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When my kids were little they had an illustrated children’s Bible called the Action
Bible, full of battles and miracles and rippling muscles and blood – and so to them
far more interesting than the ‘Jesus and the little lambs’ sort of pictures children’s
Bibles usually have. To read the Action Bible was to immerse yourself in a world
of, well, action, God and people going around DOING things, big things, all the
time. High drama, and nothing but. It made for stirring bedtime reading.
And you could imagine today’s gospel story in that same vein: high drama. It’s the
launch of Jesus’ public ministry. He returns to Galilee ‘filled with the power of the
Spirit’ – he has been in the desert wilderness, he has passed through the
temptations of the devil, and now he is ready to begin doing things. And so he
reads, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me – anointing me to bring good news,
proclaim freedom and healing, tell everyone of God’s favor…today, this scripture
has been fulfilled in your hearing. It brings you to the edge of your seat, wanting
to know what will happen next. And then in case you think it’s just Jesus’ work to
do, we get our own marching orders in the epistle to the Corinthians: we are the
body of Christ, each one of us gifted for the good of the whole – apostles,
prophets, teachers, activists, healing people, helping people, leaders. Ready to go!
These scriptures have us ready to LAUNCH our ministries. Excellent for the day of
our annual meeting.
Last week I gave you the news of my leaving, and you have all responded to this
news with such love – such heartfelt words to me and such love for this place.
And even as you begin to say your goodbyes to me, this last week so many of you
can-do people have been jumping into action. Stepping up for the tasks to come,
drawing up lists of what there is to do and who will be here to do it. There are
about 65 people to date ready to join the search committee. Your wardens are
already hyperventilating at it all. It’s understandable, all wonderful, and exactly
the way I behave too: So much to do! Let’s roll up our sleeves and tackle it! But
today, for just a moment, I invite you to pause on that. To reflect together on the
year past. And to relish the good of God’s grace here together.

I caught a podcast interview just after the New Year by Ezra Klein, speaking to the
writer Oliver Burkeman about the subject of burnout. Which is a word that is just
baggy enough to mean mostly nothing except ‘I feel tired and don’t want to do
what I have to do.’ But the podcast covered more than that – they talked together
about the temptation we have of defining ourselves by what we accomplish,
basing our sense of happiness on what we get done, trying to control our lives
with action. Some of the wisdom they were drawing upon comes from Buddhism,
cultivating an awareness of our finite limitations and mortality. But the author
also referenced the Rule of Benedict, the 6 th century rule for monastic community
that prescribes a balanced life, time alone and in community spent in work and
study and prayer as well as rest and play. In the Benedictine community, when
the bell rings at the end of the period of work, you are to stop the work – not to
just finish up this one thing or tick off your accomplishments for the day, but to
stop. And to go pray, because now it’s the time for prayer. Funny how 15
centuries ago they were trying to learn this same wisdom that we still haven’t
quite learned today.
But an annual meeting is a hard time for reinforcing that idea. Because here we
are, ready to talk about all we’ve got done, and to look forward to all there is to
do. So ok, for just a moment, we’ll allow ourselves the indulgence. Here’s what
we got done last year:
We finished the Phase I renovations! (Mostly.) An elevator now carries people
and stuff from floor to floor; a gracious ramp leads into the church; our beautiful
new nursery is filled to capacity with babies; the lovely atrium ushers us from
church to the great new restrooms and beyond. More welcome, more flow, more
movement into and around the space. And we redid the big windows at the front
of the parish house, and replanted the garden, more light and beauty. As the
physical improvements came more into focus, we held a community event, an
asset mapping, inviting members of the neighborhood into our space to tour and
brainstorm about how it can all be used better and for the benefit of all. Instead
of a parade of tenants in and out of our space, we’ve begun to think of ourselves
as one greater community, serving in different ways, flowing in and around and
with each other as we do so. The doors have opened wider in our minds, allowing
us to actively seek and warmly welcome different uses of our space: schools and
camps and office tenants, but also the new collaboration with the Greenhouse
Ensemble theater group, the block party we held for our neighbors (the really

rainy one, remember?), the tutoring and ESL classes and concerts here in the
church, the rehearsals and meetings and classes and cooking in the Parish House,
so many people of so many kinds in and out of our space that we’re still
scrambling to get everything on the space use calendar. This is a hopping place
now, every single day of the week – and the more we open our doors, the more
people want to come.
All of this is no small thing. From the time of COVID, when we had to close our
buildings, through the years of construction until now, we have been in transition
with our physical space. Construction has shuffled us from space to space, noise
and dust have permeated everything, part of staff meeting every week is devoted
to negotiating who gets what space in the week to come. This has taken an
immense toll on our building staff, of course. So when you see Raj, and Omar, and
Edwin, and Carlos, and especially when you see Galina, you should smile, and
thank them, and buy them coffee, and rub their shoulders, and thank them again.
Not to mention the program staff, who are navigating marvelous growth in our
numbers of babies and kids and singers and instrumentalists and events and
gatherings, while still having to shift from space to space. And with Phase II of the
renovations project out for contractor bidding, and anticipated construction
starting again this summer, well, everyone’s going to need even more of that
coffee and good humor.
At least it inspired us to clean out some stuff – the sacristy, where our vestments
and altar supplies are kept, got a major overhaul from a dedicated group led by
Marianna Klaiman; our basement got a clean-out by our maintenance staff; the
choir room and the library have become lovely meeting spaces instead of dusty
depositories, thanks to John Cantrell and Mary Ellen Lehmann and their
volunteers and minions. More to go – especially as the ongoing need for better
storage gets sorted out.
So we dealt with some of this chaos by leaving the building. We went to the
rectory for some wonderful parties and gatherings – with the choir, with generous
donors to our Doors Wide Open campaign, with our amazing staff. The teens and
Mary Ellen and I went to Northern Ireland to learn peacemaking skills to help
everyone navigate the stresses back home. And the staff took their annual fun
day to enjoy the Bronx Zoo, trading one kind of zoo for another. We all enjoy each
other a lot around here, which is what gets us through.

