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Did that earthquake wake you all up Friday morning? Yeah? It woke me up, and it’s hard to wake Fr. Jeff up, but it woke me up. But I must confess my first thought was that my next door neighbor had started drinking again and he ran his truck into my house. But as I lay there I thought to myself, well if that had happened I would hear a lot of cussing and there would be a fire or something. And then right before I finally dozed back off to sleep, I had my second thought, which was, “I wonder who God just broke out of prison again?” Of course, the next morning I saw the news and saw that this earthquake had affected all kinds of people and I wasn’t just dreaming. And I had the most amazing realization that I never ever had thought about before. This earthquake was felt all the way to Chicago, down to Atlanta, all the way up to Milwaukee, and here in Louisville. The thought that hit me was how connected I am. My little house on my little spot of ground is connected with someone’s little house up there in Milwaukee and someone’s little plot of ground down in Atlanta, someone over in Chicago. I never thought of that before. I mean we built it on the same earth so it sort of makes sense, but you just sort of get used to seeing the people that are right there – my neighbor on the one side who’s given up drinking, thank God, and my neighbor on the other side. I won’t get into that.
But the earthquake reminded me that we’re connected. We’re connected – much like the Body of Christ. As the Body of Christ, we get used to seeing the Body of Christ right here. The people we hold hands with at the Lord’s Prayer. But truth be told, the Body of Christ is larger than just people right beside me or people in this faith, or people in this Archdiocese, or people in this United States of America, or people of this continent, or people even living in the world today. The Body of Christ is such that it stretches all the way back two thousand years’ worth of people – living stones make up this great edifice that we by our baptisms have been grafted into. Connectedness, and it took an earthquake for me to realize the depth of that connectedness.
It is this connectedness that we share in our baptisms that makes it necessary for me this morning to speak with you about the letter that Archbishop Kurtz has sent to me and to every pastor in the Archdiocese – a letter by which the Archbishop is calling on each of our parishes to witness liturgically to that connectedness, that unity, that we share. His letter, which we received Friday a week ago, has 14 points. Fourteen points – ways in which he is calling us to a closer following of the General Instructions to the Roman Missals – to be a witness, both to ourselves as a church as to all those who would observe us from the outside, a witness that we are one body liturgically. Of those 14 points in this long letter, four strike me as particularly visible for us here at Epiphany parish. Four points, four liturgical callings that will be most noticeable here in this community with us. Those four are these:
• Calling us to a liturgical witness of unity with the whole body, we’re going to be called to use for the vessels that we place the Body of Christ in, the vessels from which we drink the Blood of Christ, we’re being called to use precious metal for that, or metals basically. Or at least gilded on the inside, which means gold or silver coated on the inside.
• A second visible witness that we’re being called to that will be very noticeable here at Epiphany Community is that we’re being called to at communion time that the Communion Ministers receive after the priest but before the assembly as a sign of how the Eucharist goes from God’s hands to the altar to us to the world.
• The third visible witness that will be most evident with us is that during the communion rite itself, while people are receiving communion, we are going to be called out of respect for that action to remain standing and present to one another in that way, much like we stand at the gospel for the alleluia, or we stand at a baseball game when the National Anthem is played.
• And then the fourth witness that we are being called to, the action that we are being called to by our Archbishop is that during the Eucharistic Prayer, from the time when we enter into the prayer after the Holy, Holy until the Great Amen. We are being called to assume a posture of kneeling as a visible witness to not only our unity but of the action that’s taking place.
Our parish leadership has already been in discernment over this letter having gotten a “heads up” on the letter a little ahead of time. The parish leadership, the staff, the PCC and myself, have been in discernment as to how do we minister to our faith community, to our parish family here at Epiphany with this letter. How do we minister to one another? And let me tell you what the parish leadership has started. The parish leadership has invited Archbishop Kurtz to come and to pray with us, to come and to experience us in prayer. And the Archbishop readily accepted. So the Archbishop will be here with us, leading us in prayer and preaching on Derby Sunday. Now I know that we don’t have mass on Saturday, so everyone can make their pilgrimage, but be here Sunday so that the Archbishop can experience us in our prayer. Then between the masses, we’re going to have a reception where people can shake his hand, meet him, and start to share the story of who we are with our new Archbishop. So that’s taking place on Derby Sunday.
The following Saturday, the parish leadership has invited, and the Archbishop again readily accepted an invitation to come and have a conversation with us. And we have selected six of our parishioners who will, with myself, sit down with the Archbishop and simply share the story of who we are. We’ll share the foundation upon which we are built. We’ll share the joy that we have in Christ. The calling that we feel in our bones by our baptism. We will share that with the Archbishop and then hear from the Archbishop his dreams, his calling, his joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. This conversation that we’re going to have with the Archbishop is our way to tell our story. And I don’t know what’s going to be on the other side of that conversation, but I do know it’s important that we tell our story, and that the Archbishop know our story.
These six parishioners, ambassadors, will then, after they have conversed with the Archbishop, find a way for the six of them to then share with all of us what the Archbishop says to them so that we can all participate in this dialogue, this conversation with our shepherd.
You know, when my Dad and I were building that shed, as I said, the instructions said to not screw anything down, and we did. So I spent a day, the third day, taking out all the screws because the last thing you do on a shed is you hang the doors – and they weren’t hanging right. Because apparently when you hang the doors, you have to start moving around the shed to make the things work, so you should have seen it. There I was. I hung the doors; then I would run over to this side of the shed – according to the instructions – and push! And then I would run back to the front to see if the doors fit and it wouldn’t. Then I would run over here to this upper part and PUSH. And then I’d run back and then I’d put in a screw. Then I’d check the doors. And I was running around all day long. I had to climb the fence, go in my neighbor’s yard and push on the shed at one point, pushing and pulling, pulling just to get the doors to work right. And then once I got it, then I screwed it all down. It was an ordeal, I’ve got to tell you. But the doors worked.
What we are asking our six ambassadors to do when they sit down with the Archbishop to share the story of who we are, one of the things I hope will happen is that we will be able to share with the Archbishop how, in the common desire to have doors that work well, pushing over here affects something over here. Pulling over here affects something over here that maybe you don’t even realize it’s affecting. But in the end, what we all want are doors that open…are doors that open.
News of this letter, news of this calling by the Archbishop to us is going to us in different ways. I know that. Some will hear this and feel angry. Some will feel like bargaining. Some will just feel hopeless. Some will be in denial. Some will hear this news with acceptance. That’s normal. That’s what grief does. And here’s the real kicker. It doesn’t stay like that for anyone. Today I might feel angry. Tomorrow I might feel helpless. The next day I might feel acceptance. The next day I might be in denial. It shifts. It moves around, and that’s normal. What I as your pastor want to call you to is simply this: be kind to one another. Be kind to one another. The person on your right right now might be feeling despair. The person on your left right now might be feeling angry. The person behind you right now might be feeling acceptance. The person in front of you might want to barter. Wherever people are, our faith calls us to simply be with each other now. And be kind. And be patient. Just BE with each other remembering that we’re connected, that no earthquake can break that connection. We are connected with one another. That’s what we celebrate. That’s why we are living stones grafted into the household of God. And it is that connectedness built upon the foundation that we are built upon that will make it work.
So today, let’s celebrate that we are one. Let’s celebrate our connectedness – in our song, in our dance, and most especially at our table – connected to God. Let’s be kind to one another.
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