September 21, 2008

Brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, greetings to you on this glorious day. Greetings to you on this grand day of celebration and anticipation. We come together this afternoon to make note of work well begun, work well executed and work well concluded. We come to put our considerable efforts in the context of blessing and providential will. Because we understand God’s plan and purpose best when we study the written record he has given us, I direct our attention to today’s appointed reading from the Old Testament. Out of the book of Exodus we hear, “The whole congregation of Israelites complained against Moses in the wilderness.” They said, “You have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” 

Hunger, hunger, food and feeding is a driving concern that appears again and again through the biblical narrative. In the garden of paradise, hunger for enlightenment and all knowledge seduces Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Physical pangs of emptiness persuade Esau to sell his birthright for a pot of stew. Leading hundreds of thousands of Hebrew slaves out of bondage, out of oppressive, hateful, impoverished existence, Moses now endures their relentless whining. We’re tired of walking. We’re tired of waiting for God’s next big sign. We’re hungry! Feed us!

Centuries later, when God establishes the new covenant with his people in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, hunger, food and feeding continues to be a concern. In his encounters with the crowds and in his parables, Jesus addresses the quest for sustenance. We remember the feeding of the 5,000 on the side of a hill. We recall the beggar, Lazarus, starving at the city gate. Jesus giving the woman at the well “living water,” water that never dries up or runs empty is another image that comes to mind. The commitment to feeding is so important to Jesus that his final words in the last account of his life are these: “Simon Peter, do you love me? Feed my lambs.” A second time he asked him, “Simon Peter, do you love me? Then tend my sheep.” He said to him, the third time, “Simon Peter, do you love me? Go, feed my sheep.”

In the Bible, food, feeding and hunger always center on satisfying two acute needs. The references refer to relieving the physical pains of empty stomachs and then filling up our Spiritual void. When the Bible talks about food and hunger, it is in the context of taking care of our bodies and our souls. We need food – grain and water for physical survival. We need food – connection and relationship with God for the well-being of our souls. There is within every human being a desire, a hunger for God. There is within every human consciousness a longing for a sense of belonging and belovedness. We are a species that yearns for affirmation. We want to know in that deep down, all the way to our bones way, that we are loved and absolutely accepted for who we are in our totality. We hunger for a love of our essence, not a love for our accomplishments. Human beings want to know that, out there, somewhere, we are appreciated for our good, middling and bad qualities, rather than for our successes alone. We want a base line unconditional love from some source. We want that source to challenge us to become the best possible version of ourselves and we want acceptance when we fall short of that image. Then, we yearn for encouragement to try again and again, and once more.

This kind of abiding love, this process of acceptance to challenge to encouragement only comes from the one who created us. To know our purpose and place in the universe, we hunger for God. To know how to connect with God so we may learn our purpose and plan, we hunger for Christ. God’s Son, our brother, is the method and model that leads us to the Father. To take what Christ teaches us and put it into action, we hunger for God’s Holy Spirit. We hunger for the food of the spirit filling us with power and goodness to move in the world in positive life giving ways. These hungers are persistent and enduring. Like physical hunger, they are not satisfied once. The desire arises again and again. But unlike the pangs for meat and bread, the hunger for God is not always clear to us. Often we feel empty and we’re not certain how to fill the hole. In blindness or hard-headedness, we look to the wrong places to answer this need. Feeling deprived of enduring acceptance, we turn to loved ones. We hope they will provide the nourishment our souls crave. Seeking perpetual affirmation, we throw ourselves into our work, into those tasks where we excel. Looking for validation and security, we surround ourselves with possessions that we hope will attest to our worth. Humans will strive long and hard to get their hungers met. When the strategies they employ do not bring the desired results, they will design a new tactic. 

So, when we finally identify the hunger of our souls correctly, when we finally recognize our longing is for God, we go to that place where food for the spirit is served! We go to church. Feeding this hunger, the hunger to get real soul food is the single purpose of the church universal. And it is exactly how and why this building sits here today.

