Celebration of a New Ministry in De Soto

So last week we went to De Soto, Missouri twice. Once for the memorial service of Chandler Crawford who had been a priest for over 60 years, most of them in one part or another of the diocese of Missouri. He managed to hang onto traces of a New England accent which I always found endearing and he was unfailingly kind to his younger colleagues and quite active at clergy events, etc. The second time was August 4 for the Celebration of a New Ministry of the Rev. Beverly Van Horne and Trinity Church. Beverly has been called to be Priest in Charge for redevelopment. She's working half time. De Soto is still the home of the Union Pacific Car Shops, continuing a long railway heritage. It also has two Methodist churches with women pastors (so Beverly won't be the only woman at the local clergy group) and two funeral homes on the main street which runs parallel to the railway tracks. Beverly invited me to preach at this service which was very flattering. Here is the sermon:

CELEBRATION OF A NEW MINISTRY DE SOTO MO August 4, 2005
On this joyful evening, when we gather to celebrate a new era in the life of the congregation of Trinity De Soto and your new priest in charge Beverly Van Horne, we heard about God sending the Spirit on the seventy elders so that Moses would not have to shoulder the burden of leadership alone. But I invite you, like Paul Harvey, to listen to the rest of the story.
Our lectionary often leaves out some verses and I’d like to tell you the story we heard from the book of Numbers in its larger context. Before the point where we began to read tonight, we learn WHY God told Moses to gather people into the tent of meeting. Moses, you remember, has led God’s people out into the wilderness. They wanted to go, they were eager for a new and better life. But before too long, the people began complaining and whining, as sometimes happens in the midst of transition and of change, people lose heart on the way to seeing God’s promises come to fruition. God has brought the people out of slavery in Egypt; God has fed them in the wilderness with manna from heaven but is that good enough for them? Oh no. They complain to Moses about the lack of variety in the menu. They are tired of that boring manna, day in and day out, and long for leeks and cucumbers and garlic and melons. They start to talk about slavery in Egypt as the good old days. At least the food was better.
Then Moses starts whining, too. He tells God, this isn’t his idea of ministry, he didn’t sign up for this. The people are acting like babies, he tells God, why doesn’t GOD be their nursemaid. Moses tells God I’m not their Mom, you are, you take care of them. Clergy and congregational leaders often do feel overwhelmed by the demands of their communities, communities in which people sometimes behave, for various reasons, like these infantile Israelites. Leaders can get hooked into the idea that it really is their job to be all things to all people, to be the mom and the nursemaid, instead of trusting all to God and calling one another to speak the truth in love and to grow up into maturity in Christ. . But God’s vision of leadership in community is very different. So, as we heard, God tells Moses to gather the elders into the tent of meeting and God showers out God’s spirit upon the elders, making them all leaders, all prophets whose voices are of value in the life community, whose speech should always be listened to respectfully as if it were the voice of God.
But that’s not all. If we read a few verses further, we discover that there were two of the elders, Eldad and Medad, who, for whatever reason, were not in the tent of meeting but the spirit of prophesy descended on them anyway. They were going around prophesying and Joshua, Moses’ helper, rushed up to Moses, all alarmed, telling Moses to stop them but Moses says to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets!!”
I don’t know how our lectionary decided which verses to read and which to leave out but I wish we had Eldad and Medad at this service, because all over the Episcopal Church congregations are feeling the winds of change but are slow to allow God’s Spirit to speak to them from outside the comfy tent, preferring to recreate or to preserve the imagined good old days, planting and cultivating cucumbers and melons and garlic rather than allowing God to shower new gifts of manna upon them from unexpected quarters. But God’s Spirit is trying to shape and to grow our churches, not just from our beloved Prayer Book and Anglican tradition but also from outside the Episcopal tent. We can learn much about church growth, about spiritual practices, about approaches to working with children and youth from other Christian churches, we can learn a lot about the character and longings of our communities, about how to offer a warm welcome to visitors, about how to share the good news about what we have to offer as Christians in the Anglican tradition from secular approaches to marketing and advertising. And most of all, we need to be ready for Eldad and Medad to show up some Sunday in our churches—even right here in Trinity Church in De Soto, ready to hear the spiritual hungers of new comers, ready to listen with respect and even to embrace their ideas (however unlike the way we’ve always done it in the tent of meeting they may be). Even though the book of Numbers says, in a verse we hardly ever read, that when the Spirit rested on the 70 elders and they prophesied, they did so only once, the experience of God’s people and of the Church has been that God’s Spirit keeps on being poured out on our churches, calling us to be thriving communities committed to Christ’s work of reconciling all people with each other and with God, serving our neighbors in Jesus’ name, engaged in joyful worship of the God who ever brings life out of death and invites all people to feast together at the table where Christ is the host.

Beverly: I know that you will resist the temptation to be anybody’s nursemaid or Mom but I know that you will nurture this congregation. You are wise and mature and you will love this congregation, in fact I know that you love them already. By your word and example you will help this congregation live into their baptismal promises, to grow into the individuals and the church community that God already knows them to be.
Be a faithful priest and pastor, present in times of joy and times of sorrow, offering comfort and challenge and gathering all at the Lord’s Table. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, share with the people of this congregation your imagination and your humor. Be gentle to yourself and remember that part time means part time and that God is still God and God’s grace is at work even if you are under-prepared or too tired to take on one more thing. Trust in God and in God’s people and don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Keep learning, keep praying. And don’t’ stop knitting.

People of Trinity: Earlier this week, many of us here, gathered to give thanks for the life of the Rev. Chandler Crawford. For an outsider, it was a wonderful snapshot of the life of this congregation: You were showing pastoral care for Catherine and her family and for one another in your grief. You were showing careful and thoughtful hospitality to visitors, you sang and joined in the prayers with vigor. Love and trust Beverly. Be gracious enough to assume that she is doing her best and meaning no harm, even when she does things – as even the best priests inevitably do—that surprise or even hurt you. Speak the truth in love to her and to one another and trust to the reconciling power of God. If you and your new priest Beverly keep your eyes on the promised land, keep your minds and your hearts open to the Spirit, if you embrace change without looking back, if you continue in vigorous faith, open handed hospitality and care for friend and stranger, it won’t be long before this church is as busy on Sundays as it has been this week.