Go

3 Epiphany A 2011
Isaiah 9:1-4
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23
Psalm 27:1, 5-13

“If you hear rumors about this church’s future, do not pay attention to them! Check them out with the Vestry or clergy first!”

This quote was found by an Episcopal priest as she cleaned out the drawers of an old desk at her church. The words, reeking of anxiety, were printed on a bulletin of that church circa 1993.

Churches develop diseases when they become preoccupied and fearful about their own survival. Soon, “just staying open” becomes a primary goal, and the only goal. That’s not attractive, and that’s not a New Testament concept of church life.

According to the New Testament, a healthy church does not place surviving and “keeping the doors open” as a value and a goal. That’s God’s business. No, the church’s business is to hear the Word of God, and to GO—to proclaim, to heal and teach, to be among the people that are God’s concern. Remember the words of William Temple, one of the great Archbishops of Canterbury: “The church is the only organization that exists for the sake of those who are not yet members.”

So the primary business of a church is not to take care of its own life for its own sake, but to GO—to hear the Good News and to allow Jesus to send us, empowered in his name. That’s what we prayed for in today’s Collect.

Isn’t it strange how soon we forget this? And isn’t it ironic—thinking about survival as a primary value is, for a church, the one best way to start on the road to extinction.

Saints Peter and Paul exists to hear God’s call and to GO, to proclaim the power and the promise and the wonder of God. We do not exist for the primary purpose of perpetuating a particular worship style or musical tradition or architecture or attitude. All those are simply the particular flavors, the distinct accent to our speech, which in many cases have changed over time. They are not the heart of the matter.

If we are feeling too stressed and stretched and challenged to even think about reaching out to proclaim the Gospel, then we need to hear today’s Gospel text again.

Jesus flees the power of Herod, which stretched out into his life once more by jailing his cousin John the Baptist. He withdraws into the fringe lands of Palestine, the mixed and marginal region which was Galilee. But there on the edge, there on the fringe, the teaching and the healing takes place. And there Jesus calls very marginal people—fishermen, probably illiterate, rough-edged people used to endless work and not much hope for change. These marginal men, seasonal workers, will be the great voices of the power of the kingdom of God. Never lose a sense of how unlikely and ridiculous and hopeless this was. But here the power of God broke forth, from these broken and marginal people. They understood the Good News.

Saints Peter and Paul is perched on the margins of Montavilla and of Portland. Broken people walk back and forth before our doors, and sometimes they come in. Here among us, the power of God strains to break forth in seeming hopelessness and among an unlikely people.

That power is already breaking forth. Hungry people are fed on Saturdays, the broken and marginal women of the streets are welcomed at Rahab’s Sisters. Even broken teeth are fixed monthly. And all this happens as we welcome and nurture and care for one another on Sundays. Three years ago we did go out and proclaim, just by making a banner and a homemade signboard that spoke a different language than the one we formerly used exclusively on Sunday. That was all the reaching out we needed to do to begin nurturing a whole new community among us, who bring life and culture and energy to this changing community of ours.

Let’s keep listening to the call of God, and when we hear it then let’s go! How do we go? That is a question worthy of a church. That is a more Gospel-based question than “how can we survive?”