Warden’s Report and Reflection Feb. 16th, 2025 for Annual Meeting. The Scriptures referenced in the reflection are Jeremiah 17: 5-10, Psalm 1, Luke 6: 17-26. The ice storm prevented in-person worship so the service was conducted by Facebook only from Vicki’s kitchen.
So, first the reflection. I’d like to start with our scripture from Jeremiah. The prophet warns us not to put our trust in mortals – those whose hearts turn away from the Lord and warns that they shall be like plants that wither and die. Then he contrasts that with those who trust in the Lord, that they are blessed like plants by the water sending out its roots in the stream and will not cease to bear fruit. The people were turning farther and farther from the way of the Lord. Society’s values and the values of the scriptures are in stark contrast, then as today. We seem to value billionaires over bishops. Our technologies mean more that our scriptures. We honor false prophets who bow to the powerful out of fear or envy. We seem to heap praise upon those who have lived a life of greed rather than mercy. It’s almost like we’ve forgotten that what is on the outside will wither and die, but what is on the inside, our strong moral fiber, our love of God and neighbor will not cease to bear fruit.
Today’s Gospel from Luke is also a lesson in contrasts. – and my guess is that Jesus used the Jeremiah and today’s psalm as his source material. But, first let’s contrast it with Matthew’s Beatitudes which are better known. Matthew lists 9 Beatitudes (which Richard Rohr calls the Happy Attitudes) and they are in the 3rd person, remember Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the peacemakers. But in contrast, in the Lukan Beatitudes which we just read, Jesus addressed his lesson in the first person and in the first century. In the Roman world, the richer and more powerful you were, you were considered blessed. But not in Jesus’ eyes. And in the 21st century he addresses us gathered here today as well.
Blessed are you…who are poor –, you are deserving of divine and earthly care - you have put the world’s values in perspective
Blessed are you who weep because you allow your heart to lead the way,
Blessed are you who hunger now, who know emptiness in the belly and in the heart, you know that Jesus is the bread of life,
Blessed are you who are hated, reviled because you follow the law of God, you will be rewarded….
Then Luke goes on to the woes (which don’t appear in Matthew), the warnings…the contrast to the Blesseds…
Woe to the rich … because they have nothing left to need. They are self-reliant for all their needs and surely don’t need God. They measure what they accumulate rather than what they give away and make their fortunes on the backs of the little guy.
Woe to you who are full. Because you are not hungry for God and cannot sympathize with the needy.
Woe to you who are laughing, who mock others. Because you have no empathy. You do not weep for the poor, the marginalized, the refugee. You call them parasites.
Woe to you who are honored like the false prophets because you stand for immoral values, for greed, and racism, and not for God’s commandments. You bask in power over the weak, spreading lies and inuendo to advance your own agendas.
We have to contrast these Lukan beatitudes with how folks measure success in our own time, our own country, because the values that Jesus talks about are directly opposite to the values of this world. And that’s what Jesus came to do, to turn our values upside down. Who do we consider successful? The guy crucified on the cross?
Who is jockeying for the power in our land? Tech gurus who only care about wealth. Woe to them. Who are the false prophets? The unethical media with no moral restraints and politicians that have no relationship to truth. Those that twist scripture to their own selfish ends. Woe to them. On the other hand, who sticks up for the oppressed? Who is reviled and hated, threatened for speaking up against the unjust systems that oppress so many? Just like Jesus did.
At this point in our church life, our Annual meeting, we take stock of where we have been in 2024 and where we are headed. So, first, let’s reflect upon our beloved parish this past year:
Blessed are you who cooked and chopped and baked for the poor at Nourish Bridgeport, who served the meals and greeted the guests with love and welcome.
Blessed are you who helped at our Concerts on the Hill, hiring bands, welcoming our neighbors with warmth and friendship, selling refreshments and raffle tickets, planting signs, gathering volunteers, raising tents, carrying tables and chairs, supporting Easton Pride and Juneteenth.
