Annual Meeting Sermon - The Rev. Dr. Paul Kolbet, Feb. 5th, 2023
In the name of the One, Holy, and Undivided Trinity.
St. Paul’s, I have no need to tell you that 2022 turned out to be a year of a lot of change. The Rev. Isaac Martinez, who led our children and youth ministries (along with being a strong presence with GBIO), left St. Paul’s to begin a new ministry elsewhere in January. James, our longtime Sexton, went on medical leave early in the year. Longtime parish administrator, Jill Seiler-Moon retired. Tanya Cosway began as her replacement. Popular Rector Jeff Mello was elected Bishop of Connecticut. Elliott May was hired to be Director of Children, Youth, Family, and Young Adults. A new organ was paid for, installed, and made a regular part of our worship. A new furnace was installed in the parish house (which meant that we were without heat in most of our meeting rooms until shortly after Christmas). At the end of the year, we also suffered a number of heartbreaking deaths of members who contributed mightily to the identity of St. Paul’s for decades including former Rector, George Chapman. The pace of change can feel dizzying.
The portraits of past rectors that line the main hall of the parish house tells a story of rectors coming and going, yet, despite that, St. Paul’s remaining St. Paul’s. It’s an incomplete story because it leaves so many people out (yes, not just the interim rectors and many associated clergy, but also all the very important lay leaders who have come and gone). I imagine that when Augustus Aspinwall died– who donated the land for the church and served as Senior Warden from that moment until his death–it must have been astonishing that someone else could serve in that role, but they did and have again and again. And in our own year of change, St. Paul’s remains strong. It is something like the discovery that after the massive fire of January 1976, to everyone’s surprise, our church’s foundation and walls remained strong and sound. Now, as it was then, hardships and trials have only served to show how vital and resilient our St. Paul’s really is.
This morning, during this time of transition and change at St. Paul’s, we hear, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others.” That appears to be, as we just said it was, “The Gospel of the Lord.” It is direction from Jesus about what we should make our next priority to be … here.
Jesus says, “You are the light of the world… let your light shine before others.” To do that, to really do that, requires at least to locate all the sources of light we have–some of them inherited from the past, others of more recent origin–to become aware of where they are, to appreciate them, and to be able to talk about them to other people less familiar with this light. As still a fairly new arrival among you at my first annual meeting, of course, there are a great many things I do not know and I want to know it all. I hope to discover everything wonderful and beautiful about this place. There are still too many of you that I don’t know as well as I should. Know that I will be looking for that light that Jesus directs our attention to. I will also be looking to see how much of the good that is happening here every day is something you all see and know.
The opposite of letting your light shine is hiding it. Jesus says, “No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket.” No one intentionally does that, but it happens, it happens too much, despite our best intentions. How? It’s far easier than anyone would expect. If I walked through a beautiful scenic place, like we have all around us in New England, and was asked to name all the beautiful things I saw. Frankly, I’m certain that no matter how much I raved about this tree, or that bird, or this rock, or that cloud, it would be kind of sad about how much of it I just missed. Probably most of it is lost on me because the surplus of beauty in the world around me is more than I can take in. Likewise, all the good things Jesus is doing at St. Paul’s is too much for any of us to know. The light in a way is too bright. But the next task here for us, I suggest, is to do our best to see it all, to appreciate everything that is alive and vital here, and to celebrate as much of it as we can.
Perhaps the most common way to slip the lamp under the bushel basket, even if unintentionally, is to do the opposite, that is to focus all of our attention on looking for what is wrong and trying to fix it. That does not sound so bad, but notice how this is not what Jesus exhorts us to do. And, if you think about it, it is really hard to find a story about Jesus where he says, “I’ll tell you what is wrong with you.” There are far more stories of Jesus admonishing this person or that person to see what is right about them. Recall how he marveled at the faith of the Roman Centurion who had interceded for the healing of his servant (Mt 8), or how Jesus praised the hospitality of the tax collector Matthew who despite his dishonest occupation welcomed him into his home (Mt. 9), or his praise of Mary of Bethany as she devoted herself wholeheartedly to listening to the guest in her home. At the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus didn’t indict the hungry crowds for not bringing lunch with them; he did not lecture them on better planning (what were they thinking after all?), but Jesus celebrated the five loaves of bread and the two fish that they did have and multiplied it until there was more than enough for everyone. In story after story, rather than chiding people about what is wrong with them, Jesus grows miraculously what is right about them. And when there is that much that is right, it eclipses whatever may have been wrong in the first place. “Let your light shine before others.”