And for all that the building kept asserting itself in our waking life, and in our
dreams, and nightmares…it’s the people that have mattered the most. Our new
bishop Matt Heyd came to celebrate with us in May and confirm 10 of our
community in the faith, both teens and adults. We baptized babies and buried
some of our beloved elders, welcomed new members and new families. We said
goodbye to seminarian Kate Schneider – who was ordained yesterday to the
transitional diaconate! – and hello to seminarian Wendy Cañas. We welcomed
Deacon Marcia Callender, already a gift in our pulpit and staff. We prayed for and
cared for our associate Mother Julie Hoplamazian during her medical leave for
cancer treatment. And we have been so blessed with the presence of Bishop Nedi
Rivera last fall and Mother Michelle Meech, whose steady warm faithfulness
buoyed us all through the turbulence. Michelle will be sorely missed.
And we have had one of the best vestries ever this year, including several people
who spent time with me in the two Revive groups we offered these last few years,
leaders who are deeply spiritually formed and ready for what is to come. We have
an amazing adult choir and children’s choirs, the wonderful Ally Teague as our
organ scholar, and John Cantrell and Laura Inman directing this music that lifts
our spirits together. We have a whole host of small group facilitators who have
signed up again and again to lead our adult small group studies; lay officiants who
every day lead our daily offices online; the healing prayer team and acolytes and
greeters and altar guild and lectors and online chaplains who make our Sunday
worship and prayers happen. And the wider community of all those who bring
about our weekly meal at Saturday Kitchen, who cook and prep and package and
serve the meals to all who come. And wonderfully, all of these ministries
welcomed new members who joined this last year – new people have been
stepping in to help in every possible way.
And this last year we began to take steps on our reparations work, offering our
first scholarship to an African-American student from our neighborhood, and now
with a fund growing as we seek to do more. Our community’s boundaries are
opening wider by the day.

This place is gloriously, marvelously, totally straining at the seams of what is
possible. There are so many ideas and so many passion projects and so many big
dreams in this community. There is so much we want to accomplish. There is so
much good we want to do in the world. And we’re in a time when the need to do
more feels so imperative. The church is newly and fearfully aware of its role as
sanctuary, as threatened deportations become real. We read the headlines and
see more terrors to come for so many marginalized groups – as well as headlines
wondering whether anyone will resist. Which is why so many people loudly
cheered when Bishop Marian Budde of Washington spoke her call to mercy
directly to the president last week. We all want to step forward and make a
difference in a time like this.
So when not everything can get done right now – when somebody’s already
booked the space for a different use, or when the website isn’t showing what we
think is important, or when we’re fundraising for one thing but need to ask for ten
other things too – well, these are good problems to have, really. These are all of
them signs of our eagerness and desire for justice, signs of the restless dynamic
Spirit that we are all drinking from.
But if we measure ourselves only by what we’ve accomplished, we’ll never
actually measure up. Because it will never all get done. We’ll run the risk of
forgetting it doesn’t all depend on us. And we will miss the greatest good news of
all: we are not the sum of our good works. We are beloved simply because we
are. Together we are indeed a body, and as a body, we are human – with
limitations, with mortality and the need for rest. And when the bell rings, it is time
to set the work down, and go pray.
The work that is to come this year will be significant. There will be construction
again and all the supervising, shuffling, fundraising, and organizing that goes along
with that. There will be an interim process, with the opportunity to focus on who
this community is now and where you’re called to go. And there will be all the
regularly scheduled things, the groups and the rehearsals and the meetings and
more meetings.

And there will be the prayer and the worship. There will be opportunities every
day to stop and drink from the Spirit. And you will need that. You won’t be able to
do everything there is to do. Let it be. Because God is at work; God’s the one
saving the world, not you; God has dreams and intentions for you that you will
need to be still and listen for. So when the bell rings – and with our wonderful
church clocktower, it rings every half hour, you know – put the tasks down. Stop
and pray. Stop and remember that it is God, and God’s love, who powers you; and
ultimately it is God’s work that you are only a tiny part of. And in God’s hands,
infinitely more will happen than you can ask or imagine. Amen.

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
protect you through the storm.
May He bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders He has shown you.
May He bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.

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