So here we are.
Free at last, out here in the dessert.
With NOTHING to eat or drink.
Perhaps we needed a better exit strategy.
What were we thinking? Lets just go back, to the fleshpots of Egypt, Moses is going to get us killed, we are dying of hunger, at least under slavery we could eat.
And Manna came down from heaven, mortals ate the bread of angels, enough for one day at a time. God paid attention. God responded.
Soon after our youngest child, Frances, was born she came down with a respiratory infection called RSV, and for children under one year old it can be deadly because their lungs are not mature enough to handle it.
In fact she came down with it twice, and almost died both times, hospitalized for most of a week both times.
And hardly anyone noticed.
This was when I was rector of my previous congregation, I had been rector for two years at that point.
I was so busy just trying to survive that I didn’t notice until six months later how inappropriate that lack of response was.
The child of the rector almost dies twice and the congregation doesn’t notice.
I then wondered who else was not being noticed, who else was not being responded too, if even the rector’s child was not noticed.
I was deeply embarrassed by parish, disappointed and angry at them.
And then I realized that it was all my fault.
I was the leader of the congregation, and I had not organized it in such a way that it could pay attention, take notice, communicate and respond.
I had let the congregation get away with settling for low commitment and lack luster involvement.
I was then deeply embarrassed, disappointed and angry with myself.
I didn’t know how to ask for help.
I had not lead my congregation to a greater level of responsibility and maturity, and I suffered because of that, and many unknown others must have as well.
But to be fair, didn’t know any better. I had never been a part of a congregation or seen a congregation that functioned at a high level of attentiveness or responsiveness. It had never really occurred to me that the Church could be more. I had been blessed by never being part of a truly dysfunctional church, but they had all been low functioning, vaguely pleasant places populated with lots of good and loving people, not able to do much as a community.
So, I spent my next four years at that parish being very interested in how to make an institution that could serve, that could actually do something.
I poured myself into designing a congregation that I could be proud of.
I loved my people in such a way that I expected them to be more and do more.
I spent four years building a community that could do two things, 1) pay attention to others and 2) to respond.
By God’s Grace it worked. That is when I truly became a priest and my congregation truly became the Church. I fell in love with them and when I left there a part of me died. I came here in deep dark grief and you loved me back into being a priest again.
I have continued that same project here at Grace Church over the past four years.
I have expected things of you. You have expected things of me.
1) to pay attention and 2) to respond.
And that takes organizing, it takes commitment and vigilance and participating with enthusiasm and expectation in the life of this community.
Pay attention to those around you, not just here but everywhere, so much of the world is not noticed so much suffering is unattended to, pay attention and respond.
We are God’s manna to one another in this dessert; we are the bread of angels to each other in our hunger and pain.
Manna doesn’t last long, only a day.
Pay attention… respond…today.
Together lets be the Church.