Proper 19b.06                                                      September 17, 2006

“What good is it my brothers and sisters,” James asks,

        “if you say you have faith, but do not have works?
Can faith save you?
If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food,
        and one of you says to them,

        ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’
        and yet you do not supply their bodily needs,
                 what is the good of that?
So faith, by itself,” says James, “ . . . . is dead.”

The connection between faith and works
        is absolutely simple.
There’s nothing mysterious or complicated about it.
Faith is not a set of ideas we hold in our head.
When the disciples panic during a storm
        and Jesus says, “Have you no faith?”
        he doesn’t mean they have made a mistake
                on a systematic theology exam.
Remember what we said last week.
Faith is not the opposite of doubt; it is the opposite of fear.
Fear keeps us cramped up in a spiritual spasm called “ego.”
Fear is the illusion that we are a self-at-risk
        in a perilous universe.
Faith is knowing we are beloved children of God,
        that our eternal well-being is secure
                 in God’s love

        – that our ultimate hope and happiness does not depend
                 on anything or anyone, including ourselves

        – our ultimate hope and happiness are in God’s hands
                 and in God’s hands we are safe.

Works are purely and simply living out of our faith.
When we stop fretting over our own security,
        we look around us at the rest of God’s creation.

Where it is beautiful, we delight in it.
Where it is broken and suffering, we share its brokenness

        – share its suffering, and we love the world
        with God’s own love, heal it with God’s own healing.

Living in faith isn’t kicking back because we feel safe.
Feeling safe, we live for others.
We live in a way that counts for something,
        because our motivation is love for God in God’s creation.
Living that life here in the world changes the world
        and it changes us.
We call that faithful, meaningful life, “mission and ministry.”

We are busy people these days.
We are burdened people.
Life is hectic and feels out of control.
So we are apt to come to the church looking for serenity
         and healing ourselves.

We offer that consolation to each other through the sacraments,
         corporate prayer, instruction in private mediation,
         pastoral care, and the fellowship of a supportive community.
But real wholeness, real joy and real peace,
         come from joining with a community
                 in its ministry and mission.

When we come together, as Episcopalians,
         it isn’t to sit around agreeing about everything,
                 because we don’t.
We gather for three reasons:

        To stand together in mystified awe of divine love;
        To befriend each other;
        And to serve the world.

In short, we gather for mission.
So what exactly, in concrete terms, is our mission?
Our first Mission Priority is ministry to our children.

Last Sunday we had 50 children in Sunday School.
For the first time, we have an ample faculty of teachers,
         an honorary grandmother for each class,
         and a professional educator consultant for the teachers.

Finding meaning and hope is not easy today.
It is likely to be just as hard tomorrow.
Our ministry to children is giving them meaning and hope.

School may teach them how to make a living.
But we are here to teach them how to live,
         how to trust God, how to find hope in Christ,
         how to be a light in someone else’s darkness,
         how to love even when the world feels loveless.

Every member of this congregation supports that ministry
         in some way – if not hands on, then through
         paying for the space, materials, and personnel
                 who make this ministry truly special.

Our ministry isn’t just to our own young people.
The children who attend St. Marc’s Church in Haiti
         walk long distances to and from school.
Some of them walk up to three hours each way.
And many of them have nothing to eat
         from the time they leave home before dawn
                 until they return home after dusk.

You have already given the money to build and equip a kitchen.
Now we are raising the money for the food
         to provide school lunches.
St. Francis doesn’t just say to the children of Haiti,

         “Go in peace; . . . and eat your fill.”
We feed them, so they will have a chance to learn
         ways to feed themselves.

The Haiti school lunch project is our 2nd Mission Priority.
And it is part of a larger Mission,
         the Millennium Development Goals.
Those goals are boldly written in our Fellowship Hall
         on banners made by our St. Francis youth.
They include the eradication of extreme poverty
         and universal primary education for all children.
We support those goals financially
         through Episcopal Relief & Development;
         and by advocating for developing nations
                  through Bread for the World.

Of course, we don’t have to go overseas to find poverty.
Macon has poverty to rival that of developing nations.
We address that poverty through several ministries,
         like Loaves & Fishes, Weekend Lunch, and Rebuilding Together.
In the coming year, one of our new Mission Priorities
         is to help build a Habitat House in Lynmore Estates,
                  one of our poorest neighborhoods.

All of this is Christian mission,
         but we can’t do it as individuals.
To serve others, we must first
         be a strong, vital, healthy community ourselves.
So we intend to take better care of each other.

Our next Mission Priority is to organize and expand
        our pastoral care.
We intend to be a family that doesn’t intrude on each other,
        but that is present in a helpful, supportive way
        when people are suffering or under stress.

Some of us may be more involved
        with one part of the St. Francis Mission;
                others, with a different part.
Someone may deliver the altar flowers to a shut-in;
        someone else may help keep order in the Children’s Choir;
        someone else may swing a hammer to build a house;
        someone else may open their home to a guest from Haiti.

But its all one mission.
In fact, it isn’t even our mission.
It’s the Missio De –God’s mission.
A piece of God’s mission has been entrusted to St. Francis,
        and a piece of that St. Francis mission is entrusted to each of us.

Whenever we celebrate this communion,
        this common cup, this shared loaf,
        it signifies that we have one source
                and one destiny
        and between that common source and common destiny,
                we have a common mission,
        a shared life of prayer and service together.

When I look at our Church at all its levels,
        I see that one mission of love

I see the Anglican Communion providing humanitarian relief
        and working for peace in Darfur and the Middle East.
I see the Episcopal Church rebuilding Mississippi
        after Hurricane Katrina at Camp Gulf Coast.

I see the Diocese of Atlanta empowering disabled people
        at Holy Comforter.
I see our Macon convocation of 10 parishes
        renewing Appleton’s Ministry to children in Cherokee Heights
                and to college students at Ft. Valley State.

And right up close and personal,
        I see St. Francis Church as an instrument of peace,
        sowing love where there is hatred,
        hope where there is despair,
                light where there is darkness,
        and forming our souls to seek
                not so much to be consoled as to console,
                not so much to be understood as to understand,
                not so much to be loved as to love.

I see all this
        and I feel humbled and privileged to be a small part
        of what God is doing here and around the world though you.

                                                                                Amen.