[Propertalk] Off topic sermon for Sunday, April 19, on "Passion and Purpose" Sunday

[Joe Parrish]

Here is my off topic sermon for Sunday, April 19, on "Passion and Purpose" Sunday in our Diocese of New Jersey.

A final version will be posted on our church web site in the Sermon Archives section of the Worship tab at http://sjnj.org by early next week, God willing.

Peace and Easter blessings,

Joe

St. John's Episcopal Church

61 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201

The Second Sunday of Easter (B)

April 19, 2009

A Sermon by the Rev. Joe Parrish

The Holy Gospel according to

John 20:19-31
 

"Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord."  Lord, let us rejoice and be glad you have risen and are alive in our lives today.  May we, with passion, work for your purpose and our purpose to bring all people within your loving and living embrace.  Through your Holy Name we pray.  Amen.

 

     This is Purpose and Passion Sunday in our Diocese of New Jersey.  The Bishop has asked us preachers to address this topic of Purpose and Passion today for all our congregations.

     As I was pondering this I just happened to go on my computer to search for a news report about the double Texas-sized plastic garbage island floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii.  Completely by providence and serendipity I came across a site that has had over 26 million hits since Saturday of last week, a rate of nearly 3 million views per day, a remarkable viewership!  That's a larger audience by far than any movie or television series in history, in fact.

     It is a song by 47 year old Susan Boyle on the pop British television show, "Britain's Got Talent."  In her first performance for the show broadcast from Scotland last week she sang the theme song of the "Les Miserables" character Fantine, who along with the many other characters in that famous play are engaged in a struggle of redemption and freedom from oppression in nineteenth century France.  The novel behind the play was penned by Victor Hugo in 1862, two years after St. John's main church building was completed 

     Susan Boyle said she chose the song because of her current status as an unemployed single person and her dream of singing before a large audience.  Four thousand people heard her and cheered in the television auditorium, and she got her chance for her fifteen seconds of fame, worldwide now, as her performance has been heard over the internet by millions.

     Susan sang with great passion, but with the purpose of getting a musical career going that she had imagined since she started singing at the age of twelve.

     Let's listen to a clip of her performance [played on a screen in the church now].  To watch it, please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

     When a person has a passion in their heart, the motivation for a great performance is always there.  And if a person has a purpose for their life, the combination with passion is undefeatable.

     Christ gave us Christians a purpose: he said, go into all the world and make disciples of every nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teaching them everything that Christ has taught us (Matthew 28:19-20).  And if we are passionate about that, and do that, we will indeed be doing the calling of the Lord in our lives.

     I have heard Bill Hybels, Pastor of Willow Creek Church in South Barrington, Illinois, articulate his passion for saving the lost.  'How can we not be concerned about the eternal fate of so many people', is his mantra and his practice; 'for without this many will be doomed to damnation,' is the corollary of his passionate plea.  His church, Willow Creek, had almost 48,000 thousand people attend their Easter Sunday services, with more than 20,000 seeking prayers afterwards.

     Our fledgling effort at St. John's is to do karaoke Vespers here every Sunday at 2 PM, when we preach to maybe thirty to fifty folks, many of whom are starving and desperately hungry.  Just running our church here costs us nearly four thousand dollars a Sunday, and a few months from now, we won't have any more funds to do that unless we come into some serious money.  But the Spirit seems to be compelling us to keep on keeping on until we have no more toilet paper in our bathrooms and no more oil in our tanks!  We ordered perhaps our last three hundred gallons of oil Thursday, $575 worth, and that will have to last us until winter comes again.  Then I guess we all will have to worship in our woolies by candlelight!  We do have a bequest coming in that will probably keep us going for a year or so more, but beyond that we are more or less living on faith.  We fortunately were not much disturbed by the stock market crash, as almost all of our endowment funds were in cash instruments, treasury bonds and the like.  So by the grace of God we were spared serious disruption.

