Rector's Report

Rector’s Report and Sermon on Mark 1: 21-28

The Rev. Teresa K. Mithen, Rector

Sunday, January 29, 2006

This sermon is my rector’s report – or, the rector’s report is my sermon. The Biblical texts assigned for today, especially the Gospel text, kept appearing into my mind and my heart every time that I tried to write a report about the past year that we have spent in ministry together here at St. John’s. I have combined my two messages to you today – which is appropriate, I think, given that the details of our life together as a congregation are always necessarily intertwined with our experience of worship – the reading and hearing of Holy Scripture and partaking of the Eucharistic feast together. The Gospel story today captured my imagination because it is a story about authority in religious communities. It is also a story about the power of Jesus Christ to teach and heal.

Jesus and his newly minted disciples are in Capernaum, a village just north of the Sea of Galilee on the Jewish Sabbath. Like the other men in the community, they have assembled to worship God. The Gospel of Mark – in its typical action oriented, Cliff Notes style – does not tell us what Jesus taught in the assembly. Mark only states that the assembly was “astounded at his teaching, for he taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

As one scholar notes, the scribes were the literate elite of scholar-lawyers who represented the priestly rulers in Jerusalem. The scribes were literate men in a society in which very few are literate, and that put them in a position of relative privilege. Those who could read and write well might have the chance to use those skills not only for Torah study, but for record-keeping and letter-writing for the wealthy, with power and comfort linked to their powerful employers'. The scribes were used to being the ones in the community with the power and they liked things the way they were.

Now, why is it that the people assembled on that Sabbath in Capernaum thought that Jesus – a mere carpenter –spoke with authority, while the scribes did not? I do not know, and Mark – typically a man of few words– does not tell us why either. Maybe the people in the assembly were drawn to Jesus’ self-assurance, to his personal presence and to his message. They recognized an authenticity in the way that Jesus spoke and the way that he acted – an authenticity in Jesus’ spirit and in his faith that the scribes simply did not possess. Maybe the scribes’ faith had been corrupted by their desire for power and wealth, their little bit of power in an uncertain time and place – Roman-occupied Palestine. The scribes were probably more concerned about maintaining their little bit of power than in teaching the assembly of the faithful about the will of God for God’s people.

The true authority, or power, that the assembly perceived in Jesus’ teaching is confirmed by his healing – by his calling a demon out of a man in the assembly. It is hard to say if Jesus’ teaching would have been remembered for very long if he had not performed this powerful, dramatic act of healing. Jesus’ combination of teaching and healing, Jesus’ combination of word and deed, made a deep impression on the assembly in Capernaum and “at once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.”

We here at St. John’s are an assembly of faithful people, in an uncertain time and place. There have been many points in the last fifteen years or so when the St. John’s community could have chosen to be like the scribes in the Gospel story today. The long-time members of St. John’s could have chosen to cling to what remained of what had “always been” until the parish closed. But, the members of St. John’s did not do that. Instead, through prayer, worship, hard work and ingenuity, a small, but authentic Christian community persisted. Then, in 2004, the longtime members of St. John’s took a big risk. They called me – a young, green priest to be the rector – to work with them to rebuild a Christian community that would preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ with authenticity and authority, in word and deed. I thank God every day for the courage, the faith, and the hope that led you all to call me to be your rector.

There have been many authentic signs of hope in our life together at St. John’s since July 2004. Our average Sunday attendance has increased from 16 in 2003, to 21 in 2004, to 43 in 2005. We are blessed by the abundance of gifts displayed by all members of our community – those who have been here for many years and those who have been here for few months. We now have regular, quality Christian Education classes offered on Sunday mornings for both adults and children. We now have a wonderful choir at the 10:00 a.m. service. The new 5:00 p.m. service with guitar music is growing. Our financial pledging has increased 50% from last year – we have 25 households pledging a total of $30,230 for 2006. Our buildings are now fully occupied day and night with people and organizations from St. John’s and the wider Tower Grove community.

We have been awarded several grants to improve our buildings and grounds, as well as our relationships in the wider community. The radiators in the nave have been replaced, thanks to a matching grant from the Diocese. Our application to the United Thank Offering for $30,000 to improve the kitchen in order to start a food ministry is the top recommendation from the UTO grants committee in our diocese to the national UTO grants committee. In the past year, the Living Tree Mural Project has brought over 150 people into contact with St. John’s. Because of diocesan funding, we will be able to really launch an Episcopal ministry at St. Louis University in the coming year by hiring Elliot McKee as a part-time peer minister. We have developed and will continue to develop relationships with people and organizations that bear fruit, as we strive to make Jesus Christ present to each other and to the wider community in every word and deed. We are becoming known more and more as a church community that has authority – a community that authentically seeks to do the will of God.

We have many challenges ahead. As scheduled, the Diocesan grant for the clergy minimum salary package has been reduced by 20% this year, and will be reduced by another 20% next year, and the year after that. I am confident that we will be self-sufficient again by 2008 or 2009. We must grow, in our faith in Jesus Christ, in our confidence that the Holy Spirit calls us to continue ministering in the Tower Grove community, and in membership. In order to continue to grow in membership, we will have to continue to pray and work to become a more welcoming, expansive community – a community in which diversity is a blessing to be embraced, not a curse to be feared.

The Bishop recently gave us $13,000 in order to develop a Master Plan for our property – in return, we are expected to rise to the challenge of transforming these buildings into more accessible, usable spaces for all. Turning the Master Plan into a reality will necessitate a Capital Campaign in a few years. In the meantime, I challenge you to pray and plan to increase your household’s financial pledge to St. John’s in the coming year. I make this challenge as one who tithes – or gives ten percent of my income – to St. John’s. An increase in stewardship pledges would allow us to do even more in the coming year – expanding our outreach to the community, beginning to make our buildings handicapped accessible, hiring sorely needed secretarial staff.

I know that all of this is a tall order – believe me, I know. I am confident that, with God’s help, we can do it and more. Just look at how far we have come in a year and a half together! Look at how God has blessed us. Look around at each other – at faces that are familiar to you, and faces that are new. This is a Christian community with authority.

Our authority as a Christian community does not come from our long and august history, or from our beautiful Gothic revival buildings, or from our identity as an Episcopal parish, or from our past prestige. We are not a community of scribes, who cling to power or tradition out of fear or self interest.

Our authority comes from our faith in God through Jesus Christ. St. John’s is a community yearning and striving to serve Jesus Christ – our healer, teacher, friend, and Savior. Our authority comes from working together to serve God through word and deed – when we are assembled together and when we are apart witnessing and serving in the wider world. As we continue to grow into a larger, more expansive, more faithful Christian community, our authority will increase and our fame will spread. With God’s help, our community will continue to grow – in faith and in size, as we continue to teach and to heal, as we continue to live out our faith in Jesus Christ in thought, word, and deed. Amen.