistas of reasonable possibilities, of which you have never dreamed.

For the foreseeable future, you will be, essentially, a lay-led parish. The priest you are about to call is a retired priest, who doesn't need this job, but is willing to work here on a part-time basis. You, as the laity, will be the captains of your fate and the masters of your souls. But what that has meant in the past, is that you have abdicated your responsibilities to your fellow parishioners, rather than feeling a shared interdependence and mutual responsibility. This congregation hands off the running of the parish to the vestry and the vestry hands off the running of the finances to the finance committee and doesn't give those handed-off responsibilities a second thought and it has resulted in a strong sense of "that's not my table"; when, in fact, each of you would do well to have some knowledge of what the finance committee does - not just the vestry members.

 Each of you would do well to be aware of what the vestry does. You might be able to lighten their load in new and innovative ways that will work for the common good of Zion Parish; which is to say, there is no table at Zion that is not your personal table. This is too small of a congregation for your not to be aware of what's going on.

This is a spiritual matter. It's part of the work of tuning your soul in ways are in harmony with God. And yes, it takes work. The Church is not a service station where you drop by and "fill up" and trundle on down the road until next Sunday. The Church, whether it's gathered here in this holy room or next door at Douglas Hall, or gathered as a deanery or a diocese or a national Church or internationally, is the Body of Christ on earth; the visible presence of the invisible God. To quote St. Francis of Assisi, "You may be the only Gospel that your neighbor hears."

What you say about Zion Parish, in the community; what you do as a parish family that gets reported in the newspaper; and what you do and say as a private citizen all reflect on Zion Parish and will draw people to this place or cause them to shy away. Only 7% of people come to a new church because of the clergy. 93% come because someone invited them and made them feel welcomed and wanted over a period of weeks - not just on one Sunday.

This is a spiritual matter and it takes work to attune your soul in ways that are in harmony with God. Three weeks ago, I handed out copies of Forward: Day by Day, so that you will have both a daily devotion and an orderly and engaging schedule for reading the Bible (and studying what you read and memorizing it and meditating on it - as the collect for last Sunday encourages). Please engage in the work of daily Prayer and daily Study of God's Word. Yes, it's work. Yes, it brings harmony with God.

This is a spiritual matter and it takes work to attune your soul in ways that are in harmony with God. Two weeks ago, I handed out new United Thank Offering Blue Boxes. They are one of the most visible images of the heart of Anglican Christianity, because our unique identity within the greater Christian community is focused on Gratitude to God and to each other, in ways that enhance God's Kingdom and do good things to and for all people, everywhere. Please use those little boxes for the purpose for which they were intended: to remind you to be grateful for blessings.

This is a spiritual matter and it takes work to attune your soul in ways that are in harmony with God. Last week, I handed out the new 2008 Ashby Episcopal Liturgical Calendars... with all the pretty colored numbers on them. Don't underestimate the attraction of those calendars for people whose Sunday experience is not color-coded. There's a reason why there are billboards at both ends of Highway 264 with a local minister all "duded up" like an Episcopal bishop dressed for Morning Prayer on the west side of town and dressed for a very "high church" festal Eucharist on the east side of town. All sorts of people like our color codes and the way that clergy and laity (young and old) put of nifty duds for church, and actually worship God, rather than having the preacher as the focal point of the service. Use those calendars as publically as you can and give them away as gifts to people who see yours and like it. You never know what sort of lasting effect your calendar will have on inspiring people and drawing them to church.

This is a spiritual matter. To quote St. Paul, "... be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

It's fitting that my last Sunday here at Zion is unofficially known as the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the Church Year. Because all I have tried to do here in this parish and deanery and diocese has been in the sure and certain confidence that Christ is King, that Christ is even the Dictator, the Absolute Monarch, the Tsar, the Emperor, who is, at the same time, immensely merciful and also demanding; who is the perfect model of Generous Love and, at the same time, is He who will return to Judge the world, and separate sheep from goats; and will welcome the faithful into Paradise and invite the persistent and impenitent sinners to go to Hell. I rely on His love and mercy, and strive to commit fewer sins.

