Stories

my husband once asked if i was a good writer or a good deliverer of sermons. well this one at least, i did not write, the holy spirit did so, and delivered it too. i wrote the words down about 2 hours before i spoke them, without any editing and i cried and knocked my knees together through the whole delivery. and so, in a personal note to him - i totally understand why he things old testament prophets were mentally ill, they were dealing with what we now call, out of body experiences.

So. I was sure that this was going to be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. 6 lines of Gospel on welcoming and 3 days at a Province 8 Stewardship, Evangelism and Congregational Development Conference. Yeah. You know, I’ll share with you a curse my grandmother left me. She said, Heather, you will never appreciate anything that comes easy. God and my grandmother are sitting in heaven these days just shaking their heads over that. Because last night, I typed up this lovely sermon on what I learned at Conference. And I knew it wasn’t great or prophetic or startling, or frankly even very interesting. And this morning I woke up with what conference planners call an ah-ha moment, but what I call prophetic revelation. And so, this morning, I wrote this down and stand before you now, but in my heart and shaking knees, I am sitting right beside you.

Today’s Gospel. Today’s Good News is about welcoming, it’s about hospitality and it is really about an old adage I learned as a child. “You get what you wish for.”

What I want to talk about this morning is what it is we wish for. It isn’t simple like a penny in a fountain. It is not talking about kindness begetting kindness. What we wish for is the self-fulfilling prophecy of our stories. Our story is who we are. Our story is the limiting factor of what we consider possible-and if we don’t believe something is possible-how can we recognize it when it comes along?

For instance, this community has recognized that this puny vessel can contain enough holy for one-and some to spare for a community, too. And that is why it takes community to discern anything – because one person, alone, before God, gets sand blasted – but a community standing together, telling the same story, spreads the power of God amongst its members and allows us all to approach the holy places, the thin places as they are called, without being burned by the magnitude of God’s desires for us.

In order for this to work the community must be telling the same story. In order for others to join the community it must know and live its story in a way that others can understand, can access, can tell authentically themselves. Because the story we tell that others can understand that others can tell authentically that they can see themselves in. That is the story that unfolds for a community.

Here at St. David’s this community tells the story of a general purpose meeting facility. We tell this story well. We, as Christians, tell this story to a generation, a population, that does not know our Christian story and cannot hear what we don’t tell. We are telling Colonial Heights, and the Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood Association, and the Portland Metro Area the story of space for rent.

Not only is it any wonder that only renters come to share our story, do any of us even remember when that became our story? I can tell you – space for hire has not always been our story. And I don’t harken back to any Golden Age, because I wasn’t born then. But I can tell you in 2004-that was not the story of St. David’s. Because I would not have come back the second Sunday. I would not have become an acolyte. I would not have met friends like Sam Gregory, and Jon Williams and the Horners. And I would not have made family like Pat Thayer and Chas Dean and the Browns. And I would not have joined the story if Fr John hadn’t been speaking of discipleship and hospitality.

I, Heather, do not stand outside the circle on this. I, too, tell the story of parks and recreation. I, too, think the brochure should be all business. I, too stand before the fiery bush and hear God in this Gospel saying – you are reaping what you have sown. You are living the story you have told. You are getting the welcome you have given.

Right now, at this time, we are at a junction. There begins yet another round of “what to do with St. David’s” If I remember correctly, the Standing Committee was supposed to have given our question some space on the agenda yesterday. Right now, we have the floor, to tell our story. And the question is-Do we tell the story of “Space for lease-cheap rates” or do we tell the Gospel? Do we tell the story of crucifixion and resurrection and reconciliation of all things?

When I first came to this parish, Molly told us all a story of Phoenix Rising. That was her story of St. David’s. Somewhere in my heart-I still hold that story, but with my mouth, with my feet, I have told the story of community center for so long, I wonder why I still get angry and surprised that people don’t show up on Sunday morning like they used to. Not in the golden era, but only since I have been here.

Today we have been given an invitation from God to wake up. To hear and feel the Holy Spirit. To speak and move as thought we ourselves would live and die and live again as Christ. Today, if we take it, we are given an invitation and Permission, to change the story we written, in assessment reports and newspaper articles. We are allowed to reclaim the Gospel as our primary story.

If it is God’s will, nothing on earth will stop it. Something I learned last week is that God speaks in prophetic and often crazy sounding language and I learned that while it takes courage, it takes faith, it takes a feeling of just giving in to the inevitable, when we let Him, God will speak through us.

Individually and collectively, we all have a story of the crucifixion and resurrection played out in our own lives. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here. I plead for you to join me, and God invites us all, in a much more dignified way, to join in the new story – the old story – the only story. And see where that leads us. It will lead us home.



Heather Lee
Proper 8, Year A, RCL
June 29, 2008