Dedication Sunday

September 10, 2023

 

Genesis 28.10-17; 1 Peter 2.1-5,9-11

 

+ I love our Dedication Sundays.

 

I really do!!

 

It is this one Sunday each year when we really get to celebrate St. Stephen’s and all it is and does.

 

We get to celebrate what it has been, what it is and what it will be.

 

And we get to celebrate all that God does for us here.

 

On our website, we are described as a

 

“growing, inclusive community of artists, poets, musicians, professionals, writers, students and searchers for God.”

 

I love that description of us.

 

Because that is who we are.

 

If you have not looked at our website, or any of our many social media, please do!

 

But St. Stephen’s is, to say the very least, a unique place. 

There are not many congregations quite like it—this weird and wonderful blend of peace and social justice-based ministry blended with High Church worship and spirituality.

This is not some nonsensical mish-mash, however.

This is a place wherein somehow it all comes together and forms a good solid base.

 

It is for this reason so many people are drawn to this out-of-the-way church in the far reaches of Northeast Fargo.

I had one parishioner say to me that St. Stephen’s is a really a kind of spiritual powerhouse.

This wonderful, eclectic place which has become home to so many people.

 Some people—especially those of who attend here week-in and week-out, might not see this as all that unique of place.

Sometimes we don’t see the treasures right under our noses, because they’re just that close.  

But let me tell you, others definitely think we’re unique.

 

Andrew Uruho, who has been attending here for the last several months, definitely think we’re unique.

 

He’s attended over 200 Episcopal churches all over the country.

 

And he definitely came here expecting one thing and found something completely different.

 

He came here expecting to find 1979 BCP and Hymnal 1982 hymns (all of which he loves).

 

He found liturgies adapted from Enriching Our Worship inclusive language Eucharists, Celtic Masses and New Zealand Prayer Book.

 

This past week, Jane Gaffrey sent me a note about how important St. Stephen’s has been not only to her but to her son Jason, who is trans:

 

Jane wrote me this this week:

 

 

“I hear from Jason how much he is awed and happy because of you and others at St Stephens --how much he feels accepted and loved as he is.  And everyday I hear how awed he is that you share your own humanity and struggles publically.  He loves how REAL people are and how you and the church love others well no matter who they are.”

 

Andrea Olsen, who was featured in an article on Episcopal News Service which has garnered A LOT  of attention, shares how she never felt welcome anywhere like she was welcomed here, and she had attended quite a few churches in her search.

 

Even Mother Mary Johnson, a retired priest in this Diocese, who has filled in for me a few times over the years when I’ve been on vacation, this past week was accidentally contacted when we were updating our directory.

 

Her number got mixed up with our parishioner Mary Johnson’s phone number.

She sent me a text message afterward saying,

 

“I would GALDLY be claimed as part of the St. Stephen’s community!”

 

Mother Mary, by the way, was one of the few people in this diocese how actually reached out and commended us for our standing on DEPO back in 2015

 

We have parishioners who did not feel welcome in any other church either here in Fargo or in any of the other places they have lived.

 

But they felt welcomed—and more than that—included—here.

 

I hate to break this news to you, but this kind of radical hospitality is NOT common in the Church—even among so very many Episcopal churches.

 

If you look at our social media you will see what people are saying there about us.

 

And the renovations we have made here have been a symbol in many ways of what we are truly doing here.

 

These renovations are important for us to reflect the vitality and the beauty of our parish.

 

Remember what it looked like in our nave back in 2007, for those of you who were here?

 

It was plain.

 

As in Quaker Meeting House plain.

 

Steve Bolduc shares the joke that one time there was a Diocesan gathering here at St. Stephen’s about 20 years ago.

 

Two people in line for food in the Undercroft were overheard by Steve saying, “Ah, St. Stephen’s! So low church it should be called Mr. Stephens.”

 

I love that story!

 

I love it, because that aint us now!

 

As we slowly brought more beauty into our physical building, not everyone was happy about those changes.

 

And that’s normal.

 

Some people felt it too “busy” in the church.

 

Some people feared stained glass windows for fear that it was would darken the church.

 

People feared a memorial garden because they didn’t want to see a cemetery on the church property.

 

People feared a bell because it might irritate the neighbors.

 

But a few weeks ago, Greta Taylor, who has been attending St. Stephen’s since the late 1950s pulled me aside and told me how she loved the fact the door to sacristy was moved.

