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The bus departs from St. Edward the Confessor at 9:30am, stops at the Park & Ride at Hopkins Crossroads at 9:45am and arrives at the Minneapolis Convention Center between 10-10:15am. The bus will depart from the convention center at 2:00pm.

Deadline for sign-up: Sunday, February 7th

The Reverend Paul D. Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, January 24, 2010

I wonder how many of you have ever had to rebuild your lives. I know I’ve rebuilt mine a few times. There are all kinds of things that happen to us that cause us to start over: death, divorce, illness, job loss. Its all around us. What happens when we rebuild is that we go back to the core. We review what is essential to our identity. These are very difficult times but when we arise out of them we are stronger and more alive than we have been in a long time.

This is the whole narrative of Holy Scripture: we go into an exile or place of death and then return renewed. This is the story of Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures. We can see this story in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: the suffering, the tomb, the resurrection, the ascension.

In the Book of Nehemiah we hear the story of the exiles returning home from Babylon. They find their homeland in ruins. Slowly they begin to rebuild the physical structures. But more importantly they begin to rebuild their relationship with the Lord. They begin, through the teaching of their clergy, to re-learn their religious customs.

Nehemiah the Governor gathers the people. He asks the priest Ezra to teach them the Law of Moses. The priests go into the crowd to help people understand the reading. They had been in exile and many of them had never even heard of their traditions. The people wept as they heard the words of the law. They wept because they realized how far they had strayed from their foundation.

But then their leaders do something amazing: they tell the people not to weep but to celebrate. They remind them of the religious feast day that is approaching. They are to go and celebrate Sukkoth or the Feast of Booths. This was the holiday wherein the people remembered that their ancestors were once in the wilderness. The Lord delivered them and they also came home after living in tents for a long while.

In our Gospel today Jesus has just returned from His own exile. He has been in the wilderness for forty days being ruthlessly tempted by the devil. He has been tempted to do what all of us are tempted by: to test God and to exercise power over others. Jesus makes it through the testing perfectly; He is the one who shows us how to follow the will of God. Then He is filled with the Holy Spirit. He returns to human society to proclaim what He has learned. Just like each of us who go through immense suffering and come out of it to serve others.

Jesus volunteers to be the reader for the service. He is handed the scripture of the day. (Like our lectionary it is assigned. No one is selecting it for their own purposes.) He stands and reads from the prophet Isaiah. This prophecy was the charge given to the people Israel after they returned from their exile. They will be anointed by God to serve the world. They are to bring good news to the poor, release to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Out of His own exile in the wilderness Jesus proclaims a time of rebuilding.

Each of us who has gone through our own wilderness and rebuilding can teach others how to do the same. We can do this, not only for other individual disciples, but also for the whole communion of disciples.

Our beloved Episcopal Church is entering a time of rebuilding. For decades now we have seen our Church shrink. We have been distracted from our core. We have been fighting over how we pray instead of why we pray. We have been fighting over who is worthy to be ordained based on gender and human sexuality instead of the theological nature of the diaconate, priesthood and episcopacy. We have been fighting over secular politics instead of joining together to critique secular politics with the mind of Christ.

I hear it out in the wider Church this call for rebuilding. I hear the laity asking that we get back to the basics. We can learn about social and environmental problems at our local political caucuses. At Church we want to learn about our traditions. Like the people returning from exile we don’t even know what our traditions are anymore. I hear the clergy pleading to be allowed to be clergy. We don’t want to be non-profit managers or pseudo-social workers.

I am utterly bored by the controversies over money and sex in our Church. What I am concerned about is the core. Do our people know how to reflect on Holy Scripture well enough to make it part of their every day lives? I am concerned with the state of our sacramental theology. Do we still believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist or that baptism confers upon us a regeneration of life? Do we still believe that confirmation is an anointing in the Holy Spirit? I am concerned with our adherence to the Creeds of the Church. Are we going to throw them out because they are hard to believe?

In a recent article in the Living Church, Neil Michell, the Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Dallas wrote, “The problems facing our Church are not financial or cultural. Our decline is not the result of not having the right programs in place…the problems facing our Church are spiritual in nature.” (The Living Church, January 24, 2010, p.6)

We are coming home from our self-imposed exile. Each of us who have had to rebuild our lives, who have suffered and then come home to ourselves can show the Church how do go about this. Suffering and exile come into our lives so that we can prove our reliance on God and show others how to make it back home.

Isaiah 62:1-5; I Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

The Reverend Paul D. Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, January 17, 2010

For the Epiphany service I had asked Carole Leonard if she would put together a reception. And, as Carole always does, she put together a warm and welcoming occasion. She had coffee and pie and had decorated the tables with handmade centerpieces. Unbeknownst to me, as people started to arrive, Carole began to worry that there might not be enough pie; more people seemed to be showing up than we expected.

To make matters worse as I welcomed everyone I announced that there would be free pie afterwards. Carole had purchased the pie and thought maybe we might put out an offering basket to defer the cost. So there she was worrying that we might run out of pie and then I tell everyone to run in there and get some because its free!

Thanks be to God, we did not run out of pie. In fact, rumor has it that some people had more than one piece. And there was left over pie for that Sunday.

The concern wasn’t that anyone was going to go hungry. It was that it would be inhospitable to not have enough for everyone. This is what concerns any of us as we host others.

In the Gospel today Mary tells Jesus, “They’ve run out of wine.” She wasn’t worried that people would waste away if they didn’t get more to drink. She wanted to save the host families from dishonor. Their culture was all about family honor. Not being able to provide for their guests would suggest that they did not have the resources nor enough friends to provide for the feast. When Jesus steps forward to provide more wine he is acting honorably; he is saving this family and the whole village from disruption. (Malina, pp. 66 & 68-69)

To be hospitable is to be honorable. It is to honor the other, ourselves and in the end to honor God.

