Ode to Chocolate - A Sermon

ODE TO CHOCOLATE

I think that I shall never see,

A sight so yummy as Hershey

And also I shall never eat

A food that ever tastes so sweet.

And yet, I’ll take what I can get,

As long as it is chocolate.

Hershey, Snickers, even Lindt:

They all are just as heaven-sent

And M&Ms? Both plain and peanut,

I’ll eat them all, I really mean it.

Chocolate, chocolate, it’s so good,

It tastes the way that all food should.

Which is the very painful reason,

I’ll give it up this holy season.

This Lent, though I may plead and beg,

I won’t even eat a Cadbury egg.

Going without this little sweet

Is harder for me than skipping meat

And Lent is meant to help us see

What is and is not necessary.

And in my life, what I need most

Is Father, Son and Holy Ghost

Which is to say that all we need

Is God, the Holy Trinity.

I hope you liked that. Because, as you can tell, I’m giving up chocolate for Lent.

1. Now, giving things up for Lent is not required, not a religious act of obligation – but the act of self-deprivation does have benefits. If nothing else, it lets you face temptation.

2. That reminds us how Jesus faced temptation during that 40 day period in the wilderness. Temptations, really.

3. First it was hunger – 40 days is a long time. You may ask why he fasted in the first place. Fasting – deprivation – has a way of focusing you on where you are right now. Focus on the hunger, and you forget everything else. Then once you get past thinking about the hunger, lots of insights can open up to you.

4. Jesus’ first temptation then is to get past the belly – taking care of one’s own needs.

5. Next, after Jesus is done and really wants to get on with things, not to mention get some food, Satan comes along. This is that moment of clarification for Jesus, when he discovers what he came to the wilderness to learn.

6. What he learns is the purpose of his mission, and the manner in which he will achieve it. You might say, wait a minute, all that happened was that Satan came and tempted him.

7. Exactly. And what did he tempt him with? Food, Power, and Safety. The things we crave most.

8. Satan says, if you are really who you say you are, turn these stones into bread. You are hungry after all. And here, Satan sows that seed of doubt. What if this whole mission thing is just craziness? What if Jesus is delusional? He’d better prove it.

9. And he can prove it by food. Provide food. Not just for himself but for everyone. Why should the world endure hunger anyway? Why should people starve to death. What kind of God would allow that?

10. Jesus rejects this argument by telling us that food is not the thing by which we truly live. Not in the soul, anyway. He knows he is not here to feed the whole world eternally.

11. Next, Satan promises power. Jesus can come in and be the good king of the world everyone has been looking for, the one who will set all things right. Who hasn’t felt – at least from time to time -that they could do a better job of running the world than the clowns who are in charge right now? Just give me the chance, and I’ll make it all work.

12. Satan says, well, here’s your chance; all you have to do is pledge allegiance to me. But Jesus rejects that, too. He says, God alone is the king. He alone is to be worshiped and obeyed. So, he knows, he is not here to have that kind of power.

13. Then Satan offers safety. Throw yourself off the temple tower, and angels will protect you. In fact, if you’re the son of God, making people safe ought to be your priority. What kind of God lets people get killed and maimed the way we do?

14. Jesus rejects this, too. He says, do not put God to the test, but he could just as easily say, “Don’t play God.” We are created from dust – as we were reminded on Ash Wednesday – and we will return to dust. Safety is not all it’s cracked up to be. If we are eternally safe, then we do not live. If we try to avoid death all our lives – to play God – then we miss the roles we are meant to play on earth. God’s mortal but beloved children who leave this earth to return to the Father.

15. No. Food, Power, and Safety were never what Jesus came to provide.

16. Not that they are BAD in and of themselves, mind you. Jesus fed people, he displayed awesome power, and he even raised the dead. But they are inadequate if what you want is real life.

17. The temptation that Satan brought was to have Jesus settle for worldly stuff instead of the one most important thing he came to bring. A loving relationship with God.

18. He was tempted to take the easy route, because to love people is hard. But that was his goal. And it is ours.

19. Giving up things in Lent, facing little temptations, reminds us that they do not define us any more than food, power, and safety defined Jesus. So, I think, much as I love chocolate, I can do without it for a few days. Amen.