Just shy of 125 years ago, men and women tied to this land were searching for food for their souls. They had good hard lives that required answers and assurances. They experienced trials and joys that needed explanation and context. They worked their farms diligently, yet droughts came. They cared for their babies, yet epidemics carried them off. They were practiced and skilled, yet accidents left them maimed. Plows overturned, axes slipped. Many of those families were unchurched. They didn’t know God. They were unacquainted with his plan for them or his sure presence in their lives. Others of our founding members were lapsed worshippers. Their former church was not serving food of grace and bounty. Their appetite for God was not satisfied there. So the McCoys and Gluyases, the Whitleys and Prices, the Kearns and Blythes, the Alexanders, Davises, Jamisons and Houstons examined their hunger and their thirst for God. They waited on the Lord and He provided. 

In answer to their collective prayer, their willingness to be lead by his spirit, their commitment of time, energy and financial resources, God sent a priest and a liturgy, a prayer book and big idea. They held a service under those trees and afterward, they ate lunch! I kid you not. They may not have had hot dogs, but I bet there were pork products present on the grounds that day. And, so, our heritage was established. St. Mark’s became a place where stomachs and souls are nourished. In our archives, there are records, years and years of notations. The books of life cite baptisms and confirmations. Pictures spill out of young girls in white dresses and young boys in starched collars. Weddings with more white dresses, sons going off to war, depressions, floods, funerals, women of the church, parish barbecues, Mrs. Davis’s kindergarten, lives touched and shaped on this hill are well documented. People searching for answers to the eternal questions found the food their minds and hearts required. Generations found God here. Generations fed on his blessings and responded to his challenges. 

Today, nearing our 125^th anniversary, the hunger is the same. A desire for God stirs within our members. Descendants from our original families and newcomers to our county come to St. Mark’s hoping to be fed. We crave the food of life. We want to know God. We want to encounter his promised Son. We want to feel his Holy Spirit moving through us and those we know. The people who call themselves members of this community expect their hunger for God to be sated on this hill. They expect to become all God intends them to be. We expect to encourage one another in becoming our best. It is through this family of faith that God’s purpose for us will be realized and made manifest.

Here, on these grounds, surrounded by these old trees, supported by the saints buried in that ancient dirt, we will hear the word of God proclaimed. We will learn and remember the lessons of Jesus. We will serve others. We will feed the hungry in body, mind and spirit. We’ll package meals for the starving. We’ll build up a church in a foreign land to stand as a beacon of hope. We will visit the sick. And, unlike good caring neighbors, we’ll do more!

Supported and instructed in our faith, we’ll sit with the dying and allow them space to say the truth of their hearts. Then we’ll offer them the assurances of our God. This place will continue to be for us and all those hungry souls that God sends us, a loving sanctuary of welcome and acceptance. Here we will continue to recognize the impress of God on each one gathered. We will see God’s unique intent in each person. We’ll know Matthew Brethen and Matthew Kathman and we’ll know the difference between the two. We’ll know that Amy Cuttino likes photography and Amy Sparks likes to cook. We’ll know Sarah Milholland goes to Mary Baldwin reunions and Sarah Hollar drives too fast. Knowing one another so well, we’ll know how to nourish each other’s spirit. We’ll see the face of Christ in one another and we’ll call that image to action in the world.

We have a mighty legacy at St. Mark’s. We have a long history of hungry people being fed on this hill. Today, we commit ourselves to more expansive feeding. In our prayer for the building campaign, we asked God to “open our eyes, ears and hearts to his will for the future of our church.” We asked God to stir up our passion, courage and commitment for the work ahead; not for our glory, but his, not for monuments of brick and mortar, but for a legacy of faith.

Today we celebrate a new beginning for that legacy of faith. God heard our prayer and answered it graciously.  Following his lead, we will not build a monument of brick and mortar; instead, we will erect a vessel, a simple, loving support given to the Glory of God and for the purpose of holding and serving food to the hungry. Those called to this hill will find the food of life. A place will be made, their soul will be nourished. St. Mark’s takes her legacy into the future. For the next generations, we will be known as the church who lived out Christ’s call, “When I was hungry (in mind, body and in spirit), you fed me!” Thanks be to God for our good prayer and intent. Thanks be to God for his loving answer. Amen.