Address to the Annual Meeting of the Church of S

Address to the Annual Meeting of The Church of S. Mary the Virgin

Falmouth, Maine

given by The Reverend James P. Dalton-Thompson, Rector

January 25, 2009

Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Amen.

Charles Dickens’ immortal classic A Tale of Two Cities opens with that immortal phrase, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” A seeming oxymoron, Britain was glorying in its parliamentary system, and a fledgling nation, recently separated from that same Britain, was trying out the “sea legs of democracy” in a new form of government unknown in Europe. It was, however, also this time when the French Revolution—which had begun with the noble goals of Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood—took the downward spiral to bloodshed and mass carnage, and anger-fueled hysteria ruled the day. It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times; which depended on one’s perspective.

A similar paradox exists in our own country and in our own time. Last Tuesday, America made history with the inauguration of the first African-American elected President of the United States. Whatever one’s political views, I think that we can agree on the symbolic importance of the occasion: that American democracy achieved a political and societal milestone without resorting to bloodshed or rioting; and that despite arctic temperatures and an economy in free-fall, over two million people had journeyed to Washington buoyed by a sense of hope for the future. Indeed, the best and the worst of times met and danced together.

In his inaugural address, President Obama spoke candidly of the realities facing our nation and the world. He made us look back on our past, reminding us that in America we are used to such challenges. We do not shirk from them, and in the end they make us stronger for having faced them together.

This is hardly an inaugural address, and I’m neither Barack Obama, nor Henry Paulson, nor Ben Bernanke. This is a rector’s address to the annual meeting of a parish church, a priest speaking to that flock of which he is simultaneously the shepherd and a fellow sheep. And so today, I stand in what we might objectively call the “worst of times”, to tell you that in so many ways it continues to be “the best of times”—because we are here, together.

At no time is the church more important than in times of hardship. It’s not that I, or any of us, have magic answers, simple solutions, or pots of gold from which we might draw. What we do have, however, is the presence of Christ, and the care and support of one another. Sitting alone and off by ourselves, we can feel overwhelmed and powerless. We can’t see the horizon, and the glass seems nowhere near half full. Coming together as a community, we draw strength and hope from one another, and from the knowledge that God has a plan for each one of our lives. To someone outside the Christian community, that sounds like some head-in-the-sand coping mechanism, a priestly, Pollyanna-ish platitude designed to keep us from paralyzing despair. To those who have known what it is like to be enveloped, embraced, and lifted up by our church family in times of trial or crisis, there is nothing glib about it. When the pressures mount and anxiety sets in, the place to turn is to Saint Mary’s.

The Church is unlike any other finite institution. Our membership is wide open to anyone who wishes to join. The Church doesn’t demand that we achieve some level of sanctity for admission, or at any point in our journey. The Church is an equal-opportunity nurturer; whether you have been at Saint Mary’s for sixty years or for two days, nobody has the upper hand, a larger voice, an opinion that counts for more, or any added privilege. In fact, the longer you are here, the more responsibility, not privilege, becomes yours.

Christ’s Church and this parish church have deep, important roots in the past: generation succeeds to generation with fresh rounds of baptisms, marriages, and burials. We remember and honor those dear faces and treasured moments now gone, but we are not a museum with well-crafted, static, displays simply to be admired. If we only look wistfully at the past as setting the standard for the “way church should be”, we miss the opportunity of listening for how the wind and flame of the Holy Spirit lead us now and into the future.

The Church offers the ultimate “Come-as-you are” party. You are invited—nay, you are guided—to bring your total essence, the “real you” to God’s Table, where you will always have a place. Unlike a country club, a fraternal lodge, or even an urban street gang, the Church has no “people like us”, because anyone who walks through our front door is just like us: a wounded healer, a vulnerable creature, someone who, in taking off the mask that we present to the world, reveals the little child inside, craving love, needing approval, longing to hear those words, “It will be all right.”

And the Church is that one place where, if we dare, we can be real. We can tell people when we’re frightened. We can hurt people’s feelings, and people can hurt ours, and we can both be forgiven and forgive. Here we don’t demand or pretend to achieve perfection; and in a world that tells us that we have to get ahead, what we have to do it all, to make happen, it is the Church that tells us that it’s not in the doing, so much as it is in the being. God, and God’s people, value you not for what you do, but for who you are.

That is the Church at its very best, even in the very worst of times.

We need Saint Mary’s now, more perhaps than in any time in recent history. We need this holy place where we can be still, where we can ask God to nourish and feed us. We need to hear those words of Scripture, those passages that inspire us with hope, as well as those verses that shout out to us that there have always been difficult times throughout human history, but that the last word always belongs to God.

We need this holy place, and we need this community, this family. We need to be here for one another, and we need to draw strength from one another. We need this place, this “safe passage”, where we can put aside our bravado and our defenses, and be open to the workings of God and the caring and prayers of the Body of Christ here in Falmouth, Maine.

