Sermon for Sunday, January 28, 2024 || Epiphany 4B || Psalm 111

My heart is full this morning, my friends. My heart is full of thanksgiving for God’s presence in the midst of this assembly. Today is our tenth annual meeting together. Ten years. Sometimes I can hardly believe it has been that long. Then I look at my children and remember they were in utero ten years ago, and now they can reach the cups in the upper kitchen cabinet. On a ten-year anniversary such as this, the first verse of today’s psalm speaks to me: “Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation.”

So that’s what I’m going to do this morning. I’m going to give thanks to God with my whole heart in the midst of the congregation. As I share with you stories from the last ten years that make me thankful, I invite you to remember your own way into thanksgiving. For thanksgiving is a posture for generous living, an attitude of abundance that leads us to notice God’s presence everywhere we look.

I’ll start ten years ago, the week before I officially began my ministry with you. A fellow named Niel Spillane was in the ICU at the spritely age of 89. I went over to L&M and asked the folks at the front desk. “Sorry, there’s no one by that name here,” they said. I called around to a few of the folks I knew from the church and discovered that Niel’s actual first name is Joseph. Joseph was there in the ICU. I went up and visited with Joseph Niel Spillane and ten years later that special man turns 100 in a little over a month. With all the administrative minutiae my job can entail, I give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart for the opportunity to visit those who are sick. Because in those hundreds of visits to people in hospitals and nursing facilities, I am aware of God’s presence already present in those rooms as I step inside. And I thank God for the incredible people who partner with me in bringing communion to those who cannot be with us.

My kids were born later that first year, and Leah and I learned quickly the truth of the phrase, “It takes a village.” So many people from this church helped us in those first six months, and my clearest memory of that help (from an admittedly hazy, sleep-deprived phase of my life) is Emily Barrett rocking the babies for hours on end so we could catch a few hours sleep. I give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart for the love this parish has showered upon my family from the day of my childrens’ births. For those of you who know some of my own childhood story, you know that such love is not a foregone conclusion for a pastor’s family. I thank God for the witness to Jesus’ special love for children shown by this congregation, and a special thank you to our Godly Play and youth mentors who walk side by side with all our children.

Our first couple of years together as pastor and congregation, I was learning how to be an effective leader, teacher, preacher, counselor, administrator, fundraiser, non-profit CEO, and part time copy machine repairman. The patience this congregation showed me as I learned to be a rector on the job was extraordinary. You took a chance on a thirty-year-old priest with no senior pastor experience, and you loved me, challenged me, schooled me, and molded me into someone who now mentors less experienced priests. I give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart for this parish’s leadership partnering with me as we grew together both in the love of the Lord and in fruitful operation of this church.

In 2016, after listening to our mission partners at St. Luc’s School in Haiti, we took a big chance in building a significant amount of funding for the new lunch program at the school into our 2017 budget. Our pledging would need to grow by over 10% in order to implement this vision of our Haiti team. The members of the parish responded with gusto, and we have been helping to feed hundreds of children in Mercery, Haiti ever since. And not only that, but the funding we provide remains in the local economy, so we are, in our own small way, working for justice by aiding the repair of an economy devastated by a history of foreign plunder. I give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart for the inspirational witness to God’s mission of healing and restoration which this church takes seriously in many ways. And I thank particularly Doug Barrett and the Haiti team, as well as everyone who is passionately engaged in our various missions.

On my first sabbatical in 2019, I spent time reflecting on my own place in the past history and present reality of systemic racism in our society. A trip to the National Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama changed my life. Every day, I pray for the will to heal from and uproot the sin of white supremacy in my own life and in interlocking systems of injustice that keep everyone from flourishing. I give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart that the work of justice has become a spiritual disciple for me and for this church. And I thank the members of our anti-racism team for their commitment and vision.

And then 2020 came. What can we say about 2020? 2020 was the year that so many of us realized how important community is to us. We gathered in love any way we could; we stayed in touch; we shared our terror; we shared our lament; we shared our exhaustion when the interminable variants of Covid-19 brought wave after wave. Fourteen months later, we shared our joy as we saw one another again in three dimensions. Some time after that, we shared communal singing and Eucharist at the altar rail and fellowship time down in the undercroft. I give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart for the flexibility and improvisational attitude of this parish during those trying days. And I give thanks for every single person who makes our worship beautiful – those who sing, those who serve, those who read and greet and iron and dust and wash and arrange flowers and livestream our services.

As the waves of the pandemic slowed, the consequences of deferred medical treatments caught up with us. Between February 2022 and June 2023, over thirty of our beloved members died. Most died after long, long lives; others died suddenly and tragically. Our collective grief grew and grew, as did my personal grief, along with my anxiety and feelings of burnout. Last October, I had a very strange health event during an 8am service that led me to seek medical and psychological help. I give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart for this parish’s understanding and support as I’ve learned to live with some new ways of being. And I give thanks to God for all those souls to whom we have said farewell over the years.

There are, of course, countless more reasons to give thanks with my whole heart for this particular piece of God’s beloved community. These seven reasons are some of mine. I am curious about yours. To satisfy my curiosity, you will find big sheets of flipchart paper attached to the walls downstairs. I invite you this morning during the annual meeting to add your own reasons for thanksgiving. And together we can all say: “Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation.”

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Banner image: St. Mark’s at sunrise, taken on June 16, 2016.