Sent Out in Jesus’ Name
This is my first Celebration Sunday, and I would definitely say that it has lived up to the hype. Such a grand celebration of all the ministry that goes on here at Fairport United Methodist Church has been a wonderful way for me, personally, to look back on my first year here in this community. In looking back, we can ask ourselves a few important questions. The first of these is: What have we done? Since I arrived here, I have witnessed this as a place where a lot goes on. From ministries of education for all ages, to ministries of music for the same. From the Sunday Dinner ministry, which has prepared hundreds of meals in the past year, to the Beyond These Walls shelter visits, that have taken humanity and supplies to some of the most desperate places in our city. This is a community that cares about sharing from what it has, that sees needs and seeks to find ways to bring healing and hope to a broken and hurting world. We have fed each other and those outside of these four walls. We have worshiped together, praising God and restoring our souls in the grace of shared company. This is a place where a lot happens, and we are a people who are called to much work. Thanks be to God for those laborers who have answered the call, and who work to build the kin-dom here in this place.
The second question is like it: Who have we helped? We have helped both those who sit in the pews beside us, and those who have never stepped foot in this building. Through blessing bags and Trick-or-Treating for UNICEF, through grocery store gift cards and donations made through our Outreach 50/50 fund, through Bike Trip and Joful noise, we have made an impact near and far, helping those in our neighborhood and around the world. We have helped our children to learn about the stories and practices that bind us together in loving community, and our children have helped us to see new ways of thinking about God and what it means to live in community. We have helped one another connect to God, find the divine Spirit in the day-to-day and the extraordinary, in the singing and ringing and in the silence. In simple acts of hospitality for the grieving and extravagant celebrations whenever there is something to celebrate. We have helped one another, we have helped those in our communities, and we have helped those whose faces we have not seen. Thanks be to God for a plentiful harvest, that calls us unceasingly into the world, to be the hands and feet of Christ.
The third question might take a bit of thinking: How have we been helped? This question ought to have us consider the ways in which our ministry has been reciprocal. When we minister to one another—in the small acts of sending cards and visiting those who can’t come to us, in the flamboyance of marching in the pride parade—what happens to our souls? Have others helped us to know, more deeply, the love of God? Have others shown us grace that passes beyond all human comprehension? Have we been shown generosity in what those in this community and those outside this community have given to us? Have we experienced and appreciated the generosity of our God, from whom all these blessings flow? Of course we have! The real question is, have we offered our thanksgiving to God and to our neighbors, for moving with us on this journey, providing for us in abundance, and remaining by our side? Perhaps we could do just that a bit more. Thanks be to God, for all those who have journeyed with us, corrected us gently, and shown us what it means to be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life.
But the harvest of love and justice is still plentiful. There is much for us to learn, there are more ways for us to continue to grow in our love of God and one another. While we celebrate all the labors of this past year, may we still hear that call, to labor and build the kin-dom of God, here and now. May we still be called to do the work of clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, housing the unhoused. May we still be called to the work of visiting the sick and those in prison. May we still be called to the work of standing with those who have been pushed to the edges of society, those who have been overlooked and ignored, those who no respectable person would go near. May we still be called to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. How will that look in the coming year? Who will we minister with? There is work to be done, right here in our village, in our city, in our county. There are fellow laborers, both near and far, for us to work beside. Perhaps there are people in the pews today that you don’t know very well, and with whom you might be called to minister. We will try new things. We will fail. And again and again, we will minister with new people, giving and receiving, until we hold all things in common. Thanks be to God, that this call still rests on our lives, that there are those still called to labor, even when the harvest seems to wither.
Siblings in Christ, we have much to celebrate, much to be grateful for. I’m grateful that I get to serve in a community where the Spirit is very much at work—and where the work of the Spirit is evident in many ways. But the work is not finished. Evil, injustice, and oppression, in all the forms they present themselves, still plague our world. We have much work to do in dismantling ways of thinking that separate us from our neighbors. We are still being called and sent, by the Christ who sees in us not only what we have been, but who we can be. We are being called and sent, by the One who is not done with the world, but who is constantly creating and re-creating. We are being called and sent, in the name of Christ who sends us to do the work that Christ did before us. May we continue to heed that call, together as the Body of Christ, as we are sent out to build the kin-dom—this day and all days. May it be so. Amen.