In case you couldn’t tell from all the
people in uniforms in the procession … we’re celebrating Scout Sunday this morning. I’m curious – how many of you were Boy
Scouts, Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, that sort of thing? Not that they’re all the same, but I think
it’s fair to say they all develop leadership by planting and nurturing core
values in young people, and then giving them the chance to live out those
values in the world. Leaders have to be
guided by principles, and they put flesh and bones on those principles by the
way they live. As the saying goes, actions
speak louder than words.
So, for you Scouts, I’m going to put you
on the spot. But don’t worry, you know
this: Stand up, all you Scouts, and please
tell us the Scout Law: “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful,
friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and
reverent.” Good job. Now, how about the Scout Oath? “On
my honor, I will do my best, to do my duty, to God and my country, and
to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all
times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally
straight.”
You
Scouts are
called to love and serve God, your country, and the people around you, without
exception. Now, you know that. And you’d
probably say you believe that. And you do
things that point to that – like earning merit badges and doing service
projects, all the way up to Eagle projects.
But to be the example that a Scout should be – how you live, day to day,
has to match what you know and what you say, right? Because actions speak louder than words.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been preaching
about the churches I studied on my sabbatical in the fall. This week, in the category of “actions speak
louder than words,” I want to highlight the congregation I visited in Portland,
Oregon – St. Andrew’s. St. Andrew’s in
North Portland was founded in 1895, but in recent decades it fell on hard
times. By 2012, there were literally 15
to 20 people worshiping there on a Sunday, all of them folks who’d been there
for decades. More important, it had developed
a reputation, frankly, as a weird little church; the music on Sunday morning
was a parishioner playing his accordion for the other 15 people there. Visitors tended not to stay. So the bishop had to decide what to do with the
place. Rather than closing it, he sent a
missioner with a background in planting a new kind of church, a gathering of
spiritual pilgrims in their 20s and 30s.
Her name is Karen Ward, and she’d done that with success in Seattle, at
a place called Church of the Apostles.
Karen came to Portland originally looking to plant the same kind of
church, but – as often happens – God had other plans. She found herself called to this weird little
church with the accordion.
Well, after more than a century of having
had one middle-aged white guy after another as the priest at St. Andrew’s,
Karen was different. She’s young,
female, African American, and rarely wears a collar. And she was known for starting this very
unconventional kind of church in her last gig.
So, not surprisingly, the people at St. Andrew’s feared that all this
was a sham – that, despite reassurances from her and from the bishop, Karen
really just wanted to replace something old with something new.
Instead, Karen and the parish are
finding their way together. She has gathered a group of young spiritual
pilgrims, people from a variety of faith traditions and from no faith tradition
– guys with long beards and ear gauges. They
worship with simple, accessible music; they have open space in the service for
prayer stations; they make the sermon participatory – many of the same things
you’ve heard me describe from the other places I’ve visited. This “emerging” worship experience happens
regularly on Sunday mornings.
And for their first two years, so has their
inherited form of church – minus the accordion.
There was a standard celebration of Holy Eucharist from the Prayer Book,
with hymns from the Hymnal and a standard sermon. That’s how it was when I visited in the
fall. I e-mailed with Karen recently,
and apparently things have changed a bit, at least for now. After two years of worshiping separately, the
long-term members and newer members have chosen to worship together, at least
for a time, using a blended approach.
But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they go back to the two-service
model – especially since the congregation is growing, including people at both
ends of the worship spectrum.
Why are they growing? A big part of the reason is that Karen did
what she said she’d do when she came. She
brought new life to both worshiping communities there. Here’s how she described the situation to
me. The church – now called St. Andrew
and All Souls, to recognize the new people who’ve come – this church is the
only Episcopal presence in all of North Portland, an area of 11 neighborhoods with
a lot more working-class folks than the hipster world of Portlandia. Karen takes it
seriously that this congregation is the Episcopal Church in North
Portland. She said, “I'm not against
traditional masses. I actually think we need to have a traditional mass. We’re the only Episcopal Church for these 11
neighborhoods; so if there’s going to be traditional worship, it’s going to be
us doing it. To have a diverse parish,
you have to have traditional worship, too.”
