Mission Talk
August 19, 2012
When Catherine asked me to speak today about the mission trip to Staten Island, I was not sure what she wanted me to say. But, like all good assignments, this one made me do some reading and some thinking. Today’s readings include
· A psalm urging us to “turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it”
· A selection from the Epistle to the Ephesians telling us “to give thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
· And most importantly, the words of Christ from the gospel of John, “ I am the living bread that came down from heaven!”
Surely, these selections help define the concept of mission: to do good, to give thanks, and most of all to spread the gospel. I think that everyone at St. Peter’s shares this sense of mission. The bulletin proclaims that our church is Christ centered, Biblically based, Spirit filled, and caring.
And the congregation of St. Peter’s is certainly incredibly fortunate to worship every week in this beautiful building – a building that has been cherished and cared for by so many people for so many years. Last summer, when Cookie and Johnny and Terri and Bill Henderson spent hours cleaning the grave stones, I kept thinking about the abandoned churches you so often see with graveyards that are neglected and overgrown with weeds. It seems to me that this building is itself an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of this congregation. Four years ago, Helmut led an amazing campaign to rebuild the belfry, and we literally raised high the cross of Christ! The Pitts Brothers, who were the contractors, built such a strong steel framework that even last summer’s earthquake did no damage to the belfry. It stood firm. The cross is indeed the crux of what we as Christians are called to do. The cross is the crux of what we believe (It is interesting that crux is a Latin word. In Latin it just means cross, but in English crux means the heart of the matter, the essence).
We say during the Eucharist, “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again”, and that conviction is sending 12 of us to Staten Island this week. As you probably already know (there is a great article on the website), we will meet in Staten Island on Wednesday evening for supper with Catherine’s sister and brother-in-law who are the priests of a Moravian church. Their church and several others have been collecting clothes to distribute to local school children. The clothes have already been sorted, but on Thursday we will help set things up for the distribution which takes place on Friday. We are also scheduled to help with the clean-up on Saturday. And all three days we will certainly be following St. Paul’s advice and “making the most of time.”
As we have met and prepared for this trip, I have been thinking about missionaries – and remembering that I come from a family of preachers and teachers and missionaries. One of my dad’s ancestors was a missionary, and I want to close with his story. This man, my great great great grandfather, lived in Devon, in southern England in the early 19th century. He was married and had a baby son. The family were not members of the established Church of England. They were Baptists. Of course, at that time, non-conformists were no longer being burned at the stake or anything like that, but it was clear that a better life for non Anglicans lay in the New World. So, when this young man received a call to go to North Carolina and help set up a seminary to train men for the Baptist ministry, he obeyed the call and left his home and everything he knew. And his wife and baby went too. They took passage on an American vessel in about 1810. Remember that impressing American sailors was one of the causes of the War of 1812? Well, their ship was stopped by a British warship. The little family – mother, father and baby son – were taken aboard the British vessel where the wife made herself so obnoxious that the British captain put them off on another American ship as soon as possible. In all the switching from ship to ship, the baby fell in the water. Fortunately, his billowing baby clothes kept him afloat until they fished him out. They arrived safely in North Carolina and made their way safely inland to a little town called Wake Forest where they actually did help to establish a small seminary. So, mission accomplished!
I know that I do not have the courage of my ancestor, and I think that there are lots of ways to live the life that Christ calls us to live, but the mission to Staten Island is (as the words of today’s Collect suggest) a small way “to follow daily in the blessed steps of our Lord.”
– Elizabeth Heimbach