Page |1

th
208 Annual Parish Meeting
Rector’s Address
January 31, 2010

Gracious God, we give you thanks for all the benefits you have given us in our Lord Jesus Christ,
our most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother, and we pray that we may see Christ more
clearly, love him more dearly, and follow him more nearly, day by day. Amen. (adapted from a
prayer by St. Richard of Chichester)

“I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.” If the
author of those words, who also wrote "The Catcher in the Rye" – yes, the late great author J. D.
Salinger, had come to this parish, he would have met a lot of people he could respect. He would
find here a diverse parish, with each person on their journey of faith walking hand in hand with
others to see Christ more clearly, to love him more dearly, and to follow him more nearly, day by
day.

This is my 8th annual meeting with you and I am still wonderfully amazed at what we accomplish
together every year (Apple Festival). All of it is rooted, as I recently preached about, in our
unity as the Body of Christ. From the youngest member to the oldest member, we all play a role
in this parish, through Baptism we are made one by the Holy Spirit, who helps us put into our
hearts and lives our Redeemer, friend and brother, Jesus.

Think again of the words from the Baptismal service, when we welcome the newly baptised:

Welcome to the household of God

Confess the faith of Christ crucified,
Proclaim his resurrection,
Join us in his eternal priesthood.

Welcome. Confess. Proclaim. Join.

These wonderful words speak of our connection to one another, to Jesus and to our God: To
welcome others in God’s name, to confess our faith, to proclaim the resurrection and to join with
others in helping build a better world.

Our mission at St. Peter’s is to welcome with God’s love all people on their journey of faith. By
extension, all of us, this parish family, are called to welcome those we interact with in this
community and beyond with the love of God that we have felt poured upon us.

And welcome we did, with 8 new families into our parish family at the same time we said good
bye to 6 families. But welcoming is more than Sunday mornings, we welcomed into our midst
this year Little Ivy Nursery School.

The sound of joy and love echo each morning as the kids and staff use a space that was designed
for kids. It has been wonderful to have them with us and all that hard work that was done last
summer to meet fire codes and lead abatement and to welcome them into our midst was so very
worth it. Thank you to Ann & Nancy & Gwen who worked so hard to bring Little Ivy here. The
last couple of years have been much too quiet without an active nursery school here. It is great
having the space used again and is now a good source of monthly income for us too.
 Page |2
th
208 Annual Parish Meeting
Rector’s Address
January 31, 2010

We have welcomed a couple of Daisy Troops who use our space to hold their meetings in the
afternoons. They join our regular AA groups and Weight Watchers who regularly use our
Undercroft.

We welcomed back the Peace Pilgrims during our Apple Festival weekend, offering them a
meal, a place to hold conversations regarding peace and their pilgrimage, and a place to spend
the night. We welcome everyone who walks through our doors, a place in this household of
God.

In the society in which we live today, what you are doing here this morning goes against the
grain. Our society now has people working 7 days a week to make a living, and people often
make Sunday a day at home or shopping. In the hectic pace of life, the spiritual grounding that
all people need is so often lost.

Together we have gotten to taste and see that the Lord is good. So it is important that our lives
confess the faith that we believe in and brings us here. It is St. Francis who once said that we
should preach the Gospel at all times, when necessary use words. St. Francis wants our lives to
preach the Good News that we believe in.

And what is this Good News & how do we proclaim it?

St. Paul tells us that if we do not have love than we are nothing. His 13th chapter often called the
love chapter is often read at weddings for obvious reasons but it is also significant in his letter
because it is placed right after his discussion of the Body of Christ and the gifts of the Spirit.
Because none of it matters, gifts of the spirit, our understanding that we are part of the Body of
Christ, if we don’t have love.

Love is the basic unit of our lives along with our faith and hop. It is love that makes us commit
acts of compassion and hope based on our faith and it is how we spread the Good News.

During World War II, a battered contingent of captured allied soldiers were marched through a
German village. The streets were lined with onlookers, some smiling smugly, others wiping
away tears of compassion for the plight of these poor soldiers, many of them boys. The starving
prisoners were utterly exhausted, their eyes dark with despair.