Our Parish Discernment Team perceived that hospitality is a value for this community. They identified that this value comes naturally to us. This value isn’t about hanging out at coffee hour and being friendly. It is about bringing the unconditional love of God in Christ to everyone who comes through these doors and everyone we meet out in the world. The Team wrote that, “True hospitality is love.”

They identified hospitality as a way of being not as a growth strategy. They wrote, “We want to welcome everyone, whatever their ethnicity, race, gender, marital status, political views, or sexual orientation.” They realized that this is a lofty goal and will be tough to live into.

Yes, this is tough to do. It is easy when everyone looks and thinks and lives the same way. It is hard to accept the full diversity of humanity.

The Rule of St. Benedict is over 1500 years old. It was written for vowed religious living in monasteries and convents but many people today are adopting its precepts as a way of life. Chapter 53 is entitled On the Reception of Guests. Benedict instructs us to receive all guests as Christ. The superior and brethren should greet the guest with all charitable service. And the first thing they should do is to pray together and then exchange the kiss of peace.

He goes on, “In the salutation of all guests, whether arriving or departing, let all humility be shown. Let the head be bowed or the whole body prostrated on the ground in adoration of Christ, who indeed is received in their persons.”

Benedict did not instruct us to do this only with guests that intrigued us or seemed like us but for all guests. This is a tall order. It takes all of the spiritual energy we have both as individual disciples and as the community of disciples.

Just as we learned at the Epiphany reception and at every pot luck, when we all offer something and work hard to make it warm and welcoming we always have enough.

God has given us everything we need to be the Church we just have to share our gifts. And we have to recognize the gifts that others have just as Mary recognized the gifts that Jesus had. She didn’t know that he would make water into wine. She just knew that he had the gifts to save the family’s honor.

And so to live into this vision of hospitality we have recognize it as a God-given gift. This parish of St. George’s is known for its welcoming attitude. We aren’t creating another “program” to do; we are living into the gift that we already have received as a community. We are manifesting this gift and bringing deeper meaning to it.

We already have everything we need. We as a community must be about learning and then energizing each persons gifts. As St. Paul writes to the Church in Corinth, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good… All of these (gifts) are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”

Last year at this time we as a community were anxious about our budget. A Church budget isn’t about money; it is one indicator of the health of the body. Last year we were 23,000 dollars behind. This year, even after raising some spending, we are only 1,300 dollars off. I suggest that we had all the pie we needed even last year. It has been a matter of discernment and prayer that has unleashed our gifts. And these gifts are not simply monetary. People’s gifts of leadership and their time and energy and ideas are manifest all over this parish. The gift of hospitality has been shown in our growth in new members.

We have everything we need to be the Church. God has already given it to us as a gift. Let’s keep looking for those gifts and unleashing them.

Reference: Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John by Malina & Rohrbaugh

                      Fortress Press Minneapolis 1998

Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

The Reverend Paul D. Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, January 10, 2010

It’s one thing to be baptized; it’s quite another to be set on fire by the Holy Spirit. It’s one thing to confess the faith of Jesus Christ; quite another to confirm that faith and to have the Holy Spirit warm our hearts and strengthen our confession of Jesus Christ as Lord.

John the Baptist points out to the people that while he baptizes them with water, for the forgiveness of sins, One is coming that will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and fire. Baptism is the beginning of our life with Christ. In Baptism we are cleansed from sin, confess our faith and are adopted as children of God. But then what do we do with that faith and that confession?

After Jesus is baptized He is confirmed, “The Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.” Then a voice from heaven proclaims Him the beloved Son of God.

I was baptized as an infant in the Roman Catholic Communion. As a young child, after the family had left the Roman Church, I was baptized in a Baptist congregation. Then I lost my faith for sometime. When I came out of that wilderness I knew I wanted to practice the Catholic Faith. Like most of us I thought the Catholic Faith was only expressed in the Roman Communion. So I returned there and was confirmed. In college I discovered the other communions of the Catholic Faith: the Orthodox, the Lutheran and the Anglican. I chose the Anglican and then was received into this part of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Through all of that journey I was being initiated into different Christian communities looking for a place to belong. But all of those ceremon I was again set on fire with Christ-love.

It was these two experiences that opened my heart to the unknowable; opened my heart to trust God. It opened the eyes of my soul to receive visions of Jesus and the saints that have carried me through every obstacle in my life.

Mother Church has given us sacraments to live out this process of baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and then to have that faith confirmed in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We read in the Book of Acts that a community of Samaritans had been baptized into the Faith of Christ but had not yet received the Holy Spirit. In other words they needed a spiritual power shake. We read, “Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” These apostles are the foreshadowing, the foundation of what we now call bishops.

Our Catechism teaches us that in the Sacrament of Confirmation we express a mature commitment  to Christ and then receive strength from the Holy Spirit through prayer and the laying on of hands by a bishop. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 860)

I believe that I had those amazing encounters with the Holy Spirit, and the subsequent experiences with Jesus and the saints, because of my baptism(s) and confirmation. Whether I meant it or not, I opened a door that would never be shut again.

We all know that we can get caught up in going through the motions of our religion. We can get stuck in the institutionalism of it all: worrying about procedures, rules, and who’s in charge of what. Those things are all important but they are not where we find salvation. They are not going to open the doors to our hearts to let the Spirit enter in.

Its one thing to get baptized, confirmed and even to sign up with a parish; its quite another to be set on fire by the Holy Spirit. It’s one thing to run the institutional Church and quite another to live in the world as the Church, the Body of Christ.