God, Life and Everything - The Sporting Mind

I’m loving the Olympics. Of course, we don’t have TV at home, so the best I can do is watch some of the events in part on the internet. Still, we get to see some of the best moments, and I am particularly enjoying the men’s and women’s hockey teams, which are performing very well indeed.

Less enjoyable viewing has been the rancor that has infected our political system in recent years. Even here in Hyde Park, it feels as if cooperation is neither desired nor possible. Sometimes, it feels like our local politics is a hockey game. You know, “I went to a fight and a board meeting broke out.”

Wonder why that is? It’s complicated, but I suspect you don’t have to look much farther than the sports page. Yes, the sports page. David Brooks recently wrote a column in the New York Times on how good sports is, how it brings people together. At the same time, he noted that there have been four societies that have understood their moral code through the eyes of sports. The ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, the British Empire, and the United States. Each used sports as a metaphor for their way of life.

Now, I love sports, and David Brooks is right that our fascination with sports tends to draw us together, sometimes in bizarre ways. We watch the local school team, we root for whatever professional team is closest to us. And you know we’re rooting for Team USA in Vancouver.

You might also argue – as many have – that taking part in sports can teach positive values like sportsmanship, hard work and fair play.

But there’s a down side, especially with how Americans approach sports. Life is reduced to a win/lose proposition, a zero-sum game. You can win or you can lose, but there can’t be any in-between. We hate the in-between so much that even hockey and soccer are doing away with tie games. Now they have sudden death overtime and shoot outs. In our world, someone must win, and that means everyone else must lose.

That’s how we view politics here – as a game to be won. We don’t try to reach consensus on complex issues, we try to win the vote. The real reason we don’t have bipartisanship is because we see members of other political parties as opponents, not partners. It would be like the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints saying, “If we work together, we can get this ball across our goal line and then across yours. We can just keep racking up points for both teams because, hey, there’s plenty of them out there for everyone.”

Throwing the bums out or “sending a message” isn’t going to change things, either. That’s just beating the other team until the next game – er – election.

Business is often the same way. Competition is good. Beating the others by winning customers is what it’s all about. Granted, with the Chamber of Commerce, there is far more cooperation, but go to the higher levels of corporate life, and they’re trying to take each other down.

I’ve even seen different religions – different denominations within the same religion, for Pete’s sake! – trying to beat each other. We “win souls for Christ.” We tell people ours is the only way to heaven, and everyone else is out – a loser.

But what can you do? That’s just how things are. If you’ve ever played a sport you know that even when you’re ahead by a mile, there’s this irresistible pressure to get even more ahead. We can only understand life in terms of beating others or getting beaten.

Or can we? Most religious roots actually do not approach life as a competition – and Jesus certainly does not. The entire scandal of Jesus, in fact, was that he refused to set up an “us –vs- them” paradigm. For him, life wasn’t about beating the others, it was about loving even those who hated you. All it took to be at one with God was a heart filled with love for God and each other.

I still want Team USA to win the hockey gold, but if Jesus is any indication, that’s no way to live the rest of our lives.

Plugged in, Changed, and Back - a sermon

We went to go see Avatar last night – very cool, especially the beautiful 3-D. It’d like you’re almost there. Then I thought, hey! Let’s get some special glasses and do church in 3-D! That will bring people in!

It’ll be like you can almost touch people – everything will seem so real. Oh, wait a minute – everything IS real here. You can touch each other here.

There goes another brilliant idea.

But the movie had another connection with church. In a way, it was all about connecting with God – or at least the divine. In this movie, where humans invade another planet (called Pandora) and try to overwhelm the native inhabitants (who are giant blue people) so we can extract their resources, the natives can literally plug part of themselves into the planet.

When they do this, they are at one with their ancestors and their god Eywah.

The hero is a human who is given a native body to inhabit – an Avatar – so he can spy on them. He learns their ways and is finally granted the high honor of getting to plug into the planet. At that moment he has an eye-opening experience that changes him forever. He sees that what the humans are doing is wrong and becomes one with the Pandorans.

