A History of Healing

 6^th Sunday after the Epiphany/Absalom Jones, Yr. B; February 12, 2012

2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Galatians ?:??-??; Mark 1:40-45
Sermon Preached at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church
Annual Meeting Sunday

            Over the last year or so I’ve been diagnosed with arthritis in various joints.  At first it was just bothersome on occasion, but when it became a constant nag, I decided it was time to go to the doctor.  She sent me to a Physical Therapist.  I would have preferred a pill to make it all go away … but the therapist was pretty sure that regular stretching would do the trick.  I’ve been pretty active all my life … pretty athletic.  I’m used to making my body work and expecting to sweat a little.  I actually enjoy physical work, so I was ready to tackle this stretching with a vengeance.  She handed me a skinny little book about posture and the back, and then she taught me two simple stretches.  “You should do these several times a day.  Don’t sit for more than an hour at a time.  Then get up and move around, and do your stretches.  Come back in a week.”  Really?  I thought.  Stretch?  “Oh, and read the book”, she said.

            I really didn’t believe in the stretches.  I thought they were the precursor to some more intense kind of treatment … maybe even surgery.  But I thought I had to give the stretching thing a good try first.  So as often as I could I stretched.  I really stretched, and my back started hurting more than it did before I started.  I went back a week later, and told her that the stretching wasn’t working.  “I’m really working at it and my back hurts worse than it did before.”  She asked me to show her what I was doing.  “You’re trying too hard.  You have to stop when it hurts.  It’s simple.  Stretch until you feel pain, and stop there”, she said.  “But what if I’m only two inches off the floor?”  “Just stop”, she answered.  “On the next time up, see if you can go a little further.”  “Really.  No pain?”  “That’s right.  The idea is … no pain.  That’s the signal to stop”, she assured me.  “Come back in a week.”

            This is too easy, I thought.  It can’t possible work, but over time … it did.  More than a bunch of grunting and sweating, it took time and patience, things that are much harder for me.  When I put my mind to something, I like to see results … fast.  But the simple routine of a few stretches in the morning and at night paid off.  Doing them properly meant taking it slow, and not pushing myself through pain.  They made me pay attention to my body and the signals it was sending me.  I had to be … mindful.  Healing that produces good results often comes slowly and takes patience.

            This is my fifth annual meeting with St. Stephen’s.  It feels to me as though we have been through some healing together.  That we’ve done a good deal of stretching to get where we are today.  For starters, we’re still here!  I’m not sure everyone thought that would be true five years ago.  But here we are, and I think when you look at our treasurer’s report you’ll see that we’re in a much better financial place than we’ve been in some years.  Still depending on the generosity of the diocese, but further along the path to financial independence.  This fall we conducted a short capital campaign that for all intents and purposes reached our goal.  Maybe we felt like we had something worth giving for, something that might actually last.  Having a treasurer like Charlie Zettek hasn’t hurt either!

            We’ve spent about five years healing this building of ours.  We all know the building isn’t the church, but this building is vital to our mission and ministry.  We have a parish hall that’s brighter and cleaner.  We have parish hall bathrooms with heat and hot water.  Thank you Steve Burrows.  We have a bell tower that doesn’t leak and now we don’t have to worry about it falling down either.  We have a kitchen that is clean and well suited to meet the needs of our Sunday supper ministry.  We have a chapel that is looking better and better.  We might even find that we WANT to use it more and more.  In a few weeks, our church will have a bright and inviting new look.  It’s taken almost five years, but Jim Fallesen and Steve Burrows have just about given this building a much needed face lift.  Steady, patient progress.  That’s an incredible feat.

            As the building took shape around us, I think our spirits found some healing too.  There were new dreams and growing confidence.  We started a community garden with our friends at Two Saints.  Last summer we started saying evening prayer there on Thursday evenings.  This year we’re planning to add a snacking wall of edible plants along the sidewalk.  Our Sunday suppers are now offered on a third Sunday four or five times a year.  Produce has been added to the bags handed out after the meal, and attendance has grown.  Mindful meditation has added MBSR workshops in addition to the weekly sessions already offered to the community.  Our church is continuing to find life.   In our lives together as church we have continued to care for one another … through hospitality, serving in our worship in a variety of ways and extending it to those who are homebound.  How did all this happen?

