Our Mission Statement and Other Thoughts

Sermon delivered on December 2, 2007 by the reverend Karen Knaus Fast

            “Happy New Year,”  we will be hearing in a few short weeks.  “Happy New Year,” in anticipation of January 1, 2008.  But today is the beginning of a new year.  Advent One is New Year’s day in the church calendar year.  And instead of  “happy new year” our scripture readings for today are saying things like  “Come, let us go to the house of the God of Jacob that we may walk in God’s paths”; and “Pray for peace;” and “live honourably” and “keep awake.” 

            Obviously we Christians are out of sync with the dominant culture.  While others are gearing up for the annual materialistic blow-out, putting on their party clothes, we are being told to “put on the armour of light.”  Not that party clothes are bad and that we aren’t ever to wear them, but that life offers so much more.  We are being reminded during this Advent season who we are and what we are to be about as children of God through Christ, whose coming we anticipate,  look forward to. 

            If you read the notes from last month’s Parish Council, you know that we have a new Parish Mission Statement.  After much discussion among wardens, Parish Council members, feed back from 19 different parish groups, and more discussion by Parish Council, we have a new statement to help us focus on who we are and what we are to be about.  This statement is also to let others in the wider community know about us.  Some members of Parish Council informally asked me to preach on our new Parish Mission Statement.  Since Advent, meaning ‘coming,” invites us to grow deeper in our faith and reflect on how our Lord is presently coming into our lives and coming into our world, it seemed appropriate that I reflect on our Mission Statement today.

            The mission statement reads: “Celebrating Christ in the heart of Victoria through joyful worship, building inclusive community, and putting faith into action.”     

            For some people celebrating just means letting go of the usual routine and having a party.  But celebration can include more than just entertainment with food, drink, and friends.   Celebrating in the classic sense includes the idea of  publicly or openly observing something notable, something worthy of honour, such as a birthday, anniversary, paying off the mortgage, landing a new job.  Beginning in the fifteenth century was the use of the term “celebrate” to mean to perform a sacrament, an outward physical act with an inward spiritual meaning.   This is the sense in “The priest celebrates the mass.”  So when we at St. John’s “celebrate Christ” we are publicly and freely with significant acts, like the Eucharist within the church walls or working for justice outside the church walls, we are honouring Christ, declaring our relationship with Christ, affirming his living presence in our lives and in our world.  And we are celebrating all of Christ, not just the baby in the manger and the teacher on the mountain top but also the suffering Christ and the Christ who holds us to account.

            Christ.  Probably this word in our Mission Statement conveys many different meanings for the people of St. John’s. But that is as it should be.  Think back on the many different understandings of Christ you have had in your own life.   And that will probably change again. We all, in some way, recognize our relationship with the Divine through the person of Jesus, and we are drawn by the mystery of  Jesus the Christ speaking, in what ever way, to us.  We are Christians first, Anglicans and helpers in the world second.

            In the last few years our church name has been in the local news many times.  We are associated with downtown Victoria.  We are in downtown Victoria.  Our members come from all over the greater Victoria area, not just the immediate neighbourhood, and we have the reputation of serving the heart of the city.  Hence the phrase “in the heart of Victoria” in our mission statement. 

            “Heart” connotes many things:  the geographical centre;  the hub of the action;  a  compassionate centre for the city of Victoria.  We can live out many meanings for that  designation as we “Celebrate Christ in the heart of Victoria.” 

            A Mission Statement, if it is going to be remembered and have any zip or impact, a mission statement has to be brief.   Those composing our mission statement thought hard about what is central to St. John’s celebration of Christ in the heart of Victoria.  They came up with three expressions and each covers a lot of ground.  Worship.  We are not a social agency or an arts appreciation society.  We may function as those from time to time, but we worship, and we worship God joyfully.  Now that doesn’t mean you should stay home on a bad day, or that you are not going to fit in if you feel overwhelmed with grief  or any other burden.  Joyful worship need not be happy worship.  Philippians 4:4 says “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”  Our relationship with the Divine embraces all of our living, and the deep joy that is ours as children of God carries us through the hard times all humans face.   The beauty, music, readings, prayers, communion, all these components of worship remind us that we have so much for which to be thankful, so much for which to be joyful, even in the midst of pain or hardship.

            Building inclusive community.  We at St. John’s celebrate what Christ means to us by building inclusive community.  Notice it doesn’t say simply “inclusive community”  as if the job were done.  It isn’t.  The work continues.  Our congregation is not yet a microcosm of the population of Victoria.  It may never be.  But we strive to be welcoming and inclusive of all whom we meet in our daily lives and who would like to celebrate Christ with us.           

            Our mission statement concludes with the phrase “putting faith into action.”  If you think this is an all inclusive phrase to include everything not mentioned so far, take it as that.  But also, notice how this phrase reminds us that we are not just sitting in the pews Sunday mornings.  We are engaged throughout the week in ministry and mission for our Lord of justice, mercy, peace, and the integrity of creation.  We put our faith into action by membership in the group “Faith in Action,” by giving and working for our “Emergency Food Bank,” by enabling children and youth to catch the faith, by supporting the “Come in out of the Rain Shelter, by giving to PWRDF, by supporting Bruce and Gerry in Tanzania, by encouraging ways to be kinder to our natural environment, by increasing our understanding of our faith tradition with programmes such as Education for Ministry, by remembering our Christian identity when we take part in any community venture.  The list goes on and on.

            At the third annual Diocesan Pastoral Care Conference last October, The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi was the opening speaker.  We heard him preach here last week.  At the Pastoral Care Conference he started out by saying words to the effect that healing is the central most important ministry of the Church.  If we are not about healing, we might as well stop being church.   By healing he, and we, mean restoring health and wholeness to people’s lives, bringing peace to communities, including communities of just two people, expressing God’s love to each and every person in ways that can be understood. 

            Jesus is the healer.  There is no circumstance that Jesus cannot heal.  I talk about this now because we might fall into the trap of thinking that putting faith into action, being the body of Christ here on earth is about being strong and helping the weak.  It is not.  Putting faith into action is about using God given gifts for the benefit of all.  And all imperfect people have God given gifts and are also in need of  the benefit of gifts from others.  No one in the body of Christ is self-sufficient.

            In a moment I will ask all of those present today who have offered themselves for the ministry of the laying-on-of-hands for healing to come forward.  These folk celebrate Christ in a very intimate way.   They have experienced the power of Jesus’ healing in body, mind and spirit, and they witness to that healing by listening, praying with, touching if appropriate, any of us who are ill or stressed or concerned in any way from time to time.  Keeping a stiff upper lip is not Christian.  Being transparent is.  Sometimes solitary personal prayer isn’t enough.  We need the assurance of God’s love and care through the presence of another believer, a believer open to the gift of healing, whatever form that might take.  Include healing, witnessing to or receiving healing, in your understanding of what it means to celebrate Christ and to put faith into action. 

            Well, I have given you lots to think about around the meaning of our new Mission Statement, a good one, I think, to help us “walk in God’s paths, live honourably, and keep awake.  Happy New Year!  Amen.