In a way, this is like the Transfiguration. The disciples aren’t spies, but they are plucked out of their daily lives and asked to follow Jesus around in a very different world than what they knew before. They spend months – years – learning a new way of life.

And then they are granted this powerful moment of plugging in to the divine in a way most of us can only dream of. They see Jesus illuminated. They see Moses and Elijah. The voice of God speaks to them from heaven. They are changed forever even if they don’t understand.

If the passage ended right there, you’d think, “Wow, they were really great.

But right after they come down from this tremendous experience, things fall apart. The disciples once again are unplugged from the divine. They are just guys who can’t figure out how to connect with God’s power to heal a boy.

You can see Jesus’ frustration – he wants them to finally get it so he can finish his mission here. I can only imagine him thinking, “Even after the transfiguration, they don’t get it? They have no faith?” He sees that they have not been changed at all, or at least not nearly as much as he would have hoped.

We are a slow and stubborn people.

I say we, because the disciples are pretty much like the rest of us. We also get these moments of plugging into the divine – maybe not as dramatic as the transfiguration or as direct and repeated as plugging our bodies into the earth – but we get them.

We get to see miracles in our daily lives if we look. Just last week I witnessed an improbable healing. Look back at your life, and I am sure you will see times when the veil between you and God has been pushed away if only for a moment. God is more real than ever before, and all things seem possible. WE are empowered to see and hear more clearly.

God is not as hidden as we want to think.

And yet, just like the disciples, once that moment is over we tend to forget about it.

We come down from that mountain and immediately get overwhelmed by the demands of everyday life. You can call this our flip flop experience, where suddenly things don’t seem so clear anymore. Suddenly, very few things beyond the usual seem possible. We go from enlightened to in the dark.

Now, if we left the story at that, this would be depressing. And in fact, the Gospel does NOT end like a movie where the hero gets to permanently turn into a blue giant (and get the giant blue girl). It passes through the crucifixion and to the resurrection – another “plugging in” moment for the disciples – and keeps on going.

Where it goes is into the daily work of living as a child of faith – a child of God.

We understand how they had to deal with mundane organizational issues as well as internal and external conflict. We know how their story – our story – keeps going on.

And what we learn from this moment of transfiguration is that like those blue people on Pandora, we, too can plug in. We are doing it right now, right here. When we pray together, when we receive the body and blood of Christ. Christ is revealed here, and we are empowered. Here, now, we know that all things are possible.

This is your mountain top. You can return again and again – it’s better than 3-D. It’s real. Amen.

Inconvenient Truth – Do Over -- A Sermon

Remember when you were a kid and you were out playing a game with your buddies? Doesn’t matter what game, but sometimes you’d mess up and shout, “Do over!” As adults, we don’t always get a chance for a do-over.

But today I do. Because the sermon I was going to preach last week works equally well this week. In fact, I think the gospels for last week and this week should have been read together anyway because they are really one story arc.

Think about the story. In last week’s gospel, Jesus begins his earthly ministry at home in Nazareth by reading in the synagogue:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

How inconvenient for his listeners. They just didn’t realize it was inconvenient until TODAY’s gospel. At first they were thrilled by what Jesus read.

Let’s set the stage to see what happened.

The synagogue was the seat of learning in first century Israel. It’s where people studied the Torah, and where any educated man could preach. But Jesus wasn’t any educated man. The likelihood is that he had been away – presumably as a student with a wandering rabbi, as was tradition for the highly gifted.

And NOW he’s returning home as a rabbi himself – that is to say, someone capable of taking on his own students. [NOTE: rabbis back then were not the same as rabbis today, and the designation was much less formal. However, it designated someone highly educated and able to teach others.]

Even though any adult male could read and comment on the scriptures, a rabbi could read from the prophets, and a newly minted from the hometown would get a special hearing. This is a friendly audience, people ready to be proud.

And they loved this passage because when Isaiah wrote it, it wasn’t about the needy, it was about Israel. Isaiah wrote this when Israel was in exile. It is a promise that the down-and-out nation that it would be restored to its former glory.

