Don’t we tend to see life falling along two lines: getting ready for action and then doing the action – cleaning the counter, then making the cake; clearing the runway, then flying the plane? Scripture is no different. Part of it shows how to clear the way to spiritual growth, and part of it shows that growth in action. Take the reading from Proverbs. Today’s passage selects out a particular obstacle to spiritual growth and warns us against it: “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity.” We are so used to this we take it for granted: the Bible helps us see where certain things we do work against us.
In the reading from Mark we have an example of making the cake or flying the plane. The people describe it this way: “Jesus even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” We take this for granted – that Jesus shows us again and again what it looks like to be spiritually alive – healing, teaching, comforting, listening, and generally giving himself for others. So Scripture leads us forth into life, cleaning the glass then lighting the lantern.
I tend to identify John the Baptist with the cleaning and clearing and removing of obstacles. At the River Jordan he cried out, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.” He himself identified Jesus as the one who would teach us to fly, so to speak. He said, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me…. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” I don’t mean to suggest a clear division, just a tendency for one figure, John, to be identified with the preparation and Jesus with the realization.
At another point John went on to say, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This too rings true. While we never outgrow the need to clear away obstacles, that need diminishes as our growth increases. We become more focused on serving and less focused on our own needs and imperfections.
I think you can see where I am going with this. This past year has been a getting ready year. I have focused your attention on obstacles, especially distortions of the faith – beliefs that throw up barriers between us and God. Beliefs that we must constantly be dodging when we want to run to follow Jesus. I have tried to show how God is not capricious, never punishes, never judges, never withdraws or turns away. False beliefs such as these keep us focused on ourselves and our own shortcomings – on our own, individual spiritual survival. They keep us focused on John the Baptist instead of shifting our allegiance to Jesus and to the well-being of the whole community.
Let me tell you a story that illustrates what I am talking about in an amazing way. Recently Allan Duane, our parish administrator, began a search into our deepest archives, looking for baptismal records from the early days of the church. He went into cabinets that may not have been opened in years, into boxes that had lain buried for decades, and at the bottom of one of these boxes he came upon the diary of Fredericka Milne.
When St. Gregory’s first stopped meeting in people’s homes and had a worship place of its own, that place was located just across Route 212 on Mrs. Milne’s farm. She had a building that had been a corn crib and that she had converted to a guest house and storage space. In the first entry, from early in 1952, Mrs. Milne wrote, “Rev. Harald Sweze called today, and I offered the Corn Crib for use as a chapel. He is to let me know. This has been on my conscience for some time…. There are not many Episcopalians in Woodstock, but enough to make it worth while. I so often think, “When one or two are gathered together in my name….
“The corncrib has been my storage and work room, and upon occasions a guest house. It is filled to the ceiling. I hope from the bottom of my heart that my offer is not accepted by Father Swezy. Then my conscience will be clear, and I will have my hard fought-for privacy that I crave more and more on my Little Farm.”
A later entry goes on, “Weeks passed. No word from Mr. Swezy, but I’ve heard in the village that they are coming. A group of three or four moved nearly everything out of the corn crib into the kitchen, which looks as though the Collier brothers had lived there. Little more than a tunnel to walk thru! The blue homemade sideboard in the kitchen is to be covered with a table cloth and used as the altar below the Japanese tapestry…. My cot and piano are pulled to the west and near the door and the leak. Had the piano tuned for $10.”
That is all on page one of Allan’s typed transcript. The rest of the manuscript – or at least of the 14 pages that Allan has copied so far – goes on to tell in detail how Fredericka Milne devoted most of her waking hours to working on the chapel. It was she who got up hours before the service to lay the fire and keep it stoked. She laid the bluestone path to the chapel door. Mrs. Milne’s journal covers the first four years of St. Gregory’s. I have not seen the rest yet, but what I have read to you is the self-told story of a woman who started out in a John the Baptist way, focusing on her own needs – in this case for privacy and peace – and ended up focusing on the needs of the community. It gives St. Gregory’s a beautiful, profoundly real, foundational metaphor.
I told the story to illustrate the turning point we have reached today. I feel as if I have an insight into John the Baptist’s mind and heart as I never did before. He must have looked at Jesus and wept tears of gratitude. I know I have shed such tears a lot lately. You may remember how I wrote you a letter a year ago, and in that letter I said, “I believe that God never blesses one party at the expense of another; and since God has blessed Charlie so abundantly with his new church, God will surely bless St. Gregory’s in equal abundance.” I wrote that with my fingers crossed, oh me of little faith! Little did I know how true that would be!
If I may return to the image of clearing obstacles from the runway and taking off in flight, then let me say that, in the Rev’d Gigi Conner, God has sent us a pilot who can really teach us to fly and help us to soar. Or let me put it in terms of our foundational story: under Gigi’s leadership I see St. Gregory’s laying a fire and keeping it stoked it for our Woodstock community, for the region and for the world. The size of our church will have nothing to do with the size of our vision. The numbers in our pews will have nothing to do with the number of lives we touch. And today’s collect will be answered in abundance where it says, “Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts. Amen.
