Sermon 1/14/07
Upon Us (Version 1) - Luke 4:14-21, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
(view lectionary notes for this text)
This scripture passage from Luke is one of my very favorites. It is one of those passages that just strikes my heart as soon as I hear the first words of it, like a familiar song that you know by the first few notes. “The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.’” We read that Jesus has come into the synagogue, returning to community life after his time in the wilderness being tempted, already with gossip about him spreading throughout the region. He comes to the synagogue as is his custom – he’s someone who was regularly part of his faith community – he, like we do – found strength, found a connection with God, in the midst of a fellowship of people with a common faith and vision. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he read, “He has sent me to proclaim release, to proclaim recovery of sight, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim God’s favor.” And after Jesus reads, with all eyes fix on him, he sits down and says, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He speaks with such confidence about who he is and what he’s about, and what he has come to do. And his message is riveting. They can’t take their eyes off him.
I’ve been thinking about this scripture a lot these past several weeks. As most of you know, this last weekend we held a leadership retreat, and invited Rev. Lauren Swanson, director of congregational development for our annual conference, to come and speak to us about who we are as a church, what kind of community we serve, and where we might go in the future. During our time together, Lauren talked to us about the life-cycle of an institution, the basic curve of waxing and waning that an organization goes through over the years. He showed us that when a curve starts to rise, when things are growing, it is because some visionary people have cast a vision for the church, and then invited others who are workers to help make the vision a reality. Eventually, whatever goal the group set is reached, and everyone is feeling happy. But then, something happens. Even though the group is at a high point, growth has stopped, because everyone feels like they’ve reached the destination point. And so soon, the visionaries leave, because they see that no one is interested in new visions. When visionaries leave, the organization gathers together to figure out what to do to fix things, but eventually, a few people – workers bees – feel like they are the ones doing everything all the time. Finally, even the workers bees get discouraged and begin quitting or leaving, until the organization is in trouble.
We talked in our group about where we are in that curve, and I think most people in our group agreed that we’re somewhere on the curve between where people are gathering to figure out what to do to change directions, and where people are feeling like they are worker bees. The question for us is if we can turn our direction back up the curve again. Can we reorient ourselves? For this to happen, we need to have people who are visionary. We need people who are dreamers, who can imagine where St. Paul’s can go, what St. Paul’s can be, and can inspire other people with their vision, encourage them to be a part of making the vision into reality. Do we have such people in our midst?
This past fall, during our stewardship campaign, each week we looked at a piece of our United Methodist motto, “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors,” and each week you were asked to respond to a question. Our responses were displayed to read over, and now thanks to Lynne Mondrick they are posted in the hallway near the lounge for you to read again. You were asked – what do you love about St. Paul’s, who do you love at St. Paul’s, and what do you want to see happen at St. Paul’s within the next year. I found the responses extremely interesting, because I think they tell us something about where we are as a congregation. For the first question, “what do you like most about St. Paul’s?” I think we hit the nail on the head. Our strengths are in our people, and our strengths are in our ability, hopefully, to make people feel welcome here. We’re not perfect at it, but we’re pretty good, and we try hard to be a welcoming congregation. Our people are what make us who we are. Sure, our building is lovely – seriously one of the best church buildings around – and our other physical assets are important. But the church is not the building, but the people.
The second question asked us to name names. Who? Who do you love at St. Paul’s? We had lots of names listed, and many of you sitting here before me where mentioned more than once as person who is special to someone else here. There were other names too – names like Marguerite Hermann, and Dave Hermann, Donna Waite, Don Perling, Al Spawn, Stuart McCleary, Frieda Wetzel. If you are someone newer to St. Paul’s, let me tell you that these are names of the saints of this church – beloved people who helped make St. Paul’s what it is today, people who have either moved away or passed away over the years. They are people who helped imagine this building’s existence, and helped make it a reality with their own hands. They are people whose names would frequently appear in this history of this place. And they are people who are still loved and cherished and treasured. They were the visionaries that Rev. Swanson talked about – they were vision-casters. They were the ones who somehow gathered the momentum, stirred up the excitement, and believed it was possible to do a new thing. This building we are in now is probably almost four times as big as the little church on Lake Street where St. Paul’s used to be. Imagine the daring it would take, the shared vision that would be necessary for people to commit to building a house of worship that size. Imagine if today we were to say that we would build a new church four times as large as this one. These were our visionaries.
But as much as we love and treasure these people who have so blessed St. Paul’s, they cannot be our visionaries today, now. We need to cast a new vision for St. Paul’s. We need to make our own curve, create our own momentum. In the third week of our campaign, we asked people to write about what they wanted to see here in the year ahead. I was not so much concerned by how people responded, but concerned by how few people responded. I think we only had 10 or 12 responses to this question, and I hope that more of you than that have an idea for what can happen here in the next year! We need visionaries. We can indeed draw on the strength of those who shaped the way for us so far. We can imagine – if they were here today, in these pews with us, at our meetings with us, in ministry beside us – we can imagine the things that they might do – the vision they might see for us and the energy and commitment they would bring to the table. We can use our memories of them to support us and under gird us. But we must the claim a vision of our own making.
When Jesus entered on synagogue on the day we read about in our text today, when he unrolled the scroll set before him, he was not reading his own words. Jesus was reading the words of the prophet Isaiah. He was reading a text, a prophesy, a vision that had been laid out hundreds of years before his own day. It was the vision of a man from a different time, a different generation, a different situation. But Jesus speaks the words and makes them his own. It is his vision – God’s vision fulfilled in him. The spirit of God is upon him.
I wonder if part of our hesitation, part of our difficulty in casting a vision is because we don’t see ourselves as capable as those who came before us. If they are our saints, perhaps we don’t see ourselves as saintly enough to do the things that they did, or dream the dreams that they dreamed. In a couple of weeks we will hear the conclusion to this passage, and hear that there were some people who doubted that Jesus could be the one to bring this vision about into reality, into fulfillment. After all, some of them had seen him grow up, or knew of his family and his roots, his background, and they couldn’t see him as one who could bring about such a vision that he so boldly said he was fulfilling. Maybe we can’t see ourselves as visionaries. Maybe we look at ourselves and can’t see that God’s Spirit is upon us. But I believe that we are called to claim and share in this vision, as Jesus claimed this vision and made it his own. I believe that we are meant, like Jesus, to understand that God is fulfilling the full meaning of these words through us, using us. In Corinthians, Paul talks about the many ways that God’s spirit can work within us, many ways the Spirit inspires a vision in us. But his main point is that it is the one Spirit of God that is working within each one of us.
I believe the Spirit of God is upon us. Next month, I’m hoping – planning – that we will again be able to meet and talk about our vision for St. Paul’s. I hope that we’ll expand our circle, and expand our conversation, and that more of you will see yourselves as part of a vision for this place. I believe that we can take the vision of those who have shaped us to this point, and we can claim it, reshape it, make it a vision for us, for now, for today, for our life together, and for our future as a community of faith. The Spirit of God is upon us. The scripture is being fulfilled, even now, in our hearing. Will you be a part of it?
Amen.