And guess what? Israel NOW is down and out as well, suffering under Roman occupation. They are looking for someone to come in and restore their fortunes, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. From his audience’s perspective, Jesus is telling them, “God is going to whoop those Romans, just wait and see.”

But then, he has to keep talking in TODAY’s gospel. Because like any good preacher, he doesn’t know when to quit.

Not that he puts them to sleep. No, he tells them the truth, and it is a truth they don’t want to hear, a very inconvenient truth as it were.

He says, “This isn’t about you.”

It’s like a smack in the face. How can it not be about them? And if not, then who’s it about?

And what he tells them in essence, is that he really is sent here to bring good news to the poor, to bring sight to the blind, to bring release to the captives and freedom to the oppressed. But not just a nation – to ALL the poor, blind, captive and oppressed.

His mission is not a national mission – nobody who follows Jesus will be holding up “Israel is #1” banners. His mission is a HUMAN mission. And to Jesus, it doesn’t matter where that person is – if they are hurting, they are his.

The inconvenient part of Jesus’ sermon – and remember, this is his first sermon, the one that sets the tone for his entire ministry – is that it says we are here to alleviate suffering. Not starting with our own – this whole “Charity begins at home” business is garbage to him. He says, “If someone is suffering, do something about it. If a person is God’s concern, then that person is your concern.”

Want proof? Notice how mad they get, mad enough to kill him. That’s because the examples Jesus gives for the type of people God reaches out to are specifically foreigners. Outsiders. People who are no good.

Worse yet, in just a few words, Jesus implies that, Not only is Israel NOT the center of God’s universe, but the people of Israel might want to quit playing “Victim” all the time because others hurt, too. Maybe they should get off their backsides and do something to help others.

The other inconvenient truth in this is that Jesus never just speaks to his biblical audience. He speaks to us, too. And although I think the message of reaching out beyond ourselves in love is pretty strong here at St. James’, I also know that we – like everyone else – still have the temptation to fall back into that “poor me” attitude, the attitude that says, “let’s just take care of ourselves.”

We’re little, we’re broke, the problems of the world are too big.

This isn’t the smack in the face that it was for Jesus’ friends and family in his first sermon. For us, it’s more a reminder. We are here to do more than keep a building up and running. We are here to bring good news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed.

As Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple said back in World War II, The church exists for the sake of those outside it. And as long as there are poor, sick, captives and oppressed, we’ll be on the job. It’s not very convenient, I know, but it is God’s way. And it is good. Amen.

Sick Day

Friday night, our son had an overnight party. We went to bed, and aside from the thumping and laughing and general bedlam of adolescent boys, all was well.

The next morning, I woke up with a fever and a wicked cough. Then came chills and the signs of flu. My wife made me run to the doctor even before the boys' parents came to pick up their charges. It was a long wait at the doctor, and while I wheezed and hacked, and huddled in my winter coat to stave off the chills, I had to do so wearing a face mask. Coughing patients have to do that these days.

The cure for flu these days, if you catch it early, isn't exactly a cure. Unlike antibiotics which kill the bacteria outright, antivirals (you've heard of Tamiflu, perhaps), interrupt the reproduction process of the virus so that it can't regenerate. That shortens its duration and severity, but it takes a couple of days to really notice a difference.

Problem was, this was Saturday, and the next day was Sunday - my big gig of the week. I had my sermon half done already, but I just couldn't focus to finish it. Already I knew there was no way I'd be in church, not with all the precautions the church is taking about flu these days, but I figured my deacon (who was going to cover for me) could just read it.

Never happened. Most of the rest of Saturday, I just slept. And that evening when he called to ask where the sermon was, I could only say I'd try to get it to him. He said to forget it and sleep. Which I did.

That's okay. This sermon would have been a two-part thing anyway. The gospel for this Sunday and next Sunday should have been put together from the outset since they are one story. So, I'll just preach them as if they were one. It'll work.

But I have to say, sitting on the sofa watching Scrubs (actually, a whole Scrubs marathon on DVD) while all the parishioners are gathering next door for church is a little unnerving. You see them. You know they're wondering, "What's wrong with him?" And you think, "Maybe I can still get dressed and get there before the second service..."