A lot of the negativity, fear, and anxiety in our society arises from the relentless obsession with what is wrong, as if darkness deserves our exclusive attention. The same is true of churches. There are always things we can do better and we should be honest and transparent about those things, but to only see that is to hide our light under the bushel. It is a failure to praise the Good and a failure to shine the light on the light. To celebrate the Good does not mean giving up on change and progress. It is more likely how change for the better, in fact, happens.
If, like most of us, you have taken yourself on as a kind of project, you may find it hard going if what you see about yourself is only what is wrong. Most of us are fairly well defended against such accusations, especially when they come from ourselves. That may be why Jesus did not approach people with such accusations and reproach. To improve yourself, you may be better served by attending to what is good about you, understanding that, and growing that until it crowds out what was never your strong suit. It is the good that calms our fears, soothes our anxious hearts, and brings about all that is positive. “Let your light shine.”
These days there are plenty of other places than here where we are told over and over again that there is something special about each of us and that we have an obligation to express it, to let our light shine. It is a popular television and movie theme, it is often how things are sold to us, and something of a secular reproduction of what was originally the gospel of Jesus. There is an important difference between what has made its way into popular culture and the original, between what is everywhere in our songs and advertising and the truth told here in church. What is left out is the most surprising and empowering part of the message. What we discover and know as Christians is that the light Jesus speaks of is not our own. It is not something any one of us generates. Jesus explains elsewhere, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). The light is Jesus himself. Our light is a reflected light from him.
It is because of the infinite power and contagiousness of his own light that Jesus says to us, “you are the light of the world.” Since you are here this morning, I’m fairly sure you have already had this sort of experience in your life. It is when you find yourself doing something for someone or saying something to someone, and what you are doing or saying is kinder, more compassionate, more hopeful, and more loving than you know yourself to be. Oh yes it is temporary and fleeting, but it is so common among Christians that we hardly speak of it. It is the light of Christ shining through you. Anybody who has had that experience, knows it to be as delightful as it is undeniably real.
Once you recognize that experience in yourself, you can begin to see it in other people, that is, the light of Christ in you enables you to see that same light in others. The light is a shared light. This is why the word “you” spoken by Jesus is plural not singular. English turns nearly everything into the singular, but Jesus says, “You all together are the light of the world.” It is truly wonderful to witness Christ’s light shining through oneself, but to see that in another is its own joy, and that shared experience brings people together, and creates the church where there would otherwise only be separate individuals. As we have begun to get to know each other, I have been looking for light in you and you have been looking for light in me, and what we have found is that light is not only there, but that it also–astonishingly–the same light. It is the light of Jesus. And that mutual recognition is the basis of trust and love, formed quickly, because we are far from strangers to each other. In fact, we have long known the same voice as members of the same family encompassing all the saints.
A past capital campaign at St. Paul’s took as its guiding slogan: “Honoring the Past–Building the Future.” That slogan resists how we are so often tempted either to live in the past and treat our church as a museum or to put the past so far behind us that we have nothing to offer that other people in the present are not already offering. St. Paul’s has been and continues to be a thriving parish with an enormously rich past that enlivens our present. It continues to be a place both of worship and social engagement. It continues to invest in itself while giving away everything it can. It continues to be a place where honoring the past builds the future. It continues to be an exciting and welcoming place to be.
Jesus says to St. Paul’s, “You are the light of the world… let your light shine before others.” Let’s do exactly that and let’s do it together all of us. In our precious time together, let’s discover everything there is to delight in here and then shine up those very things so much that they are, in Jesus’ words, the “city built on a hill that cannot be hidden.” There is much to be excited about as we enter the next era of St. Paul’s together.
May the Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world, grant that we, illumined by his words and presence, may shine with the radiance of his glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and adored here in Brookline and to the ends of the earth.
Amen.