October 24, 1999
Have you ever had to learn a new lesson for the 100th time? Learning the same lesson, over and over again, because you just didn't get it? Several weeks ago, I was saying to our Senior Warden that I was having a little difficulty with the summary of the law, especially the first and great commandment. I didn't know at the time that it was today's Gospel and I surely didn't know at the time the daily office Gospel for today is the other version of this same story.
For a while now, being confronted by the first and great commandment — to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind — has been a difficult thing for this priest, this Christian. I wonder why it is so hard and why I am so slow to learn to fall in love with my whole being. Now mind you, loving God with my mind, with my intellect, is quite easy. It's loving him all the way to my abdomen, my heart, and my soul that I find so difficult.
As I look at the evidence of my life and evidence of the church's life, every piece of empirical evidence tells me that God is to be trusted and loved. The promises he makes to us for life and life abundant are true and fulfilled. The promise that he makes to us for new life in Christ Jesus when we give him our heart and our soul and follow him as disciples is true and fulfilled. The promise he makes to us to give us joy and peace in this life, and hope in the life to come, I find to be true and fulfilled.
A life of redemption marked by extreme heights of joy; a life of redemption marked by the blessings of relationships with others of God's people, by great natural and fiscal resources — all of these are true and fulfilled and all of them form a matrix of evidence that says to me that God is to be loved with heart and soul as well as with mind. And yet, I have to learn it over and over again, in part, because I am a type A super-compulsive person and want to take charge. But whenever I try to take charge of the direction in which God is leading us, I find nothing but confusion and danger. When I step aside, I find that God, indeed, fulfills his promises.
When we began this calendar year, things were going so smoothly. Everything was in place, everybody was in place. Then, between the first of January and the first of October we had made 18 changes in personnel in the church and school community. I was beginning to take that personally, actually. I was thinking that I had come here only to fail. I was thinking that the parish was falling apart and the school was collapsing. It was a very frightening time for me as we began the summer.
But you know what has happened. While we said farewell to a lot of very, very good people, God has brought into our midst some other people who are also very, very good. What we had as an excellent ministry in this parish led by excellent people has become an even more enhanced ministry led by people of even greater capability and talents. As I look at what has happened to us in these past six months, when most of the changes transpired, I have to say that I am convinced in my mind that we stand at the eve of a truly wonderful year breaking forth in our lives at St. Margaret's Church and School. Every piece of evidence collected in the past six months is that God is blessing us and God will continue to bless this parish.
Pushing it back just two years ago this week, I can see again intellectually and comprehend how the hand of God has been at work to bring us together to this day. Two years ago this parish was plunged into grief, and the parish in which I was living and working was plunged into grief as both rectors in both places had departed. We did not know what the future would bring for either of us, either parish. God has given you and me a gift — at least I know he has given me a gift; you will have to be the judge of what kind of gift you have received. But as I look at those last two years, the way in which we were brought together and the things that happened to us in the last six months, I can have actual and intellectual confidence in God's love for us and for the future.
Jesus calls us to love him with more that just the mind. He calls us to love him with heart and soul to the very depths of our being. Every October for the last 23 years of my ordained ministry, my heart, my soul and my abdomen has quaked because it is pledge time. Every time we get into this time of the year, my heart quakes within me and my soul cowers in fear. Then, every year by December 3l, God has produced another one of his miracles. I don't know why I continue to have this problem believing in the miracles that God showers upon us, but I do, so pray for your rector.
My mind and my intellect tells me that God has not led this parish in such a straight line of mission and ministry for so many years and decades just to have us crash into a wall this particular fall. I cannot believe that God has brought us together to preside over a decline, a collapse, or anything else other than a bright future working to spread the Kingdom of God in this valley and in this community. Because of the nature of this particular gathered community, the Kingdom of God is spread throughout North America. Each fall and winter people come from all over this land and Canada to worship, to be renewed in spirit, and to return to other places in the summer to take the Gospel with them. Each fall they come back with more of the Gospel to share with us — to enrich us even more than if we lived in a town where we did not experience the ebb and flow that we do here.
My mind and my intellect tells me that God has brought us together for his purposes for the future and he will not discourage us or defeat us as we begin a new decade and a new millenium. I've come to be absolutely convinced in my mind, and I am desperately seeking to be convinced in my heart and my soul, that the story of St. Margaret's parish is the story of a love affair between our Lord Jesus Christ and the people gathered in this place. When Jesus bids us to love our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul and with all of our minds, he bids us into a love story.
Let us continue to be bold, as we move forward in our love for him. Let us continue to build this church as a beacon on the hill to show the presence of Jesus Christ, not only amongst ourselves, but also to show his presence to all who live in this area, who visit in this area, who come seeking solace and comfort in this area, who come to us seeking the one thing that fills that aching hole in our hearts — a saving relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord.
We have been called to a great and wonderful ministry. For over three decades, we have been about that ministry and for the next decade to come, we will be about that ministry.
AMEN
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
24 October1999