2021 Annual Meeting Rector's Address

2021 Annual Meeting Rector’s Address 

January 24, 2022 

Good morning, church! And welcome to the one hundred and seventy-third annual meeting of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brookline, and my 13th Annual Address as your rector. 

A few weeks ago, I was talking with some of my colleagues who are rectors of their parishes about our upcoming Annual Meetings and writing our Annual Reports. 

One of my colleagues commented that she wished she could submit the following, “Rector’s Report for 2021. It was really, really, really hard. Respectfully submitted, your Rector.” 

2021 was really, really, really hard. 

And it was hard in lots of different ways. 

Of course, the pandemic of COVID-19 continued. And not only did it continue, but it moved into grayer territory. Rather than clear guidelines and complete shutdowns, there were hundreds of decisions to be made in our daily lives, and in our shared life as a community. Do we? Can we? How might we? Should we? Shouldn’t we? 

And as quickly as the weather turned warm and things looked like they were approaching a new normal, cases spiked, protocols reversed and we were faced with the reality that we would be in this for a while. 

And then came Omicron. And as those numbers fall and daylight lengthens and we are once again wondering “dare we dream for a day when we are gathered fully again?” As my father used to say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” 

But last year was hard in lots of ways. Our young people are struggling with isolation and uncertainty. The political divisions in this country continue to push siblings in Christ to opposing corners with compromise swiftly becoming a lost language and art. 

The hate and fear which has lived under the skin of this country since its founding is erupting in episodes of violence against the historically marginalized. 

And closer to home, in this community, we have worked tirelessly to do what we can with the resources we have to make church happen in every way we could figure out how; here in this building, in the community and in the world. We have worked tirelessly, and many of us are tired. 

And, we are sad. For this year we lost a great deal, including several beloved members of our community. This year alone, since my last Annual Address, we mourned the deaths of Laura Rutherford, Maureen Carter, Linda Hastie, Ken Carter, Tim O’Brien and John Mahony. Not to mention friends and family members not in this community. 

And so, my colleague was right. 2021 was really, really, really hard. 

And yet, as I read the Annual Report (all 31 pages of it!), I was reminded of how much growth, new and continued, also happened in 2021. Sometimes they happened despite the strange times in which we live, and sometimes because of them. 

I could use the entirety of my address thanking all the people who helped make this past year possible; the staff, the vestry, worship leaders and ministry leaders, the list is long. To begin to name is to ensure I will forget, though there will be time for some thank yous later this morning. 

Instead, I want to recall some memories that serve as illustrations of what has grown this past year in, and through, this community. 

People love to post pictures of crocus flowers peeking up through the snow as signs of new life emerging from the long winter. 

The new image I will use for this is that of our choir. Standing outside, in the snow, to sing the Faure Requiem, like so many vocal crocuses signaling new ways of bringing life into being. 

The continuing pandemic created the urgency for us to create the “Circles of Caring Ministry.” Every household in the congregation for whom we have contact information received a phone call or email two times in the past year. The image I use with the members of the Ministry Team is to imagine they are leaving warm loaves of homemade baked bread on each doorstep. Whether or not they ever hear back, to be contacted and prayed for is to be loved. Love itself sprouted and grew last year. 

Our Racial Justice Ministry was born out of a charge I issued in my last Annual Address to think of our Racial Justice work at St. Paul’s not as a siloed ministry, but a lens through which we would begin to view everything we do as a community of Jesus followers. That ministry is still growing and wrestling with what it all means, but the wrestling is the work, and I am grateful to those who have helped shape that conversation. 

We continued to put our faith into action, a core part of our identity. We still participated in the BSAFE Summer Camp program, despite pandemic and tropical storms. We still gave out almost $35,000 in grants to 20 different organizations through our Ministry Outside the Parish Team. 

We held our most successful Prison Ministry Book Drive to date, filling the book requests for forty-five incarcerated individuals. 

And while we experience their absence as a loss to us, we helped make possible the expansion of the Brookline Food Pantry which resulted in their securing larger accessible space for their operations at United Parish. The Food Pantry started at St. Paul’s over 30 years ago with a couple of people and a good idea. St. Paul’s shepherded that ministry through tremendous growth. We hired a Program Director as a member of the St. Paul’s staff. We helped them to become an independent 501(c)(3) so they could access new grant revenue, and we provided rent-free space for three decades until they filled every corner of the Great Hall, Middle Room, Choir Room, Kitchen and front lawn last summer. 

A couple of people and a good idea by the grace of God is now feeding over 650 families per week. 

I wonder what a couple of people, a good idea and the Grace of God might do next here at St. Paul’s Brookline. 

