Pay Attention to the Transitions

Pay attention to the transitions!

In my early days of preaching, my mentor rector gave me this piece of advice. He was talking about writing sermons. Usually a preacher has two or three salient points to make in a sermon. The difference between an artful piece of writing and a wandering mess largely depends on what happens between the points, depends on the transitions. Pay attention to the transitions. Transitions matter, and not just preaching.

Moments of Transition in Scripture

Moses and the people Israel find themselves today in a moment of transition. Our reading comes from the last chapters of Deuteronomy. Moses is preparing the people because he knows he can’t cross over the Jordan with them. His time has come. Another prophet is on the way.

Jesus and the disciples also find themselves in a moment of transition. This is the first time the disciples have seen Jesus work a crowd, have heard his public teaching. They are astonished.

The word in Greek includes a bit of fear. Jesus and his disciples are at the beginning of something new, something powerful, and they are a little bit afraid. There’s some shock. Moments of transition can be moments of anxiety. Anxiety is there in part because we sense there is power in the pivot. There is a chance to make meaningful choices.

Pay attention to the transitions.

Transition at St. Michael’s

I know I say those words in the midst of a congregation that has been on a journey of “transition.” In the Episcopal Church, we have come to talk about the process of identifying and welcoming a new rector as “transition ministry.” The journey began about two years ago for St. Michael’s as my predecessor Joe Britton announced to the congregation he planned to retire. I anticipate the transition will continue awhile longer, as we grow to know one another, as we settle into new patterns. If you’re still feeling anxious, if you’re not yet sure, that’s okay. But I hope we can start to lean into the possibilities more than the anxieties.

Your vestry and I have begun a piece of that work. Earlier this month we gathered on a Saturday morning, to talk about what we heard over the whole discernment process, and through these last months of welcome gatherings so many of you attended. The vestry shared stories of this place and the values those stories communicated. In the coming months, I anticipate we will bring to the congregation a report from all that listening, naming our values as a congregation, naming our sense of call and mission. This work is important because all the work of discernment and transition was never just about calling a rector. In truth, I felt called to join you because from you I for a sense of where we could walk together. The transition continues. We are still way-finding, but I hope these next months have a flavor of possibility and adventure.

When Joe Britton announced his departure as rector in 2022, we were two years into the transition caused by COVID. These have been a complicated several years for all of us, and particularly in the life of the church. In my remarks at the annual meeting, I’m going to spend a great deal of time thanking people. St. Michael’s has been blessed by an incredible group of clergy and lay leaders. Even with the steadiness of the team here, all the transition, in staff, in church, in life, has lead to a sense of precarity.

I know some of us feel that edginess in the life of the church. I know my predecessor Joe felt it. In his last address to an annual meeting he talked about Harvey Cox’s idea that we are at an axial moment in the life of the church, a turning point. The 1700 year period Cox called the “Age of Belief” was coming to an end. We’ve all seen the statistics showing a sharp decline in church attendance. Not just in our denomination but across the mainline, Catholic, and even so-called “mega-churches” attendance is down. Many of us here sense the change because our kids and grandkids do not attend church with us or at all.

Measures of Growth in Church

To be honest, I think the verdict is still out about what church will look like on Sunday morning in another five years or ten. St. Michael’s has not yet returned to the same level of attendance we saw in 2019. But I also want to caution you that those numbers are far more slippery than they may seem on the outside. We have seen an accelerating trend in the church of less frequent attendance at worship. The pandemic and the ability to worship online hastened the trend. I am not sure what our worship life will look like, but when I look at the numbers from St. Michael’s, I get a sense that we are growing as a congregation. We are growing.

Even in this year of transition, we baptized more people than we buried. We confirmed and received adults too. This year we experienced the highest pledging on record for St. Michael’s, and among pledgers who were able to increase their gift the average increase was about 19%. Those numbers hold meaning for growth, but let me mention a few more measures I find even more encouraging.

This summer, as more and more guests were showing up at our food pantry on Tuesday mornings, Jake Van Der Geest made an announcement to the congregation that we needed some additional help. Not long after, he let me know we needed to stop advertising for more volunteers. More people had responded to the call than we needed. In those weeks we also received unanticipated additional gifts to support the food needs.

Earlier this month, I asked people to come up to Santa Fe for a rally with our immigration ministry partners to lobby to end immigrant detention in our State. By my count, almost thirty of you made the drive up to make your voices heard, on a slushy Santa Fe Thursday morning. You showed up because you have a sense that our faith is connected to the work of building justice.

More weeks than not, the leaders of our Contemplative Prayer gatherings let us know that someone new has come to find a space for stillness and to explore spirituality more deeply. When I recently asked some of our musicians about an evening Lenten offering for some Contemplative Prayer with music, we had enough volunteers not just to offer the evening contemplative space once or twice, like I imagined, but every week in Lent.

You continue to surprise me with your willingness to show up, to reach out, to enliven. When I look to the future at St. Michael’s, I don’t see us writing a story of slow and steady decline. I see a congregation that has been growing: growing in our depth of connection to our neighbors, to one another, and to God. I see a community willing to challenge themselves to care for the unhoused, for the immigrant, for the stranger. I see a congregation willing to go out of our way to say, “this is a place you are welcome, even if you haven’t been welcome in other churches, especially if you haven’t been welcome in other churches.” When I look to the future of St. Michael’s, I see possibility. I have a sense that more people are looking for a place of spiritual practice, of authentic community. More people are looking for a place where they can come together to make a loving difference. In these transitional days in our world, we have work to do to invite people to know us and to know this way of love this way of Jesus we hope to follow together.

We are still in a time of transition in the church. If Joe and Harvey Cox were right, if the statistics point the way we think they do, we are likely to be in transition for a long time. I plan to be with you through much of the long transition ahead. I am eager to join you in this work as your priest in part because in St. Michael’s I see a community with more imagination than nostalgia. I see a congregation willing to lean into the work of transition, eager to imagine new ways of inviting our neighbor into building beloved community.

Transitions are times which may feel precarious. Moments of big change are liminal, they are threshold spaces where we know we have stepped out of the familiar. That can be scary, but transitions are also the moments when we make what seem like small decisions that determine if we end up in Chicago or Chimayo. At the transition points we also choose how we travel. Will we grumble our way to the holy land, or will we choose to find joy, wonder, and adventure? Transitions are times when our vulnerability might allow even the Spirit of God to break through our usual limitations. In church, in life, pay attention to the transitions.

Our readings today, yes they contain anxiety, but there is also an energy. Jesus and Moses are eager for the people to know, “God is doing something new.” Pay attention to the transitions, because in the times of transition, God has a way of breaking through.