We need Saint Mary’s, and Saint Mary’s needs us. Re-reading last year’s address to this Annual Meeting, I said, “In this year where the result of the presidential race is anyone’s guess, and where we try so hard not to use the “r” word—this time, not “religion”, but “recession.” Well, we know who won the presidency; but we’re using the “r word” with unrestrained iteration.

Both Tom Donaldson and Debby Hammond have spoken about our financial situation, about what we can expect in pledge income for this year on which we have just embarked. As you can see, and as you will read when you receive the February Ave, we are well short of our goal at this point, and that causes our parish leadership great concern. At our vestry retreat this February 8th, we will presumably have an accurate picture of anticipated income for 2009, and we shall start to hone the budget which the vestry passed in November.

While there are some items that we might be able to pare down, there aren’t many. Our vestry members, and our Buildings and Grounds heroes, have been exceptional in their due diligence in conserving both energy and funds. The Finance Committee, so adroitly chaired by Debby Hammond, has retained keen oversight of income and expenses; they have asked tough questions, gathered information, and made tough decisions, looking at how best to be responsible fiduciary stewards without sacrificing the quality of programs that draw people to Saint Mary’s.

We are significantly behind where we should be, all things being equal. Of course, this year all things are not equal. And yet…

…and yet, we are still called to be faithful stewards of God’s bounty. I ask that you listen to me very attentively for the next several minutes, because quite frankly, the future of Saint Mary’s hangs in our collective hands.

First things first: your primary responsibility is to ensure that your needs, and those of your family, are met. The Church never asks or even suggests that you go without what you need. Jesus spends too much time telling us to care for the poor to intimate that there’s something good or noble about poverty. You have obligations to your family, and to your own self, and those obligations come first.

I wonder, though, how often we confuse “needs” with “wants”; necessities with frills; basics with luxuries? One of the downsides of living the American Dream is that we easily confuse what we need with something that we simply want, and in that confusion, we make wrong choices.

I need to eat to live; I don’t need to achieve that goal by dining every night at Fore Street or Hugo’s. Unlike the lilies of the field or the birds of the air, I need clothing: do I need 12 pairs of Crocs in assorted colors?

When we confuse what we need with what we want, our values become skewed, our priorities shift, and the tools we use to make decisions are sharpened on the flint stone of personal desire. Our gaze turns inward, and Jesus’ call to love God with all that we have and to love our neighbors as ourselves loses its moral persuasion.

We are called to be stewards of God’s bounty, in lean times as well as in cycles of prosperity. Jesus insists us that we are meant to live sacrificially: not giving up what we need, but choosing to do without something we purely want to achieve a greater good.

Friends, if we do not support Saint Mary’s ourselves, by giving generously and joyfully, our future is frankly in question. Declining market values, unpaid pledges and as-yet unmade pledges have taken our portfolio down to the danger zone. We finished the year much better than we had anticipated, but that is due to bequests left to us by two faithful parishioners now gone to glory. It is both poor stewardship and lamentable theology to suggest that a church count on the generosity of the dead to heat the buildings for the living.

I know that some of you quite simply cannot pledge this year. There is no shame, and there should be no embarrassment, in that painful reality. If you cannot, you must not; there may be other, creative ways in which you might use your time and talent for the Saint Mary’s family, ways which may help us to realize savings.

Others of you presumably can pledge; and if you can, I ask that you do. I also ask that you consider what your pledge represents: is it sacrificial and joyfully given? Is it just one more weekly or monthly bill? If you have not increased your pledge recently, I ask that you revisit that decision. I increased my pledge again this year, and I will say that, yes, it is a stretch, and I’m having to make some conscious budgetary decisions because of that increase. And please note for the record that I have refrained from saying, “I upped my pledge; now, up yours”!

For those of you who have increased your pledge, or pledged for the first time, let me say “thank you”. What is particularly gratifying about this year’s stewardship campaign is the number of new families who have joined in the support of this place that they now call “home”.

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times”. Which is it for you? For me, when I turn on the evening news, read the paper, or Time, or Newsweek, I find myself preparing for the worst. That’s when I start to buy industrial-sized bottles of Tums.

But early each Sunday morning, when I open the doors and wait for you, my family, to come to God’s Table, I realize that I must have gotten it all wrong. When we have our loving God, Saint Mary’s, and one another, can it be anything but the best of times?

Let me end by quoting a contemporary hymn:

You shall cross the barren desert, but you will not die of thirst; you shall wander far in safety though you do not know the way; you shall speak your words in foreign lands and all will understand; you shall see the face of God, and live. Be not afraid, I go before you always, come, follow me, and I will give you rest.

God bless you, dear ones.