Saint Benedict Episcopal Church

So often Christmas for the world is giving and receiving gifts, tinsels and other glitzy things on an evergreen tree, but taking a quick look at the stories told during the twelve days of Christmas gives us a different look at what it means to give life to Jesus in our own lives. 

There’s the feast day of Stephen, the first deacon. A man killed by his community for speaking the truth about Christ in love to his community. There’s the feast of Holy Innocents, the slaughtering of all the children by Herod. There’s the commemoration of Thomas Becket also killed for living his beliefs. Then of course, there is the Epiphany, the story of strangers coming late to the manger with gifts for the King—including Myrrh a spice used for embalming the dead. All this death in the midst of new life! 

I wonder what this Christmas Reality might mean for us on our Christian journey.

For me it is a reminder that new life comes with a price. The price for new life is that something within me dies.  The Christmas Reality changes everything. When Jesus is born anew within us, we become new and old pieces of ourselves die. We experience Resurrection from the very beginning. I believe this is why all those dark end times readings start weeks before Advent and then continue into the season of waiting.

For us, as a congregation, it means that when Jesus is born in anew within us as a church, we need to be open to discerning the possibilities of what that might mean for us as a community. Congregations, like people, have cycles and a lifespan.

The life span of congregations look a great deal like our human life journey—there’s a birth and childhood with all excitement that this brings. Those of you who were around from the very beginning of this church, tell exciting stories about unpredictable times of Sunday mornings and cleaning up rooms at St. Martin’s University. There are stories of rolling Altars and near death experiences. 

Then as a system grows, just like a person, there is a place of plateau. Traditions are established and the unpredictable of the system is replaced by the predictable. The growing ceases a bit—like a person who has finished maturing past his or her adolescent years and is settling into early adulthood. This is a time when it is easy for us to become complacent as an organization because those growing exciting years are past and we can simply choose to sit back and reflect on the glory days and say this is the way we’ve always done things from the beginning or we can choose to allow something new to be born in us—once again that Christmas Reality. Isn’t frightening to consider new life and change?  To me new life and change are akin to death because whenever we as finite beings take on something new, something old dies. I think this is why so many people are discouraged by change because of we are all afraid of shifting identity and the death that it brings.  

However, in our life cycle as a community, if we don’t change, redefine or redevelop our life, what follows is further decline. The longer we wait to change or intervene, the more difficult it becomes for new life to  occur. It is easy for to become stuck. Have you even been stuck personally? Or perhaps you know a person who has chosen to not grow past a certain point in their life.  

Many a comedy skit has been written about the person who can’t seem to let go of High School years or College years. People of my generation or older might remember a Bruce Springsteen song called “Glory Days” that talks about this reality of clinging to the past. 

It’s why we need to renew our mission and vision statements every five to ten years or so. It is why there are term limits on Bishop’s Committee membership and why there probably should be term limits set on every ministry leadership in the parish. Our OWLS group (Old Warden’s League) is asking this question about term limits for all ministry leadership positions. It’s why we have conversations like the one recently about the Edinburgh Fair.

Why so much change and so much discernment?

Because God is constantly born anew in us as a congregation and invites us to discern that new life. We are a new congregation each and every year as the people of this parish change, age, move on and new people come in; we become anew. Just like our lives: we are new people in our cycle of life, in our shedding of cells every 7 years, we become a new person on a cellular level. The only system that doesn’t change is one that is dead and life in Christ is always alive and therefore, constantly calls us to discern new life. 

The best way that I know how to talk about new life and discernment is by talking about prayer and the best prayer form I know for discernment is called the Examen. It is an Ignatian Prayer form that invites people to daily ask two questions upon reflection of our day. Those questions are what’s life giving and what’s life draining.

This is the prayer that I believe each and every one of us that leads a Christian life needs to ponder in order to discern the new life in us. 

What’s life giving?  What was joyful today?  Where was the good news today?  Where was there consolation? When was God closest to you?

On the other end, what was life draining?  What was difficult or hard today?  Where were you zapped of your energy?  When did God feel most distant for you?  

This Examen prayer is a prayer I invite you to use in your faith journey to discern your ministry in this community and the community at large. What’s life giving to you?  What takes away life? 

So many places within St Benedict are discerning new life. There is our Strategic Planning Team that is working on a new vision and mission statement and a long term plan for the next six years. 

This new year will see us add a team of people who will begin the onerous task of deciding what we need to do about our building and expanding. 

At the same time, within our own church, we continue to wrestle with the loss of many loved ones this past year, with the new faces that are in our midst and the best way to practice hospitality with our newcomers. 

Oh yes, the Christmas Reality of death and new life, darkness in midst of light and hope are everywhere in our community. Our vocation as a church is to discern new life and to allow death to also take place. Our work is to pray and discern the life giving and life draining places. Our work is to not be afraid even when some pieces of our church die, there is a promise made-- that new life is born. And that new life is called Christ.