Blessed are you who stuffed Easter Eggs, so the children were filled with joy.
Blessed are you who hosted coffee hour to bring hospitality to all who enter our doors and you who brought communion and fellowship to those who were not able to enter our doors.
Blessed are you who set the altar table, served at the altar, decorated for holy days.
Blessed are you who preached or read the word of God to those who came to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ to us in the pews, to those on Facebook and to those you met every day preaching by your actions.
Blessed are you musicians who sang and who played instruments to enrich our worship and put that emotional exclamation point on our scriptures.
Blessed are you who joined together to read books in fellowship, bringing us closer to God and our neighbor, who stood up in conversations, to put love on the agenda rather than hate.
Blessed are you who prayed for the church, and our country, who wrote or called your representatives to advocate for the vulnerable.
Blessed are you who gathered to read the Letter from Birmingham Jail and choked at the words of Martin Luther King.
Blessed are you for your faithfulness, who showed up week after week, hoping to feel the love of God, to feel this beloved community surround you.
Blessed are you who have mourned a loved one, mourned a dashed hope or a broken relationship, wept for the people of Ukraine, the Middle East, Haiti, the Congo, the hurricane victims, the fire victims, the flood victims.
Blessed are you who visited the sick, the lonely, who sent cards, called, offered a ride. Blessed are you.
Blessed are you who have reached into your bank accounts paying our bills whether for a new bathroom, walkways, or our electricity, who reached into your tool box whenever the need arose, who baked for bake sales, who filled up our soup pot on Souper Bowl Sunday, who represented us at convention, who served on our Vestry shouldering our responsibilities, who helped with our 5K and Free Spirit concert, who donated gift cards, who wrote press releases, bought our wine, kept spreadsheets, tested our water, offered meditations, kept track of our bills, who taught songs to the children, who helped with costumes, who bought diapers, who stoked the bonfire and sang carols welcoming our neighbors and everything I forgot. Blessed are you!
And looking forward to 2025? Our name says it all. We are the church of Christ. What we do is important. We recently got word that the diocese is not approving our Solar project which is disappointing but we are not defeated. If we get a priest this year, great. I will be the first to get on my knees in thanksgiving - but solar or not, priest or priest-less, we will continue to contrast our actions with the values that society counts as success. I want to encourage you to step up and take an active part of this church if you haven’t already. I want to encourage you to pray for those leaders that have wandered so far from the laws of God. And I want to encourage you to stand up with grace and hope against the values that have taken hold of our country. The values that do not care for the immigrant, the refugee. The policies that take food, medicine, and hope away from the needy of this world. The values that accumulate obscene wealth and do not distribute it to the poor. The leaders that put celebrity over the values of Jesus, that espouse White Supremacy and disparage DEI. Pray for them. I want to encourage you to speak up to your elected officials on the local, state, and national level. MLK Jr. wrote “Man filled with God and God operating through man bring unbelievable changes in our individual social lives.” So let us fill ourselves with God. Jesus must continue to be our commander in chief, and his words, his beatitudes, our baptismal covenant must be our constitution. Here, in this place, we are going to keep measuring our success, not by the numbers in the pews or the cushions in the pews which are on order through a generous parishioner, not by the financial bottom line which is solid by the way, but rather by Jesus’s beatitudes, by the love that we share; we are going to keep showing up, to keep preaching by our actions, to keep standing up for those whom Jesus came for: the most vulnerable, the marginalized, the terrified. We will continue to welcome all gender identities as our beloved siblings.
The good news, my friends, is that you, you saints of God, you Blessed ones are stronger than those whom Jesus warned and Jeremiah cursed. You delight in the law of the Lord. You have the strength to face the coming storms with love. You are like a tree planted by water sending its roots to the stream. Those roots carry the love that you send out into the world. Blessed, blessed indeed are you. Amen.
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