That's when a coughing fit smacks you -- okay, me -- back to reality.

I don't know if this is the first Sunday I've called in sick, but there aren't many. Good thing. I belong up at the altar and in the aisle preaching. That's who I am. Maybe I needed this sick day, it's good to know I'll be back in the saddle next week.

Wedding Blues - A Sermon

We live in a strange world. Often small things seem monumental, and then a catastrophe on the order of Tuesday’s earthquake in Haiti jars us into reality.

For example, a guy runs out of wine at his wedding 2,000 years ago, and it’s a disaster. Right. In contrast, in the news I see pictures of Haiti’s collapsed buildings, crumpled streets and masses of dead and injured.

The irony is that at the wedding, the Son of God intervenes while in Port au Prince, people wail in the streets, asking how God could let this happen, where God is now, why God isn’t helping them.

I wish I knew why natural disasters happened, and I wish I were able to point to specific actions, specific lives saved and buildings protected and say “This is what God is doing.” But I can’t.

I’m not sure if I can explain why God would intervene in one case and not another.

There is this, however.

Natural and manmade disasters have been happening since before people trod the earth. They have always and will always destroy lives. We live in a harsh world, and Jesus did not change that.

In all his earthly ministry, in fact, Jesus did not once stop a natural disaster. Small disasters yes, but nothing big. His miracles were never meant to change the course of nature or even to cause an end to pain.

We all suffer to some degree or other, and we all die.

Jesus intervened sometimes out of compassion but always with an eye to a lesson. He was teaching even when he turned water into wine.

So, what could be the lesson to today’s Gospel story of a host who ran out of wine at his wedding? First, Jesus is showing compassion for the people he is with.

Running out of wine may seem like a small thing for us, but in first century Cana, it was life-changing. The groom would be embarrassed if not shamed for years to come. The steward would probably lose his livelihood. There will be suffering if nothing is done.,

Jesus acts in part because he is there. The problem is right before him. He acts where he finds himself, and we are called to do the same.

Second, compassion is not always something you earn or deserve. You could easily argue that the suffering of the groom and steward would have been self-inflicted, just a matter of poor planning. They should have bought more. Or if it was too expensive, they should have saved more money till they could afford it. Or invited fewer people.

This is irrelevant to Jesus. He not only intervenes, but he makes better wine than the best. And lots of it. Six stone jars is a LOT of wine. Worthiness has nothing to do with it.

The third lesson is that God loves joy. Maybe it was because this was a wedding – a celebration of life – but Jesus did change the water into wine. He let the party go on and kicked it up a notch. You have to think he saw their joy and smiled.

God loves our joy as well. That’s not the same as pleasure or ease – joy is deeper. And when it’s there, as this story indicates, God celebrates.

Then there is the simple lesson that God does have power. Every intervention Jesus performs is relatively small and localized, but he has power. And as he is God’s son come to show us what life in God is like, we are to understand that God has power.

The problem for us is that we think of power and think it means we can have what we want when we want it. God’s power is love, and part of love is to simply be there.

The lessons Jesus seems to teach us in his miracles like at this wedding in Cana are that we are God’s hands on earth, that we can act in the situations laid before us. That we reach out to others even if they create their own problems. That we seek and rejoice in the joy of others. And that we have power to act.

You and I have power because we are guided by love. Yes, God can do things we cannot – and many of us think he should so that nobody suffers. Ever.

Of course, if that were the case, then none of us would ever learn how to love, how to have compassion, how to reach out beyond our own needs and touch the lives of others.

I don’t know why such horrendous suffering happens to people who have suffered so much for so long already. But I know that God has put their need before us just as the groom’s need was put before Jesus.

The question now isn’t, “What will God do?” but “What will we do?” Amen.

God, Life and Everything - Weeping for Haiti

I write a column called "God, Life, and Everything" for the Hudson Valley News. The title reflects the broad scope I want to take. Everything in life falls under the eye of God, and if we watch carefully, we can catch a glimpse of God in it all.

On this mild winter day, I sit day in my comfortable office and ponder the pain and suffering out there. So much pain but always out there, far away from me.