     The big sanctuary over there seems almost like Damocles Sword to us.  Our insurance costs alone run about a thousand dollars because the entire facility was raised in value from $8 million to $11 million a few years ago by our church insurance company.  Of course we couldn't possibly sell the church for $11 million, that is just what the estimate is for rebuilding a church like ours right here.  Our real estate broker says we might be able to recoup maybe two and a half million by selling the front hundred feet of the church on Broad Street, including the big tower, as retail space, and the tower and front three-quarters of the church would be torn down to build a big mixed use facility of some sort.  However, even that is not a 'done deal', and we haven't offered to do that any way.  But we have gone so far as to evaluate our Garden and the other two older building here, including the one in which we sit today, and we could raise perhaps a Million two ($1.2 million), for that part of the property we own, or rather, the Diocese owns.  But our best estimates of what it will take to keep St. John's operating continuously for several decades to come is to form an endowment of a minimum of about $1.8 to $2 million dollars.  We can just about eek out that much by a sale of the garden and these two buildings plus all five Tiffany windows.  But in the interim, we are doing something quite creative, considering forming a for profit corporation that would be able to receive either federal loans and/or investor dollars to build a five or six story building here beside the church that would be a combination of retail space, professional offices, and mostly up scale housing.

     But lay aside all those details for a while.  What is our purpose here?  Is it not to preach the gospel, baptize, and teach others what Jesus taught us?  And if that is our purpose, how can we best do that?  Is that our passion, or is it a drudgery duty?  Most folks want to get out of here the moment the service ends.  There is really no sticking around the place beyond an hour or so unless we are among those who are looking forward to a free lunch at 2:30.  And we Episcopalians are not alone in that desire to vacate the place, as it is likely the same for most all mainline churches in the US of A.  By and large none of us are really 'mission oriented'; we may feel somewhat duty bound to come to church regularly, but beyond that, our lives are lived pretty insularly, with no religious contact beyond Sunday mornings.  And I must say, I haven't come up with an antidote for our national Christian lethargy.  That is not just St. John's problem or the churches of Elizabeth any more than about any other church in the nation.  President Obama was criticized this week for saying America is not a Christian nation, but he is quite correct.  Far less than a quarter of the people in the US even come to church on Easter or Christmas.  We gave out more than five times as many Palms on the Broad Street in front of St. John's on Palm Sunday than we did inside St. John's.  People loved to take the palms, even somewhat vaguely understand what they symbolize--the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem immediately before his crucifixion--but they won't dare come inside.  I can't tell you how many people I have spoken to about St. John's during the last year who grew up in Elizabeth but who never have been inside our church even though we probably have the most publicly impressive entrance in all the region.  It is a shame no one is willing to cross that threshold!  But we keep trying and maybe something will work, we say to ourselves.  Our Hispanic service is growing nicely it seems now, but the other Hispanic Episcopal churches in Elizabeth have found they can't survive on contributions from their Hispanic members but have to rely on income sent to them by the Diocese from the Fair Share Giving of all the other non-mission churches, plus income from any preschools they house.

     So where is our passion, or should I say, what is our passion?  How is the Holy Spirit speaking to you today?  Are you feeling defeated and downtrodden?  Or are you feeling uplifted and confident that the Lord is leading your way and the church's way?  Where is your passion today?

     We probably have many more people watching this program on television today than are in church.  That is the phenomena we live with.  Those who turn on the telly don't have to contribute anything other than pay their cable bills, or view us from someone else's television set.  We did have one member who died and left us a small piece of her estate for our television ministry, and actually we have been living on that for the past year, but it's about to run out.  We would of course like to invite those who watch us on television to become regular supporters of our television ministry.  We are perhaps the most watched Sunday church service in the City of Elizabeth, so we can feel good about that.  We are touching souls here, by your reading, by your prayers, by your works as ushers and teachers and crucifers and acolytes and Altar Guild members, and of course, Vestry members who have our best needs in their constant concern.  But they depend on your unbridled financial support.  So prepare to become unbridled!  Maybe that should be our passion, to be unbridled Christians, not moved by anyone's 'reigns', but self motivated to serve the Lord any way you can find and any where you can find to do it.  You are making a difference here!  You certainly do count.  And you are indeed carrying out the Lord's Great Commission to reach others with the Good News of Jesus' resurrected life and his love for all.  

     In a few days we will try to begin 'streaming' our messages over the internet from our church web site.  Then what we do here at St. John's will be viewable worldwide any where a person has a computer.  So prepare yourselves for a new ministry.  The world will be watching you, listening to you, hearing you, and trying to discern if you really believe what you are saying and doing.  I truly think you do believe all that, that you are faithful followers of Jesus Christ, and Christ who sees in your heart will indeed reward you for that!  No ministry will go unrewarded!  

     So go in peace to serve the Lord this day and every day.  The Lord hears our prayers, and I for one believe the Lord will save St. John's Church, and all those who through our ministries here inside and outside the church will indeed be saving others worldwide from eternal death.

     Alleluia, the Christ is risen!  The Lord is risen today, Alleluia!

 
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