title: Lent 1 Homily
author: 'St. Paul''s Monroe'
Opening
Yesterday was an extraordinary time. It was my first visit to Winston-Salem. It was my first time gathering in person with the whole diocese of North Carolina. When I returned to my hotel room on Friday night the neighbor in the room next to me ask me how long I had been a man of the cloth. I had to do a quick think and I realized it's almost 40 years that I have been ordained.
The program on Friday was a conversation with two remarkable sisters. They are members of St Michael and all angels in Charlotte. And they talked about how in the last 10 years or so their Christian faith has taking a new and deeper turn in their lives. They are examples of ordinary Christians who by taking their faith seriously make an extraordinary impact on the world around them.
I made connections with people in the diocese and it felt natural and empowering. In the months and years ahead I hope you will be able to take advantage of the rich heritage you have here in the Diocese of North Carolina.
If there was one thing I took away from my trip to Winston-Salem it was the importance for each of us to find ways to build up one another in the faith.
Catechumenate
Last Wednesday in my invitation to keeping a Holy Lent I included a description of a process of conversion. A conversion that leads one to seek baptism. There was reference to preparation for baptism and in that preparation there was a prescription to develope self examination, Scripture study, repentance, and generally learning how to be a Christian.
This process was described as culminating in baptism and celebration of the feast of the risen Lord, Easter. The season of Lent from that perspective is a preparation for Easter but especially as the time of initiating new Christians.
Beginning in the mid-20th century there emerged a recovery of an ancient process for forming adults into the Christian faith. When I had my first born baptized I was still very much caught up in an old way of thinking of baptism. Thinking of it is something like a mysterious key to unlock special privileges with God in heaven.
Not long afterwards I moved with my young family to begin seminary. There I learned much about the development of liturgies from the earliest times of the church. I gained an awareness of the richness of the celebration of baptism.
In the years after that I began to learn more and more about this thing called the catechumenate. An organized time of Christian formation and education in preparation for baptism. The catechumenate is a time for training in Christian understandings about God, human relationships, and the meaning of life.
I learned that in the earliest centuries of the church, at a time when most of the population was not Christian, the formation and education of new Christians was taken with the utmost seriousness. More than one person compared the process of becoming a Christian in the earliest centuries to what we expect in the formation of a priest in our time. In some cases there was a three year process, just as there is in seminaries today, three years filled with learning and prayer and experiencing new situations while serving the sick and the outcast. Such a three-year process was in fact what occurred for Christians of all sorts of stripes in the earliest centuries.
All of that began to change after the sixth and seventh centuries most of the population thought of itself as Christian. We have been living in that era ever since.
Community
It has become common place to quote the aphorism that it "takes a village to raise a child." In the earliest years of the church it was very clear to all that it took a community to raise a Christian. With those who had been raised up and formed in the pattern of life and what it meant to be a Christian were ready for baptism it would have typically taken place at Easter. And there was a process of ritual and there were actions that took place during the season of Lent and then with more intensity during the week leading up to Easter.
When the new Christians emerged out of the pool of water that was used for baptism the entire community would have felt like they had been through a process of training and strengthening.
The beginning of a person's ministry can take different forms. I think of Paul on the road Damascus. Knocked from his horse and unable to speak. His conversion experience became a model ever afterward. It left him and injured man, needing to learn what it was going to mean to be a Christian. He had to go through a catechumenate like period of formation.
Jesus gets his ministry started by going into the wilderness. It is a time of fasting and prayer, learning what it means to depend on God alone. The gospel gives us the image of temptation. It's a temptation to turn aside from what one is called to do by God.
So with the first Sunday of Lent we have the theme of an initiation into a ministry. It's ministry that all the baptized are initiated into. It is the responsibility of all the baptized. There is much that remains to be done. The whole rest of the story in fact.
I became convinced along time ago, partly from my own experience, partly from what I have read and heard about from others, that the most important time in the life of a Christian is when they make an adult decision to serve Christ. It's not universally true. But it seems clear to me that it is only when one puts into practice mission to which we've been called -- only then, can we say that we've begun.