Well, actually, I know a little bit. I know a couple of people thought it would be a good idea to join the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization to provide an opportunity and outlet for members of the St. Paul’s community to affect change and pursue justice at the policy level, and to become allies with communities of color throughout the Greater Boston Area. And, as the ad goes, they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on and so on. 

We now have a vibrant GBIO at St. Paul’s Ministry and the budget you have been presented includes in it, for the first time, $6,000 from the Operating Fund, allocated for our participation in GBIO. 

A couple of people thought it would be a good idea to get together and dream what the future of Children, Youth, Young Adult and Family Ministry might look like at St. Paul’s. They talked to two people, and to groups of people, to listen and discern a vision for the future of our ministry with the youngest among us. 

Their final report, available online, made it clear that in order to realize the potential of our ministry to children, youth, young adults and families, we would need to commit substantial resources, both financial and human, to support the work we believe can be done to realize this ministry’s full potential. 

And so, in the budget before you that your Vestry has passed for 2021, we are committed to hiring a full time Assistant for Children, Youth, Young Adult and Family Ministries. In fact, the job description went live online just this week. Spread the word. 

And your response to these initiatives has been inspiring. You have volunteered to join the effort, or to be interviewed, you’ve attended meetings and held it all in prayer. And you have been generous. The response to this year’s Stewardship Appeal has been remarkable. As we see a large increase in this year’s budget due not only to these programmatic investments, but in uncontrollable expenses like utilities, you have responded generously and even sacrificially. Some of you even revisited your pledge and made further increases, in hopes of making our mission and ministry possible in 2022, and I thank you. We are now just under $8,000 away from achieving our stretch Stewardship goal of $400,000. In the end of the second year of a pandemic, we are on track to grow our financial stewardship by 10% over last year. Who could have imagined? 

Actually, you could. You did. And you are. 

I wonder. What will a few people, a good idea and the Holy Spirit do next? 

Well, you will be hearing more about the exciting plans we have to replace our beloved but beleaguered Bozeman organ. There are plans to be made and funds to be raised, but I am confident that, come September when we all walk in those doors, we will be greeted by a musical instrument up to the task before it -- to match the abundant gifts of our choir and their gifted leader. 

There will be much to be done to welcome our new Assitant for Children, Youth, Young Adult and Family Ministries and to ensure they are successful in their work by providing them all the support we can muster. 

And we are making plans for a new purpose for our Middle Room, former site of the Food Pantry. We hope it will be a place of hospitality and welcome, to those needing a place to work, or rest or get warm from the cold; a place in which images of the church and of God represent the vast diversity of God’s creation and beloved children; a place where the whole world will know that no matter who they are or where they come from, they will be welcomed and invited here. Please keep a look out for more information about this initiative, which started as a few people with a Good idea led by the Grace of God. 

And I want to ask each of you to step forward. To ask yourself how it is you might support our gathering as a community as we take more steps toward a new way of being together. It’s been a while. We’re a bit out of practice. We forget we can’t go get another cup of coffee in the middle of the sermon when we are actually in the sanctuary. Well, you can, but you can’t turn your camera off when you do it. 

And it takes a lot to be together. It actually takes more than it used to. We still need readers, and ushers, and greeters, and altar guild members. We still need choir members, vergers, acolytes and coffee hour hosts. But we also need tech people and Social Media hosts. It takes a lot for us to worship together, and I hope you will pray seriously about what part you might take in it. 

I’m ready to dream of coffee hours and dinners. I’m ready to hope for chairs and pews that are filled and online streaming that keeps us accessible to those who cannot be here, even when the worst of this pandemic is over. 

I’m ready to unwrap the unexpected gifts this time has given us, though we may not yet know anything about it. 

In her report on the Gardens ministry, Julie Starr talks about the intense pruning that was done as part of the Fall Buildings and Grounds Work Day. It was a lot of pruning, and it wasn’t done when pruning was supposed to be done, apparently! 

Julie writes, “At the end of the day, when I looked at all the ‘debris’ that was carted away, it made me wonder if anything was left. Two weeks later, the roses were leafing out and four weeks later, they were blooming again. Rest assured, there will be a beautifully full garden in 2022.” 

This time in our lives has felt like an abrupt, unwelcome, and untimely pruning. Some days, all it seems we can see are the empty spaces of what used to be. 

But we are in a position to come back healthier, stronger and more vibrant than ever before. 

Rest assured my friends. With your help and God’s grace, there will be a beautifully full Garden in 2022 indeed. 

AMEN. 

© 2022 The Rev’d Jeffrey W. Mello 

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