Some people joke that my comfortable office looks like a bomb has gone off in it. I’m a bit of a slob. But I look around and know that it is cozy and warm and safe. The mess is nothing really – a bitter joke compared to the living hell that is Haiti today.

I sit at my solid desk, in this town where the closest we have to natural disasters is maybe a heavy snow, and wonder how is it that those who have suffered for so many years get hit even harder by such a disaster? How can it be? Why do some have it so much easier than others? It’s an age old question, and I don’t have an answer.

The only response I have – especially with such devastation – is to pray. And weep. They are, after all, our brothers and sisters. We weep with them, as I can only imagine God weeps with them.

It’s just a shame that most of the time a lot of us forget that they even exist, living in misery unknown in any other country of the Western Hemisphere. We can easily ignore them because Haiti is so far away. A world away from us.

You and I will undoubtedly reach out to the people of Haiti, will surely reach in to our wallets and make a donation to help them. That is right and good. Resources for donations are listed elsewhere in the paper today.

But let’s go deeper. Let’s pray. Really pray. Let’s pray for rescue of those trapped. For healing for the injured. And comfort for the grieving. Let us pray for rebuilding and recovery – and that we can all be part of it in some way. But for now, let us pray to remember that we are one with those who see no future and no hope. We will carry hope for them.

A friend of mine wrote a prayer for Haiti. It takes in the scope of the tragedy, without pretending to have easy answers about why this should happen. It is simply a prayer – written by a friend, the Rev. Chip Stokes – that asks God’s grace and mercy, always aware than in the midst of the suffering, God weeps too.

A Prayer for the Victims of the Earthquake in Haiti

Holy God, source of life, lover of souls, out of the depths we call to you; in the face of incomprehensible anguish and sorrow, we lift the cries of our distress and implore you to show mercy upon those who are suffering from the destruction of the earthquake in Haiti. We pray for those who have died and for their loved ones who grieve. asking you to hold them in the arms of your love; we pray for those who have been injured in body, mind or spirit and ask you to heal them; we pray for those who are homeless and wandering, for families torn asunder and ask you to shelter them. Strengthen the hands and hearts of those who assist in relief efforts and grant us all firm resolve to stand with our neighbors who are in need, to love them and to offer our generous support of them in this their time of trouble; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen

Rector’s Annual Report - January 10, 2010

This past year at St. James’ has been characterized by one word: recovery. Just as the nation was rocked by financial crisis over the past year-and-a-half to two years, so has St. James’. We have felt the pain of lost revenue through the stock market. We have felt the pain of reduced income from rent. We have felt the pain of parishioners who no longer can afford to pledge.

I will not deny there have been times when it has been hard to keep a positive outlook. Our inability to pay our diocesan assessment for three years in a row has been particularly difficult to stomach. We are part of a national church which in turn is part of a world-wide communion, and paying our share, taking part in the national and world-wide community of Anglicans is in our very blood.

But recovery is in the air. Our Wardens, Vestry and treasurer have worked very hard to not only keep this congregation afloat but to bring it up to date on the vast array of physical plant issues that never seem to end. They have not chosen the easy option of deferring necessary work but have moved us forward bravely and ably. I hope you can appreciate the innumerable hours they give this place, especially our wardens and treasurer. I invite you to join me in showing your appreciation to them with a round of applause.

I would not like to give you the false impression that we have emerged from our financial rough waters. The boat is still being tossed about, but it has shown itself to be strong and buoyant. We will weather this storm as we have weathered many others before it.

More importantly, St. James’ has shown itself to embrace its mission all the more in times of difficulty. We as a congregation have jumped into our work more fully, especially in the area of outreach. We give our time, our talents and yes, even our treasure in order to alleviate the suffering of others. I will let the Outreach Committee’s report speak for itself, but through creative and dedicated fundraising, they have not contracted their work but, if anything, expanded it.

I am pleased also that our Reading Adventures program thrives at Hyde Park Elementary. So also, our Youth made its sojourn to North Carolina this summer for Towel Camp. I assure you, they worked hard and, strangely enough, played hard, too. Thanks to Liz Handman for serving as the female chaperone.

