Pastor Marie's Sermon Notes for Sunday October 9th, 2024
This morning, I want to focus on some questions that I have come up
with, some of them, some of you could be thinking about. I have four.
1. What is world communion Sunday and why do we focus on it?
2. If the installation is next week, why are we focusing on re-covenanting
together this week?
3. We wrote our vision and mission statements; do we have to read them
ever again?
4. What do any of these three questions have to do with our real issue: we
need more people.
So, I’m going to start with number 1. World Communion Sunday is the one
Sunday in the entire year where every single Christian church around the
globe celebrates the sacrament of communion. With all our differences, we
claim that we are in Christ, on this Sunday, we show our unity in a very
tangible way. But there’s something deeper going on as well. On this Sunday
we remember that there is much more that connects us than divides us. We
set aside our differences and see everyone as a brother and sister in Christ.
We are also encouraged to see each and every person as our neighbor, as
someone whom God has brought into our life for a reason. World Communion
Sunday encourages us to look beyond ourselves to see the larger vision God
has for us and for the world.
If the installation is next week, why are we focusing on covenanting
together as a pastor and congregation this week? Next week is for the Classis.
It’s the formal thing. Today is for us. It doesn’t matter what Classis does if we
aren’t committed to each other. We have come together at a precarious point
in the life of Old Brick Church. I am part time. Membership is down. Expenses
keep increasing and revenue decreases. Our nest egg is getting smaller. It
could be very easy to be depressed and to think that things here are hopeless.
But they are not. As people of faith, we know that God finds ways when we
think that there is no way. We know that God uses people and places that
other people have written off. We know that God turns things upside down
from commonly held truths. Our God is a God of underdogs. Our God is a God
who inspires people who refuse to give up. Our God is a God of miracles, love,
and compassion. We need to be committed to each other and to God, so that
we have the best chance to make Old Brick Shine brighter than it ever has. It’s
going to take work and ideas and prayer: lots of them. It will also help to have
humor and patience and a forgiving heart.
We wrote the vision and mission statements. Aren’t we done with them?
No, they should be our guiding lights. They should be part of our two-minute
answer if someone asks about our church. They should guide our actions and
how we relate to the world. Every so often we should look at them and ask if
they help us do what we need to be doing. And that leads us to, what do we
need to do? What is God calling Old Brick Church to do and to be? What can
we do that nobody else can do? Together we need to answer those questions.
Together we need to plan how we will fulfill our calling right here, right now.
What do these three questions have to do with our real issue? Everything.
We need to know who we are, where we want to go, and have some ideas on
how we want to get there. These should be large brush strokes so that we can
allow God’s spirit into our midst to guide us as we journey forward. Now,
here’s the hard part. None of this is going to be easy, nor will we know what
will work and what won’t work. We are called to walk in faith, trusting that
God will guide and bless us. There will be some signs, however. What I have
learned as a spiritual director that if something is blessed by God, it works out.
The path just opens up and you easily move through it. That doesn’t mean to
say that when something isn’t that easy, it’s wrong, it just means that we need
to pay attention to our motives and desires to check if they are aligned with
God’s. We also may realize that something that we thought would be a part of
our path no longer makes sense. That can be hard as well, because sometimes
those things that we need to let go of are the things that are near and dear to
our hearts. But everything in balance. Being faithful doesn’t mean turning
everything upside down or rejecting the things we always do. Being faithful
means that we pay attention to how God leads us now.
God has brought us together to be partners in the divine vision. With faith
and hope in that vision we will sow the seeds of love and grace in our
community. We will welcome our neighbors. We will follow God’s lead. We will
pray and work together so that this community of faith, Old Brick Church will
still be here in another 325 years. (Read the Vision and Mission statements.)
Amen.