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The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
January 28 , 2007
Delivered by Reverend Sandra Stayner
Jeremiah1:4-10
I Corinthians 14:12b-20
Luke 4:21-30
The year of the bell
This is the year of the bell at St. Peter's! You have just heard from Charlie Moran that thanks to all the people who have worked so hard to help us raise money for the tower, before the end of the year St. Peter's bell will ring again. Next year on Christmas Eve, not only will the doors of the church be beautifully high decorated with greens and lights and the church be filled with the glorious sound of the organ, strings and choirs, but the bell will ring high over our heads to announce the birth of our Savior Christ to the people of Cheshire. And the bell will ring joyfully when two people are married, and will toll a mournful tone when someone dies. The bell will be heard when the town celebrates. And the bell will ring whenever the people of St. Peter's are at prayer. Thanks be to God that we are now ready to throw open our doors in welcome to all who come.
This time last year we were still busy getting our internal affairs in order. Perhaps you remember the conversation we had about whether to change the Sunday morning schedule or not. Following that conversation and many other fruitful discussions we went forward with schedule changes that have allowed many of us to take advantage of new opportunities for spiritual growth as we learn more about the ways in which God.s word challenges the way we live out our lives. As a result of the new schedule, I and others adults in our congregation, have been able to spend some time with a small group of teenagers who meet every Sunday morning to prepare for their confirmation that will take place later this year. I am so grateful for a schedule that allows us much more time with these young people than we have had with groups before, and each year we will be able to make changes that make the sessions better and more productive because Kim our youth director is able to spend time organizing and refining the curriculum. I have heard many people say how much they are enjoying the opportunity to learn from other members of the congregation as they share conversation at the different forum presentations. Others gain spiritual strength from the lectionary based bible study that is led by our seminarian Susan Pinkerton.
There is so much going on at St. Peter's that we can invite new people to participate in. In a few weeks a jazz band will play at our 10:00AM service, which will be a wonderful opportunity for us to worship in a slightly different way than our usual style with hymns and spiritual songs that are not necessarily a part of the Anglican tradition. Afterwards everyone is invited to sample some Southern cooking thanks to June and Van Hale and other choir members who will be cooking gumbo and other goodies. And those of you who like a quieter, more orderly worship experience will not be left out, because tonight the choir and choristers will sing a traditional choral evensong, a beautiful, peaceful way to end the day with the ancient prayers of the church.
We have spent several years getting our house in order so that we can receive whatever guests the Lord would send us. We are not here just for ourselves, we are here to be a welcome station for the lost and the lonely and the frightened and the confused and the weary - in fact for anyone who is searching for the love of God. This year we will be thinking not only about what is happening inside these four walls, we will together try to find new ways to extend a welcome to people in our town - our neighbors and our friends, new arrivals, people who haven't yet experienced the good news about how deeply they are loved by God. We want people everywhere to know that we are here for whoever needs a refuge, a safe place, friends who will care for them, a place to celebrate, a place to laugh and have fun and people to have fun with. In fact, I hope that before the year is over every single one of you will consider yourself an evangelist for Christ - one who is privileged have been chosen by God to take the incredibly wonderful news of God's love to everyone you meet.
I'll tell you something not to brag but because it made my heart so glad when it happened. There was an older woman at one of the funerals that has taken place here recently. She didn't belong to St. Peter's, she was in fact was a member of another church in town. I was chatting with a small group of women of which she was a part, who were commenting on how moved they were by the service. Someone from St. Peter's said how glad they were that I had come to be their rector, and the woman without thinking grabbed both my hands and said, "oh yes but its not only the people of St. Peter's who are glad, it's all of us, the whole town is glad she.s here." I laughed so much because that's what we want. We want people who are not even a part of our parish to experience God's love as they worship with us. They might belong to another parish in town. They might not belong to a church at all. Of course we don't want to proselytize . grab people from other denominations, but we do want to be a community in which God's presence can be experienced. I am simply a figurehead for this particular expression of Christ's body. I get to speak about the love that you corporately express. We all get to go out into the world to invite those who have not yet experienced the joy of living in God.s presence to come and join the party.
In our gospel reading today in a way that seems somewhat abrasive, Jesus turns on the people among whom he grew up, his townsfolk who have been marveling at his teaching in his hometown synagogue, and tells them he won't be able to do miracles around them, because they don't understand his mission. He uses examples of two prophets from the scriptures who performed miracles for people who were not part of the Jewish community. His words make his friends and family so mad that they try to push him over the edge of a cliff. They are mad at his insistence that God's love is for all people. From their more narrow perspective they understand God's love to be confined to the Jews. Perhaps from the gospel today we also can learn not simply that God's love extends beyond any boundaries we choose to put up, that God's desire is for all people from whatever creed, race or nationality they come, to be drawn within the reach of his saving embrace. And we, every single one of us, are charged with the task of taking the message of his all inclusive love to any who are not living in the joy of his presence.
This year the bell will ring from the tower at St. Peter's, throughout the streets of Cheshire. The sound is symbolic of our resolve to be a welcoming, inclusive, caring community in which the love of God is made readily available for every single person who would come.
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