But even more important, Karen has
worked hard to bring church members together around core principles. One is the principle that worship unites us,
no matter how we might prefer it individually.
But another core principle uniting these
diverse groups is their commitment to share God’s love with the people around
them. For decades, St. Andrew’s has had
a food pantry and a small community theater group performing in its
basement. So it’s deep in the
congregation’s DNA to reach and serve people in their community. So now, they’re building on that. Rather than just hosting a theater group,
they want to offer a series of arts programs, particularly to serve families
and kids nearby – families that can’t afford cool, trendy arts camps. They’re working to open a coffee shop in an
old building the parish owns and use the proceeds to support the arts program
and the food pantry. And they want to
expand the pantry to offer counseling and basic health services, too. Loving people, serving people, extending the
branches of God’s kingdom – that’s a big part of who St. Andrew’s has been forever
and who it still is now. People there
were afraid that a different kind of priest and different sorts and conditions
of members would kill the church they’d known and loved. Instead, Karen has been committed to
rejuvenating the heart that was already there.
Maybe most important, Karen is uniting
the congregation by leading them to deepen their commitment to God, each other,
and their church. They’re developing a
rule of life for their congregation – a statement of what it means, and what it
looks like, to be a member. It
identifies the core values that unite them in their journey, values like
relationship, welcome, hospitality, and feeding people. And it describes spiritual practices that
help them live out those values, practices like regular worship, prayer,
giving, study, and service. It’s about
moving beyond knowing what a Christian is supposed
to do, and into the practice of intentionally living a Christian life – the day-to-day
practice of love for God, one another, and the people around us. As St. Paul says in the reading this morning,
“We know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’”
But that’s not enough, Paul would say.
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1) And not just any love, not just feeling warm and fuzzy about something, but the
love of Jesus himself, agape – love
that opens our hearts and our lives for the sake of others.
Here, at our St. Andrew’s, the scale may
be different, and the context may be different; but the call for us is the
same. As I said last week, it’s about
both deepening our roots and extending our branches. God wants us to deepen our roots as a congregation
by strengthening the ways of doing church that have been our foundation for decades,
worshiping in a way that links us with Christians across time and space, this
amazing entryway into the transcendent, majestic presence of God. And it’s also about deepening our roots as
individual disciples, committing ourselves to intentional faithfulness, to a
rule of life. It’s about committing
ourselves to live the covenant of baptism, a relationship among ourselves, God,
this faith community, and the world.
It’s about committing ourselves to worship and pray, to repent from sin,
to proclaim good news, to love our neighbors, to strive for peace and justice –
to work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of God, as the Catechism
puts it. That’s what unifies us, what
makes us one body gathered within this rich, crazy, diverse, big tent.
And with those deep roots, we can extend
our branches to the community God asks us to love. It’s what I was describing at the Annual
Meeting last week, about the ministries of our Gather & Grow initiative. We’ll strengthen worship and formation; we’ll
connect with more young people, like these Scouts, and their families; we’ll
support entrepreneurs whose work builds justice and peace; and we’ll open our
facility more intentionally to people nearby and build relationships with them. Through these manifestations of God’s
mission, we can reach spiritual pilgrims around us and help bring God’s kingdom
to life – which is what the Church is here for.
Like St. Andrew and All Souls in
Portland, we can’t just ride a long and venerable history and hope that will
carry us into a second century. We’re
called not only to be who we’ve been
but to be more of who we’re becoming.
We’re called not just to know faith, not even just to talk faith, but to
do faith. Authentic faithfulness – living as Christians
in ways that fit us and that change the world – that kind of authentic
faithfulness speaks love in the most powerful way.
As St. Francis said, “Proclaim the Good
News at all times; use words when necessary.”
Know the call, and live it out loud.
Root yourself, and extend yourself.
Go deep, and go wide.
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