This is a spiritual matter. St. Paul goes on to describe the divinity of Christ that contrasts so dramatically with Christ's humanity as we usually think of Jesus in modern American Christianity. "He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities - all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether or earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross." This is Christ the King!

On earth, His royalty was not revealed with pomp and majesty. Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday didn't look anything at all like Queen Elizabeth II opening the British Parliament every year. No! Those sorts of images are reserved for St. John the Divine to reveal in the Revelation, where there is no doubt of majesty of the Lamb, nor of God sitting on a great and magnificent throne.

On earth, Jesus consecrated the modest, the truly humble people and things to be instruments of God's reconciliation and love. From the beginning of His earthly presence, God the Son, the Word of God made flesh, chose a young Jewish girl from Nazareth to carry God in her body. Heaven appeared to us as a cave-like Stable. The throne of Paradise was the Virgin Mary. The manger contained the Uncontainable. Modest, humble people and things were consecrated to be the instruments of God's reconciliation and love. Wise men who worshiped stars were led by a star and taught to worship the Baby Jesus, the blindingly brilliant Sun of Righteousness, to whom they offered gifts befitting a king who would triumph through His suffering and who would win victory by His death and resurrection.

Consider today's Gospel reading. This is the perfect glimpse of the true majesty of Christ our King: while everyone else was talking and taunting and using their "outside voices" to be heard by everyone within distant ear-shot, Jesus, our Lord and Savior, King of kings and Lord of lords, remained silent.

 Those Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes and bureaucrats who so badly wanted Jesus dead - and the status quo of Jerusalem restored - hurled the Satanic challenge at Jesus to come down from the cross and be the Messiah for whom Israel still waits and to renege on his true calling to reconcile all things in heaven and on earth to God. Rather than exercising His power, He exercised His patience and His love.

The soldiers gathered around His Cross and cast lots for his garments and gave him vinegar, rather than wine; and gall, rather than bread; and challenged his royalty, as if they might change their loyalty; but Jesus remained silent - beyond their petty concerns, obedient to the will of God the Father.

Even the one thief saw this moment as one last opportunity to take advantage of another sucker and said, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself... and save us!" (I've known thieves. They are less interested in everything else except their own agendas and are happy to abuse everyone in order to achieve their goals. This man wasn't interested in Jesus Christ saving Himself, he was interested in escaping yet another sticky situation.) And Jesus remained silent. He was not the first thief to make Jesus' acquaintance either; and his motive was transparent.

Only when the second thief turned, and in modesty and humility said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." did Jesus reply, "Truly, today you will be with me in Paradise."

You will get it wrong when you try to be self-serving and when you allow other people to be self-serving with impunity. Before the second thief was invited into Paradise, he defended Jesus from the transparent opportunism of the first thief. The same is true for you and me. We will not be invited into Paradise before we defend God and the Church from the transparent opportunism of self-serving people who wreak havoc and cause harm and do damage to people or places or things as they seek to achieve their own ends by any means possible. Part of the work of putting our souls in harmony with God is to be active in resisting evil. It's even part of our Baptismal Covenant with God.

So, on this Feast of Christ the King, we do well to reaffirm our vows to God to seek and serve Christ in all people, loving our neighbors as ourselves.

We do well to reaffirm our vows to resist evil, and when we do fall into sin, to repent and return to the Lord.

We do well to remember that our holy Christian relationship with God is built on Faith, Hope, and Generous Love; and to renew our Faith, Sunday by Sunday; to take on a Discipline of and optimistic and holy Hope; and in all things to be generously loving, in gratitude to God for all of our blessings, big and small, with which we are showered day by day. Truly then, I say to you, we will be with Christ in Paradise.