One hundred twenty one years ago, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church was started with a vision for people the founders didn’t yet know – neighbors and future generations. We gather this morning with thanksgiving for the rich legacy faithful generations at St. Matthew’s over the years have left us. The faith community we inherit has traveled through good times and bad, times when the pews were full and times when the community’s future was in doubt. Yet as one of our former senior wardens pointed out during a recent discernment session, God has always been with the people of St. Matthew’s

 

As we reflect on the history of this place from the first services held in homes to our present location, a clear trend stands out: when the people of St. Matthew’s looked outward toward their neighbors, they thrived. When they looked inward and lost their imagination for the relationship God was calling them to have with their neighbors, the church fell on hard times. The times of greatest vitality, excitement, commitment and growth were those when the people of St. Matthew’s found their corporate identity in loving their neighbor.

 

One of the ways we’ve described ourselves is “a neighborhood church with a worldwide community.” I would love to see us live into this description more fully. For by neighbor I don’t just mean the person who lives next door to us. I also mean the many and diverse populations we share the Cities with and the global neighbors that the Internet, immigration, and the relative ease of air travel make possible today. When asked which commandment is the greatest, Jesus responded, “’you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.’ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39). At the heart of the Christian life is an invitation to love our neighbor.

 

I believe St. Matthew’s is now positioned to reach out to and love our neighbors more fully than ever before. My predecessors Grant Abbott and Lyn Lawyer took bold steps in the 1980s and 90s to help the people of St. Matthew’s value and strive for a globally diverse community. They partnered with lay leaders here to help our community participate in God’s compassion more fully, including hosting a series of international dinners and welcoming homeless neighbors to our Parish Hall each August. In the 1980s St. Matthew’s also got involved serving meals to homeless men and women at Loaves and Fishes in downtown St. Paul. This ministry has continued under the faithful leadership of Ray Dietman. More recently Bruce Nerland and Mike Christenson spearheaded a diocesan effort to transform an old hospital building in Minneapolis into apartments for homeless men and women. Beatrice Garubanda began both a weekly tutoring program as well as the Blue House, a home for young women whose parents had died of AIDS in southwestern Uganda. 

 

Today’s scripture readings highlight the important themes of spiritual maturity, love and reaching out to neighbors who are different from us. Our reading from 1^st Corinthians is most often heard at weddings. This is somewhat ironic since the context is that of a congregation in conflict. The congregation is fighting about a number of issues, including who is the most spiritual, and who has the most important gifts. Everything Paul says love is, the community is not; everything he says love is not, they are. Conflict is not in and of itself a bad thing, but when it causes a community to get caught up in internal infighting rather than reaching out to the neighbor, it is destructive. Whatever we do or say, Paul writes, love is the most important thing. God is love and our lives as Christians are a school for learning how to love. From birth to death we have the opportunity to participate more fully each day in God’s love. God gives us the opportunity to taste and express God’s love in every aspect of our lives, especially when we reach out to our neighbors.

 

The love Paul speaks of is a vision of community in which everyone works for the common good. It is not so much about individual satisfaction as it is about the good of the whole. God’s Spirit works through the body of Christ because we participate in God’s love most fully together, not alone. 

 

In our Gospel from Luke, Jesus is the well spoken local boy “made good” until he shares a couple of stories clearly conveying that God’s grace and mercy touch everyone, not just his own Israelite nation. Jesus is clear: God’s jubilee is for all, not just those who think themselves closest to God. When Jesus includes groups of people as recipients of God’s blessings that his fellow Jews from Nazareth thought unworthy, they can’t bear it. They try to hurl Jesus off a cliff.

 

The themes that emerged clearly from our eight month, vestry-led discernment process reveal a faith community that believes God is calling them to become ever more diverse, flexible, relational, outward-looking and spiritually mature. The future the people of St. Matthew’s believe God is calling forth among us is one that embraces difference, compassion, hospitality, healing, trust, the Eucharist, mystery, and spiritual practices. It is a community that will prayerfully embrace treasures from the past but is willing to change in order to live into God’s promised and preferred future. Above all it is a community desiring to recognizing God’s leading, grace and the abundance of God’s provision for the whole of life.

 

God has indeed been faithful to the people of St. Matthew’s throughout the years. Our next step is to be faithful to God’s future, the future God has already begun to birth in our midst. Past generations at St. Matthew’s were not only faithful to God, they were also faithful to us. People like Bob and Donna Bulger, Norma Milburn, Bryce Crawford, Jerry Jenkins, John Hunt, Beatrice Garubanda, the Rev. Edgar Haupt and so many others thought about and prayed for us, and built the foundation on which we now stand. God’s future, the future we have discerned and imagined together, is a future full of faces—many of which we don’t yet know. They are the faces of neighbors here in St. Anthony Park, the Cities and around the world. They are the faces of neighbors we are called to reach out to in love. These are the neighbors who will bring the gifts and future God will continue to call forth among us.

 

At this time, more than any other since I’ve been at St. Matthew’s, I see all the pieces coming together. All the best gifts and impulses God has given this community are combined with an openness to the spiritual practices that will sustain the relationships God has called us to participate in. It is an exciting time to be at St. Matthew’s, as we name and dedicate ourselves to living into a promising, God-shaped future.  Our primary task in the days ahead is to keep the conversation going, to keep praying and talking and listening, and wondering together about what God is up to. And as we have clarity about some of the threads God is calling forth, to be faithful to these impulses and that future. 

In the 22^nd chapter of the book of Revelation there is a description of a river flowing from the throne of God. It is the river of the water of life. On either side of the river is the tree of life. This tree never stops blooming, and it produces a different fruit each month. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. This image has captured my imagination as a metaphor for the people of St. Matthew’s as we continue to both go deeper in our faith and trust of God, nourished by deep roots, as well as facing outward toward the world, offering food, shade and healing to our neighbors. 

 

In the days ahead I hope you will join me in continuing to pray for the people of St. Matthew’s, and the neighbors we are called to embrace both here and around the world.