Adult conversion / formation
The New Testament is filled with adults who make a dramatic decision to follow Jesus.
My own adult conversion occurred in my 20s, even though I had been a Christian my whole life and active in the church from the time I was a boy. We may not have conversion experience is like Paul but there comes a time when as a mature adult we have to decide.
- Tell the story of the young man losing his fingers at Saint Andrews.
- Story of Dale Guckenberger.
- The story of the young couple wanted to be married someone at my invitation to come and be a part.
In each case there comes a time when the easier path would be to abandon the new life to which we are called. The easier path is the path of least resistance. But the truth path is to become a disciple of Christ and to dedicate our life to that purpose.
If the whole community is experiencing a formation and preparation for ministry then Easter is experienced as a new beginning, a new launch of the ministry to which the community is called.
Lent as a time of preparation for Easter is not about motivating a collection of individuals. It's about invigorating the whole community into its location.
Sermon Bp. Sam
In his sermon at convention yesterday, Bp. Sam spoke directly about the mission to which we are all called as Christians. He noted how tired we all are from two years of pandemic. February 2020 seems like a lifetime ago. So tired. Askin, "When is it going to be over?" So much has changed. It feels like to trying to survive in the dry flat places.
How to do it?, he asked. One can dream. (Psalm 126). "Restore our fortunes oh Lord."\"
He said of the purpose of the special convention to be to hear about seeds that are planted. Await the harvest. To Partner with God in the mission to which we are called. Remembering always that God does the heavy lifting.
"How will we walk with Jesus?" he said was the first step of every mission. "The way of the cross." And that is what the diocese's 5 mission prioritie are.
It takes all of us working together. I learned about that when my girls were on canoe paddling teams. The group of girls had to work together. The difference between winning and coming in second was how well the girl worked as a team. The coaches urged them to seek Imua. Hawaiian for striving for a goal (together).
How do we become a church that looks like Jesus? We emulate and so doing we will become the beloved community.
We live in a world that is petrified of scarcity. God calls us to joy in abundance. What fills you with new energy? These are the kind of questions he posed us and all of the diocese.
Lessons from Convention
There is Power in numbers. Power in being together.
[Cf convention center shaking]
Bp. Anne: it is fitting that this initiation of mission initiatives/priorities at the time of the beginning of Lent. "We will not put mission on hold."
Way of life is the way of the cross -- is the way of God.
How organize ourselves as messengers -- to network, to coordinate. We build on one another as we go. Each community, each person moves at own pace, local, but part of a whole. We collaborate. We cooperate.
Doesn't have to be fast. But it needs to spirited (spirit-filled). (Psalm 126) Be like those who dream. HEalth and safety of all our residents is the responsibiliy of all of us ... immigrants as gifts not burdens ... (Anne) gets the passion of this. May we see the face of Jesus in every stranger we meet. May each in our own way pick up our cross and walk in the way of the cross in order to build up the beloved community.
(She was the pep of the pep talk)
Closing
Stand with those who are weakest among us. Marginalized. At the heart of becoming beloved community.
Testimonies of what is happening around the diocese. Love in action.
Joy is not the same as happiness.
"Then were we like those who dream" was used as a gathering mantra.
The whole gathering like a pep-talk. Sales meeting. Psalm 126 was a mantra. We could do worse than to make it our own.
Psalm 126
A pilgrimage song.
When the Lord changed Zion's circumstances for the better,\ it was like we had been dreaming.\ 2 Our mouths were suddenly filled with laughter;\ our tongues were filled with joyful shouts.\ It was even said, at that time, among the nations,\ "The Lord has done great things for them!"\ 3 Yes, the Lord has done great things for us,\ and we are overjoyed.
4 Lord, change our circumstances for the better,\ like dry streams in the desert waste!\ 5 Let those who plant with tears\ reap the harvest with joyful shouts.\ 6 Let those who go out,\ crying and carrying their seed,\ come home with joyful shouts,\ carrying bales of grain!
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