Christ Episcopal Church
March 13, 2016
5 Lent C
Many years ago, in 2001, I think, a group of people at Christ Church came together to plan our first neighborhood fair. We wanted to engage our neighborhood in a way that was fun for the neighbors and would help us begin to build relationships. The goal was huge. We needed enough people, food, games, prizes and entertainment to serve around 200 people. Now, 15 Neighborhood Fairs later, we are known in the neighborhood as the church with the street fair. But the Fair is still a huge undertaking as the Fair has grown and changed over the years and each year we still wonder if we will have enough people, enough food, enough energy, and somehow, we always do.
In 2009, we were approached by the Dayton Gay Men's Chorus about hosing their Christmas concert as their first ever concert outside of Dayton. We could not host in 2009 because we had two conflicts with the date they needed. First, we were celebrating our 175th anniversary, another glorious event that involved the whole congregation and took lots of planning. Secondly, we were getting ready to tear the roof off this building and put on a new slate roof, another huge undertaking in the midst of the recession. But the vestry took a leap of faith and committed to hosting the Chorus in 2010 and set about preparing the congregation for that event. Many, many people stepped forward to help, and rather than tear us apart, which is what people outside of this congregation warned me would happen, hosting the Dayton Gay Men's Chorus brought us more closely together as we welcomed people into this space for an evening that was electric with energy and with the gratitude of many people who told me that night that they had never felt welcome in a church before.
Last story-although I could tell you dozens more. In 2010, I was invited to be part of an effort to bring Reading Camp to the Diocese of Southern Ohio. The plan was to host an overnight camp at Procter, which we did, then have spin-offs in local congregations the next summer. We held the camp at Procter and children from Horace Mann Elementary attended. But Christ Church was the only parish to move forward with hosting our own reading camp, and I was told quite pointedly that one congregation could not host a Reading Camp on their own. Challenge accepted! The whole parish helped in one way or another, whether by planning the curriculum and teaching, or shopping for supplies, or leading field trips, or making meals and snacks, or providing funds, or decorating, or praying for us, or any of the countless things that were needed for a successful reading camp. And Reading Camp did happen. The children had an amazing week where they learned to love reading, their reading scores improved, and they had a fabulous time. We had a fabulous, if exhausting time, as we pulled together as the body of Christ and experienced the Spirit working among us so we could do something far greater than one could reasonably expect.
In our reading from Isaiah this morning, we hear God say something very confusing. God says "Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old." What on earth does God mean by that? Are we to forget all that God has done for us in the past and focus only on what new thing God might do in the future? I think to forget the past would actually be a misreading of this passage. The passage begins by recalling the past. "Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick." That is a clear reference to the Exodus, which the Hebrew people remember and God recalls over and over again in the Hebrew scriptures. The people hold on to the story of the Exodus because the story reminds them of the powerful way God acted in the past. In the Psalm, the people remember when God restored the fortunes of Zion so that they have hope that their fortunes will be restored as they sit in exile in Babylon. Does God really want the people to forget all that God has done for them?
The short answer is "No." God does not want the people to forget what God has done for them. But God does not want the people to hold on so tightly to the stories of the past that they do not see what God is doing in the present. God does not want any of us to hold onto the past and think that however God acted then is the only way God acts. God is always about to do a new thing, and God calls us to remember the past so that we can see what God is doing in the present. Remember the Exodus so that God's action in the present can be known. Remember the Fair, or the Dayton Gay Men's Chorus, or our 175th anniversary, or Reading Camp, or the new roof, not because that is the only way God has acted among us, but so that we can see what new thing God is doing in our midst.
When Mary anoints Jesus' feet with a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, Judas objects because her action is not practical. Judas cannot see that God could be acting through Mary's action to point to the new thing God will soon do in their midst. Mary has no idea that her tender care of Jesus will point to the new thing God is about to do. When Jesus says "You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me," he sounds rather self absorbed. Judas comes off as the one concerned about the poor, which, we are told, is a far cry from the truth. Jesus is not self-absorbed and he is not saying that serving the poor is a bad thing. What Jesus is saying is that we also have to open our eyes to see what new thing God is doing in our midst. Mary's action in anointing Jesus' feet is bold, loving, and costly. God calls us to be bold, loving, and stretch ourselves when the world sometimes tells us to be practical and safe. God calls us to remember the stories of our past so we can see what new thing God is doing in our midst, today.
Amen.
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