Change with Heart

Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany Yr A
February 23, 2020
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church
The Reverend Canon Michael J. Horvath
Gospel: Matthew 17:1-9


Have you ever attended a lecture or class or conference and just thought to yourself “What a waste of time! What on earth am I doing here?”  Let me tell you, in over 30 years of attending professional and industry conferences, I have asked myself that question many times.  When I was young, it was still a fun thing to go to various conferences, meet new people, listen to their ideas, and get lots of free swag that probably ended up in giant landfills.  Nowadays, time is too precious to waste on listening to talking heads and boastful colleagues, so there are only a few key conferences that I attend.  And I attend them because I get something meaningful out of them.  I walk away changed.  Changed by new ideas, new perspectives and new knowledge.  And when those things change me and I can pass them along to you and hopefully effect further positive changes, then that is more than mere change, it’s transformational change.  We are transformed, perhaps transfigured.

Today’s Gospel is all about change, the fear and certainty of change and how we live out our role in times of change.  Immediately before Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up the mountain he tells them and the others that he must suffer, die, and be resurrected on the third day. He will tell them this again after they come down from the mountain.

What happened on that mountain top took place between Jesus’s two statements of impending change. That event, what we call the Transfiguration, was about preparing and helping the disciples live through the coming change. Maybe the Transfiguration story has something to teach and show us about how to live in the midst of change. Maybe that’s why every year the Transfiguration is the gospel we hear on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the Sunday before we enter the season of Lent, a season that focuses on change. Change, whether on the mountain top of life or in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, is a reality for all of us.

Unexpected change has the ability to produce lots of anxiety or fear.  In our different ways, we all know how we felt the day we lost a job, lost a loved one, lost our health.  If you didn’t know it was coming, you were either gladdened, saddened, frightened or angered by the change. It’s especially fraught when it seems the change is happening TO us.  We don’t have any say in the matter and the path forward isn’t discernible or remotely clear and all we seem to be able to do is to hang on and hope for the best.

What happens when we can be in the driver’s seat of change, especially good and life-giving change?  That’s when it becomes transformative.  We start to act and think differently.  Our perspectives are hopefully enriched and we become capable of having greater nuances in our relationships.  We’re not simply dragged forward by life when we are engaged with transformational change; we instead move with intentionality, with reflection and understanding.  And if our focus is on God, as it always should be, then that change has to be grounded in love with the goal of increasing that love amongst ourselves.  What’s been a transformational change in your life?  Raising children, leaving (rather than being fired from) a job that wasn’t fulfilling, perhaps starting an exercise regimen to counter the effects of aging, or praying ceaselessly with thanks and gratitude as opposed to simply praying out of desperation or when our life hits a rough patch?

Last week, our Senior Warden Cathi Esselen and I were in Lexington, Ky., at a conference of Episcopal clergy and lay leaders.  The conference is called CEEP for the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes.  It’s a time when parishes from all over the country meet to share our common challenges (and believe me, we all have the same challenges in varying degrees).  But what I really love about this conference is that we are a group of folks who are committed to taking these challenges head on and actively finding ways to overcome them.  We come to CEEP because we are not satisfied with throwing up our hands and saying “Our Church is in decline so let’s just wait for it to die.”  And many dying churches wouldn’t explicitly say that, but they live like it.  At CEEP we learn from each other’s successes and failures, we gain new information and insight from experts in the areas of church finances, property management, parishioner engagement, to name a few, and we dream.  We dream big for God’s kingdom because we believe that it is worth building up, not for our own glory, but God’s alone.  I always come away feeling that I cannot only effect transformative change but that our very calling from God is to be change agents in this world.  We are to change the lives of those suffering, lonely and abandoned.  We are to change the lives of those who are denied dignity and grace.  We are to change our lives in order to have a greater capacity to love God and each other.  In each case, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves.

As an aside, the keynote speaker was a United Methodist minister named Adam Hamilton.  His church, Church of the Resurrection, has 13,000 engaged and active members attending Sunday services, spread over 5 campuses.  Many of my Episcopal colleagues where holding up their noses because they found him to be too “evangelical” in the derogatory sense of the word, and not old school Anglican enough.  I felt like saying to them, “Let me know when your church has 13,000 engaged members in your pews and then let's talk.”

And each of you were never far from my heart and mind during my time at the conference.  I dreamed of what we could all do together. Ask yourself, does it feel like St. Michael’s simply reacts to change? The roof leaks and we rush to patch it.  We simply accept that there are few kids or young people in our pews, but do we try to understand why and how we can change that? Perhaps we have become accustomed to measuring the life of St. Michael’s in years instead of generations.  We just do enough to simply keep our heads above water, instead of swimming through the tides with strength and purpose.

In the near future, I’ll be inviting you to join me in taking a closer look at how we worship, how we serve the community, and how we steward our resources.  Thinking about what works, what doesn’t, and what we want to accomplish in the future.  We’ll reflect deeply upon and talk about our relationships with each other and with God. And together we  – not just me alone, and not just the vestry alone, but every single one of you -  we will determine whether we truly want a healthy church for generations to come.  And, if we do, how much are we’re willing to work towards making that kind of church a reality?  I’m going to learn from each of you what your dreams are for St. Michael’s and what you are willing to do to make those dreams come true.

I want to dream big for St. Michael’s and I believe you do too.  I don’t think you would have called me as your Rector if you wanted someone to simply keep the status quo.  If you have, then I’ll tell you frankly that you’ve picked the wrong Rector, because that’s not what God is calling me to in my ministry.  There’s a lot of work that God calls his faithful followers to do if we are only willing to listen to what the Holy Spirit is calling us to become. If you want to sit back and let these changes just happen around you, that’s ok, but I hope it’s not many of you.  However, if you want the opportunity to create life-giving change for yourself and for St. Michael’s, to be a change agent, then let me know.  There’s room for you at the table, in the circle, and in the trenches. It will not be easy work, and, lest you think we are becoming a Congregational Church, I may not likely pursue every idea you have, and some of you may not approve of some of the changes I make, but this is the work God calls us to do and it is holy work.  And that holy work is what Peter, John and James glimpsed on that mountain today.  May we live as witnesses to God’s transformation in our lives and the lives of the world today and every day for generations to come. Amen.