A Sermon Preached at
All Saints Episcopal Church, Pontiac, MI
A Renewal of Ministry and
Welcoming of New Rector:
The Rev. Chris
Johnson
Thursday, December 7, 2017
By The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse
Director of the Whitaker Institute,
Episcopal Diocese of Michigan
May the words of my mouth and
the meditation of all our hearts be
acceptable to you,
O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.
Amen.
Scripture texts here
Bishop
Gibbs, Priest Chris, congregation of All Saints,
ministry
colleagues and friends,
I
am honored to speak with you tonight
and
begin by offering thanks…
Thanks to God for the people
of All Saints
and
for your parish leaders
who
have faithfully guided the congregation
through
a season of transition
–
you have been waiting a long time for this moment!
Thanks to the Holy Spirit for bringing
Chris
into
discernment with All Saints
and
all that resulted in his call to join you in ministry.
And
I give thanks for family and friends
who
have surrounded him on every side.
* Tonight
is a happy occasion
to
preach the good news of salvation,
in
this Thin Place,
where
you have been drawn together
by
the One
who
created
One
new humanity,
who
reconciled
all
creation
to
One God
through
the One body
and
who gave access
to
the One Spirit,[1]
as
members of the household of God.
Surprisingly,
perhaps, a small seed
for
this happy occasion
began
in a different “Thin Place,”
where
I first met Christ some 15 or 20 years ago
in
the Diocese of Colorado.
Chris
had sent a call out for any available churches
to
help at his parish with badly needed repairs.
Our
parish bulletin that week included this invitation,
so
, as a parishioner, I joined others from our church and
we
showed up at Chris’s church one Saturday afternoon
for
a work day across town.
Chris
greeted us, gave us a quick tour of the building
and
turned us loose on the stairwell for repainting and repair.
as
he met other groups in various parts of the church building.
His
presence was very kind
and
he trusted us (amazingly)
to
figure out what needed to happen.
Thankfully,
we had a professional painter
as
well as several handy and skilled workers in our little group
who
guided those of us that were less-gifted
and
had brought, innocently enough, no tools or skills for the day.
In
*that* Thin Place, I personally learned about
the
joy of working on projects with parishioner-mates
whom
I barely knew,
for
someone who I had just met,
in
a part of Denver previously unknown to me.
And
I don’t remember much more about that day.
A
seed was planted in my heart for
the
adventures that can arise
when
we somehow hear The Lord’s call
to
go on ahead of him.
And,
*this moment is another “Thin Place”
in
the full sense of the phrase.
“Thin
places,” one author writes,
“…are
places where the distance
between
heaven and earth collapses
and
we’re able to catch glimpses of the divine.”[2]
Thin
places often disorient, confuse, or redirect us
to
find new ways of being.
Thin
places jolt us out of old ways of seeing the world
to
transform our vision.
Thin
places surprise us in mesmerizing geography
like
the rocky peaks of Iona
where
the wind and water meet the shore.
The
Celtic people say,
“Heaven
and earth are only three feet apart,
but
in Thin Places that distance is even shorter.”[3]
Thin
places, Isaiah reminds us,
invite
us to the house of the God of Jacob,
where
God teaches us God’s ways
so
that we may walk in Sacred paths.
Thin
places surprise us
when
sharp weapons are transformed for good use
–
tilling the land and shaping the trees –
to
feed hungry people in peace.
Thin
places,
the Gospel reminds us, draw us
to labor with deep
soul-work
through
the plentiful aching, pain and war –
to labor in the midst of
wolves
who
seek to destroy God’s vision of peace,
to labor with nothing
but our Lov,e
to eat what is set before us,
to harvest a peace that
passes understanding,
which
the world cannot give,
to hold a vision for
the Kingdom of God.
And,
indeed, *this new pastoral relationship moment
is
a Thin Place.
Sometimes
the world seems very far from Thin Places.
Like
when governments make laws and budgets
that
hurt those already on the margins.
When
society indulges in uncivil discourse
with
words and name calling that wound our souls.
When
a dear loved one dies,
when
a long-time relationship ends,
or when we make
mistakes,
only to realize it’s
too late to ask for forgiveness.
These
are places that seem far from “Thin.”
Yet
in times like tonight, God makes a place “Thin,”
and
that we know that
when we experience the
apparent absence of God
we faithful
Christians know God
in
the paradoxical intimacy of Jesus,
closer
than our breath.
* This
Thin Place proclaims God incarnate
right
here, right now,
where
we cannot be wounded by the world,
where
compassion fuels our empathy for one another,
where
God’s wide open mercy pours out on you and me.
And
so tonight in this Thin Place, I offer some charges.
Chris,
will you please stand?
I
charge you:
To stay awake.
To stay alert to this
Thin Place.
To
here. To presence.
As
Rilke once said, “To be here is immense.”[4]
Remember
that.
And
now that you are here, with this congregation,
you
enter the inheritance
of
everything that has preceded you
–
you are an heir to this place.
The
Holy Spirit has chosen you
and
brought you through your “forest of dreaming”
until
you could emerge
on
the path of life,
in
*this Thin Place.
So,
I charge you
to witness the ongoing
work of this community,
to harvest the wisdom of
the invisible, sacred world
and
to know and share God’s love for you
and
all God’s children
who
pass before you.
Will you, with God’s help?
And
to the congregation, All Saints. Will
you please stand?
I
charge you
to go to those Thin Places where Jesus
himself intends to go,
to seek out Thin Places
where your hearts burst
with
love for and with ache of the world.
to live into your heritage
and mission,
fueled
by your Benedictine vow of Stability –
to
stay in this community
and serve the
Christ among you
to challenge your passions
and to find rest for your souls,
so
that all nations will stream to your light.
Will you, with God’s help?
My
friends….
May
God give you strength and
May
God give you grace.
For
indeed, this is a Thin Place.
Where
the Kingdom of God has come near!
Amen.
[1] Eph 2:13-22
[2] Cited at Eric Weinstein’s March
9, 2012 New York Times article, found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/travel/thin-places-where-we-are-jolted-out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html
[3] Ibid.
[4] John O’Donohue, “To Bless The
Space Between Us,” p. 186
Vicki, thank you for sharing these words with us at our celebration last evening. The space was indeed thin and your words spoke to the heart of our congregation. We were blessed to receive the fruit of your prayers for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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