 

It looked like how it was when she first started attending here.

 

And that all the attention when one enters is directed to exactly where it should be—on the altar, and on the beautiful cross above the altar, that has come to truly symbolize our community here.

 

This renovation has been a much-needed boost.

 

And I know our Altar Guild rejoices in it.

 

But we are more than our windows, our altar, our cross, our bell, our tower, our organ, our labyrinth, our memorial garden, our renovated sacristy.

 

We are so much more than these four walls and this roof.

 

This building symbolizes and reflects who and what we are—a parish based on Peace and Social Justice with a healthy dose of High Church worship and spirituality in our following of Jesus in this world.

 

But even that doesn’t fully represent who we are.

 

This past Wednesday night I preached about Paul Jones, who is commemorated in our Peace and Social Justice window,  and, more specifically, about the book Outlaw Christian by my friend Jacqueline Bussie.

 

If you have not read this book, READ THIS BOOK!

 

Jacqueline Bussie and her late husband Matt Myer attended briefly this church.

 

She saw in us an outlaw Christian community.

 

Outlaw Christians are people are not afraid to rant, and speak out, and rail at the realities we are faced with.

 

Outlaw Christians don’t sugarcoat it.

 

Holy, righteous ranting and speaking out and not conforming to the status quo is very much a part of our peace and social justice tradition, as well as our High Church bent.

 

You don’t believe me?

 

Look at these windows!

 

These windows are rants!

 

These windows are our sermons.

 

Our whole, 67 year ministry here at St. Stephen’s is a rant—a long, impassioned, often angry speech.

 

And yes, I did say angry.

 

Anger isn’t always a bad thing.

 

We need to be angry about some things.

 

And I am angry.

 

I am angry when we are told to put our flames under bushels.

 

I am angry when I am told that we should be comply, that we should simply go with the flow.

 

Holy, righteous anger is not a bad thing.

 

And many of us are here because we are angry at the way the Church has treated us in the past.

 

On this Dedication Sunday, I very proudly boast of all that God has done here.

 

And if my boasting may at times sound like a rant at times, I make no apologies for that.

 

I have no qualms about boasting about what all of us are doing here at St. Stephen’s.

 

In our wonderful reading this morning from St. Peter, we find him saying,

 

“Once you were not a people,

but now you are God’s people;

once you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy.”

 

When we look around us this morning, as we celebrate 67 years of this unique, spiritual powerhouse of a congregation, we realize that truly we are on the receiving end of a good amount of mercy.

 

We realize that mercy from God has descended upon us in this moment.

 

And it is a glorious thing.

 

So, what do we do in the face of glorious things?

 

We sing!

 

We rejoice!

We give thanks!

 

And, as unbelievable as it might seem at times, we cannot take it for granted.

 

We must use this opportunity we have been given.

 

We realize that it is not enough to receive mercy.

 

We must, in turn, give mercy.

 

We, this morning, are being called to echo what St. Peter said to us in our reading this morning.

 

We, God’s own people, are being called to “proclaim

the mighty acts of [God] who called [us] out of

darkness into [that] marvelous light.”

 

We proclaim these mighty acts by our own acts.

 

We proclaim God’s acts through mercy, through ministry, through service to others, through the worship we give here and the outreach we do from here.

 

I love being the cheerleader for St. Stephen’s.

 

God is doing wonderful things here through each of us.

 

Each of us is the conduit through which God’s mercy and love is being manifested.

 

In our collect for this morning, we prayed to God that “all who seek you here [may] find you, and be filled with your joy and peace…”

 

That prayer is being answered in our very midst today.

 

That joy is being proclaimed in song today.

 

And although it may seem unbelievable at times, this is truly how God works in our midst.

 

God works in our midst by allowing us to be that place in which God is found, a place in which joy and peace and mercy dwell.

 

So, let us continue to receive God’s mercy and, in turn, give God’s mercy to others.

 

Let us rant.

 

Let us continue to be the outlaw Christians we have been throughout our history.

 

But at the same time, let us be a place in which mercy dwells.

 

Because when we do we will find ourselves, along with those who come to us, echoing the words of Jacob from our reading in the Hebrew Bible this morning,

 

“How awesome is this place! This is none

other than the house of God, and this is the gate of

heaven.”