We still are unsure who this year’s female chaperone will be, but the youth begin Towel Camp fundraising today. You will note the container for “Coins For Camp,” where you can deposit your loose change from now through June. Also, we have updated our paper Towels which you have bought through the years. To reflect the work that we do, this year we are selling houses. Given the state of real estate, this is the cheapest house you’ll ever buy but also one of the most helpful.

Regarding other Christian education issues, we are ever thankful to our Sunday School teachers, Rick Schroeder and Saira Shahani, Jackie Jennings, Wendy Urban-Mead and Mike Fenwick. They are a vital part of our life together. This year, we switched the order in which students would be in church. Previously, they started in church and left at the Peace for Sunday School. Now, the children start in Sunday School and join us at church during the Peace. This way they can receive communion with us.

Youth Group has also gotten going this year with renewed energy. We meet nearly every week to pray, study, eat and play together. We recently went on a trip to play laser tag but are also exploring ways to serve the local community.

One area where we have not recovered what we need is in Adult education. It is important for us as Christians to ever delve deeper into our faith. We have an ongoing bible study which serves a small group, and we recently completed the Advent study class on Parables – regrettably to an equally small group. Realizing that we live in hectic times, it is still a worthwhile goal to have every adult member involved in some form of study.

In fact, I would like to call upon members of this parish to commit themselves in two areas for the coming year. One is in education. I would like to have parishioners suggest, attend and even teach more adult education programming this year. We have the ability to do more, even if it is a brief little forum each Sunday between services. I am always willing to on this type of programming, but it requires everyone to step forward and take part.

The other area is in attendance. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with large attendance. Some Sundays however, there are more than enough empty pews waiting for someone to use them. We are a religion all about sharing our faith, and if we renew our commitment to sharing it with our neighbors, we can not only spread the Gospel but increase the size of this congregation. I have said it before and will say it again: When there are more people here, the energy is palpable, the joy increased.

Therefore, I would like to invite each of you to invite friends to church. This may sound trite and small, but it is with small steps that journeys are completed. Our goal is to make Christ known through St. James’. By simply bringing friends or family to church, we open up to them the scriptures and the grace of God. If you want a New Year’s resolution, let it be to bring at least one non-member to church this year.

The timing is right. We are coming out of a long dark period and entering into recovery. We are entering into a period of celebration of our Bicentennial. What better way to ensure that St. James’ will have two hundred years than to increase the number of parishioners.

There are many other ways to celebrate this tremendous event, mind you. We are forming a Bicentennial Committee for which nearly twenty parishioners have already signed up. There is still room on the committee if you would like to be part of this.

And what an exciting time it will be! If you have not heard by now, the Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Katherine Jefferts-Schori will be with us for the formal Bicentennial Ceremony on October 30, 2011. There are many other events and activities in the works for the celebration which could take the entire year. If you want to be part of it, please look at the committee list and consider becoming part of it.

The final few bits and pieces of 2009 consist of transitions. In this past year, one of our co-winners of the 2009 St. James’ medal exchanged this life eternal life. Will Jones was former Senior Warden, choir member, usher, and lay reader. We miss him.

Less permanently but with equal thanks, we bid farewell to two Vestry members who are rotating off of Vestry today. Dean Caswell and Justin Bohlmann have provided much introspection and valuable insight in our deliberations, not to mention comic relief. We thank them for their contributions even as we look forward to the work with new members.

And on a final note, it is appropriate to mention new staff members as well. This September we welcomed a new secretary and new minister of music. Dyan Wapnick is our secretary and comes with years of experience at IBM. She has slipped seamlessly into our office and is making it hum with good natured efficiency.

Peggy Stern became our Minister of Music at about the same time, and already we can tell the difference in our worship. All we have to do is remember how glorious the music was at Christmas, and we can see her impact. To both of them, I say a heartfelt and warm, “Welcome, and thanks!”

With all this taking place in our parish, it’s hard to believe that we are in difficult financial circumstances. We have done much with little, and we have done so with faith and trust that God is guiding us in our mutual ministry. Recovery is our word this year. Let us recover not only financially, but in our zeal to bring others to faith in Christ and our desire to grow in our own faith. Thank you.