            It happened because of you.  I remember that first vestry meeting, when Michael Hopkins asked the vestry to be realistic about their financial challenges, but not to let them dominate our life together.  “If you can”, he said, “put them in a box for a while, and set them aside so they don’t get in the way of ministry.”  Be realistic about the money, but don’t let it get in the way.  Good advice, but I think in some ways you were all way ahead of him.

            There is a meditation in the Buddhist tradition called the Meditation on the Bones.  In it, you meditate on your own death.  All the little details of it if you want.  But you don’t stop there.  You go on to see yourself in your coffin, and laid to rest.  You imagine the flesh decaying and feeding insect scavengers, the remains falling away into dust … until all that is left of you is your bones … white and gleaming.  Then your bones go the way of your flesh … and become dust.  And all that was you in this world, your body of flesh and blood and bone has gone back to the earth.  It sounds a little gruesome, but only then, the teacher says, can you really live.  Only then, when you have encountered the reality of death, are you freed to live.  Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when he told the disciples that you must lose your life to save it. 

            When I spoke to your vestry almost five years ago now, they said, “we have faced the fact that St. Stephen’s might have to close.  We might die, and if that happens, we’ll be very, very sad.  But until we do … we are committed to doing what we can in this place until the doors close.”  That was my introduction to your spirit.  Wow.  Do ministry.  Grow ministry.  Find resources for ministry.  So we did.  Today, we are a thriving mission center in this neighborhood and this diocese, even though we are still small. 

            Do we still have financial hurdles ahead of us.  Absolutely, and so does every church in the Rochester district, and many in the rest of the diocese.  Money will always be something that demands attention and sacrifice because of our size, but if we invest in our ministry ...  money will come and it will be money well spent. 

Our biggest challenge in the coming year isn’t to grow more ministries.  It’s to grow in radical hospitality.  When I arrived at Two Saints, Michael had put signs up all over the building that said, “Hospitality is Job #1”.  He meant it too.  It’s that important.  Here at St. Stephen’s the vestry has begun to look at ways we can practice radical hospitality.  Dawn Morgan and Kathy Robinson are taking some of this on.  They need all of our help.

            You may be seeing nametags coming down the road.  There might be some new signs going up around the building.  You might find a revised leaflet available to welcome and inform visitors and newcomers about our church.  But the most important part of radical hospitality is relationships.  When I attended cottage meetings during the fall of my first year here, I asked people why they stayed at St. Stephen’s.  Almost everyone said it had to do with the people.  It was because of relationships.  That’s true in most churches. 

That means it’s very important for us to be intentional about inviting visitors and newcomers into relationship with us.  It’s not enough to be friendly.  It’s not enough to be nice.  We have to go further.  We need to actually want to get to know everyone who comes through our doors … and not just the first time or two they come.  We need to notice when they are absent and let them know they are missed.  When we look around the parish hall during our hospitality, we’re small enough that there should not be a time when we see someone and don’t know their name.   If that happens, our first reaction should be to go over and get to know them!  We need to be about the business of relationship making in our church, on our block and in the neighborhood. 

It might mean stretching us a little beyond our comfort zone, but not beyond the point of pain.  These things don’t have to be difficult, in fact the easier we make them the better.  Simple changes in our behavior and in our building can make us more accessible to others.  We can get name tags, but they won’t do us any good unless we take the simple step of putting them on when we come into church.  It’s no worse then taking a short walk down to the Jordan and taking a bath, even if we have to dip ourselves seven times.  God performed a miracle there.  It can happen here too.

My hope and prayer is that God’s grace will continue to work in and through us for the good of all.  May God help us to seize opportunity and grow in our life together, welcoming all.  We were planted in faithfulness.  We continue in faith.  We’ve done okay together.  I thank you for that.  May our work together continue to glorify God in the world.   Amen.