The silence of the scene was broken when a woman broke through, an ordinary housewife and
mother, who thrust a loaf of bread into one of prisoner's hands before disappearing to her
kitchen. Her risky act of compassion was soon taken up by others, who brought out food for the
captives. One woman's prophetic act of courageous generosity resulted in the transformation of
enemy soldiers into sons and brothers. [From "The Power of One" by Margaret Silf, America, July 6-13,
2009.]

Her act of love was an act of faith. We are called to do such things to friends, family,
neighbours, strangers and when we do, we proclaim his resurrection. We proclaim his new life!
 Page |3
th
208 Annual Parish Meeting
Rector’s Address
January 31, 2010

This Church stands as a beacon to all to have that new life. Whether its through AA in the
evenings, or through all those prayer shawls that have been given away or our worship services,
God brings new life to those seeking it and we are called to proclaim that truth, even, now get
this, inviting others to join us for worship. <Gasp!> Yes you can!

And that truth is about being in community, walking with those on similar journeys, and
understanding we all have our part to play in the common good or else we live in ways that are
selfish, only about ourselves and we lose the greater connection between ourselves and others.

Once upon a time there was a wicked peasant woman. When she died, she did not leave a single
good deed behind, so the devils took her and plunged her into a lake of fire. Her guardian angel
stood and tried to think of some good deed she had performed so that the angel could plead for
her before God. Finally, he remembered something; it was not a very big thing, but it was
something with which he could plead her case before God.

“Lord, she once pulled up an onion in her garden and gave it to a poor beggar,” the angel said
to God. God answered: “Very well. Take that onion, hold it out to her in the lake of fire, and
let her take hold of it and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to
Heaven. But if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.”

The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her. “Come, catch hold and I’ll pull you
out.” The old woman grabbed the onion and the angel began to carefully pull her out by the
stalks. He had just about pulled her to safety when other sinners in the lake of fire saw how she
was being drawn out and tried to catch hold of the onion so that they, too, might be saved. But
the wicked woman began kicking them off.

“I’m to be saved, not you!” she screamed. “It’s my onion, not yours!” As soon as she said that,
the onion broke, and she fell back into the lake. All her guardian angel could do was weep and
walk away. [From The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.]

Life is not lived in isolation. It is lived with love, love for our God, love for others (as well
ourselves) and is connected to what we do. Together, as the parish of St. Peter’s we have lived
out our love this past year:

We had wonderful Interfaith Movie & Suppers to help us in our continued exploration of other
faiths. We studied the founding fathers & mothers of this country and examined their faith. A a
Women’s Book Study began. We gave of ourselves to the Bridgeport Rescue Mission, Monroe
Food Pantry, Episcopal Relief & Development, Bishop’s Fund for Children, Covenant to Care,
Relay for Life, to just name a few. We worshipped together every week, giving opportunity for
our children to have Church School but also in family Sunday experiences with their family in
Church.

The challenge for us as a parish is not in our Spirit, for this place is alive with the fire of the Holy
Spirit. It is our finances. We continue to be troubled by a smaller income than we need. We are
in many ways blessed as one recent national study has found, which is also true of us: “At a time
 Page |4
th
208 Annual Parish Meeting
Rector’s Address
January 31, 2010

when almost every American institution has lost income, a majority of the congregations
surveyed saw their fundraising receipts hold steady or increase. Second, it shows us that
congregations responded to the economic crisis with food, clothing, and shelter for those in
need.” Although, our pledges have held steady despite recessions and loss of key members of
the parish, our expenses have continued to grow and now we have decisions to make regarding
what kind of parish this will be, which we will discuss in a few minutes.

We are still caring for others, we are still looking for ways to be innovative & do new things but
above all, we are trying to be that place where Christ’s heart lives, where we welcome with
God’s love all people on their journey of faith.

On VE Day, May 1945, with the word out that War ended in Europe. A pastor led a service at his
parish, a crowd swelled outside a small, non-descript white church – an old, clapboard structure
no different from any other house of worship in the NE… The image so struck e. e. cummings
that he stopped his car and got out. Later that night, he wrote about that church and I think his
poem fits us perfectly (e.e. cummings – i am a little church):

i am a little church (no great cathedral)

far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;

my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing

birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church (far from the frantic

world with its rapture and anguish) at peace with nature
i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to

merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

We need not be some great cathedral. We are St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on the Green in
Monroe, CT where faith, hope, and love abide; and the greatest of these is love. Amen.