Today’s passage from the book of Isaiah comes from the time when the people of Judea were returning to their homeland, after about fifty years – two generations – of exile in Babylon. This chapter promises return, restoration, and renewal – God remembers you, and will help you rebuild your city and your nation! But there’s also this beautiful, challenging word: “It is too light a thing [to simply restore what was before]; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” A light to the nations – something that shines out, that blesses and beckons. God says: I’m not giving you back your homeland, your comfort, your sovereignty, just for you to “get back to normal” and relax. I have big plans for you. 

When I look at the Sunday texts to start working on a sermon, I often look back at what I preached three years ago, six years ago, sometimes farther – times when the same readings came before me, in our three-year cycle. These lectionary texts came up in late January of 2020… and they were perfect for my Annual Meeting sermon that year! The final pieces of our big renovation project had wrapped up in November 2019. Even a major renovation doesn’t really compare with conquest and exile – but there had been chaos and confusion and dislocation, and some struggle, and some grief. It seemed like a season when we could finally settle in and start to enjoy the fruit of our labors. I preached on this text: God speaking to us through Isaiah to say, It is too light a thing to just move back in, tidy up, and get back to how things were before. Your renewal has a purpose beyond yourselves. This is a season to discern what comes next. 

And then… Covid arrived, and we shut our doors from March of 2020 to Easter of 2021 – and worshipped outside for months more. We finally moved back into our newly-renovated spaces in mid-2021 – weary, confused, diminished. Much more like those Judean exiles than we had been 18 months earlier. 

Since then, God has restored and renewed us. It was too light a thing for us to just get back to how things were before, for those who’d come through the ordeal. God started sending us new people, and new possibilities. Later in the same chapter of Isaiah, the text talks about how the restored city will flourish so much that people will look around and say, “Where did all these children come from!?” Some days the 10AM service feels like that! … 

When I look around St. Dunstan’s, I love the different generations of members I see. Folks who were here before me – some long before me. Folks who joined early in my time here, who are becoming old-timers now. Folks who joined in the later pre-Covid years… and those who joined after, and even during, the lockdown years. In so many of our groups and activities – the Finance Committee and Vestry, the Matthew study group, the Public Narrative Training group you’ll hear about later, the Outreach Committee, youth group youth, staff and volunteers, the Good Futures Accelerator folks – it is a mix of all those people, folks who’ve been around for decades and folks who haven’t been here a year yet, committed to showing up and being church for each other and seeing where it all leads us. 

And it is so easy to start listing the ways that we seem to be called to be a light right now, to shine out and share goodness and grace and generosity. We’ve talked a lot about our youth groups recently, as we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the current program. Isa shared in their annual report that there are forty youth currently connected with St. Dunstan’s, through worship, confirmation class, or youth group – and half of them are from the wider community. For years it’s been a true delight to get to work with the kids we’re raising up among us here, as they become tweens and teens. Now, somehow, something is shining out about what we’re doing here, blessing and beckoning. Bringing us new faces, new challenges, possibilities, and joys.  

We’re continuing our commitment to becoming not just an openly but an enthusiastically affirming parish for LGBTQ+ folks – which increasingly means not just celebration but support and solidarity. Deciding to put out our Pride signs in June last year was a little scary – but we also felt incredibly clear about shining our light in that way. Several of us are also working on a project to gather and train a group that can go out to other parishes in redder parts of the state and help normalize sharing church with nonbinary and transgender folks. 

I’m really enjoying sharing what we’ve learned here as part of the team for Roots and Wings, a program to help equip Episcopal clergy with tools for creating intergenerational worship. And a group energized by Public Narrative Training, led by new member Jake Schlachter, is eager to invite other motivated St Dunstan’s folk to join some kind of community response team, to train and prepare to stand by our immigrant neighbors when we’re needed. More on that later this morning! 

I can tell these are all the kinds of things God calls people to do, because they’re gracious and hopeful and at least a little bit scary. 

Let me say a word here about this year’s pledge drive – and our financial life in general. I want to make sure people realize what a big deal it is. A year ago right now, we had $276,000 in pledges in hand. We were hopeful that more would come in – it often does – so we adopted a budget anticipating $285,000. Even so, it was a deficit budget; we expected to spend about $7000 more than we would take in. This past fall, we looked at strong giving, and we looked at what we need, and we set an ambitious goal for our giving campaign: $300,000 in pledges. Y’all, that was a stretch goal. I didn’t really think we could do it. But we did. You did. We have $302,000 in pledges right now. We’re presenting a balanced budget today. 

That doesn’t mean our finances are all squared away for good, or that we won’t be stretched again in the future. We still have work to do on that front. But it’s a tremendous accomplishment and milestone. I’m staggered and delighted and humbled by people’s willingness to invest here – moeny, time, care, and much more. And I feel really confident that we, the givers, and God, the giver, hasn’t done this so we can settle down and relax. Being less anxious about money does matter – a scarcity mindset makes it harder to respond to needs and opportunities. But it would be too light a thing for us to have enough, just for our own comfort. God is equipping and sending us to be light. 

I think God is up to all kinds of things here, among us. And: we’re just a quirky little church (well, medium-sized church) trying to figure out what’s ours to do, and do it. 

In John’s Gospel, when he introduces John the Baptist, some religious officials come out from Jerusalem to see what he’s up to. They ask him, Who are you? And John says, “I am not the Messiah.” I AM NOT THE MESSIAH. I’m not the One Sent by God to save and restore and set everything right.

I’m not the Messiah. Such an important word for many clergy, but also for all kinds of folks who carry the weight of the world, who feel a lot of responsibility for other people and their community. I happen to know there are quite a few of you in the room. 

I’m not the Messiah. We’re not the Messiah. 

What does that mean for us right now in this moment? Three things come to mind for me. 

First,  we don’t have to do everything, or be all things to all people. Sometimes I see what another church or organization is doing and I feel a little FOMO – fear of missing out: it’s cool and I wish we could do that! Or I feel a little shame – that church is so much better at X than we are.  

I know that happens with y’all, too. You remember something from another church and think, Why don’t we do that here? And sometimes we can, and do! And sometimes it doesn’t fit – our priorities, our skills, our capacity, our calendar. And folks are disappointed. Some folks drift off elsewhere looking for that thing. But as people are constantly telling me, we do a LOT for a church of our size. We don’t have to do all the things; in fact, we can’t. We have to practice some discernment. We have to know what’s ours to do, and try to do that well. For me, that tends to come clearest by seeing where our shared energy and effort gathers and flows. Where two or three, or six or seven, gather together, readily and gladly, God is probably in the midst of them.

The second thing I am not the Messiah could mean to us is that we should anticipate seeking and working with partners, companions, and mentors. We’re part of a terrific new diocese, eager to support parishes. The Wisconsin Council of Churches is an amazing organization helping equip churches to do good together. There are other organizations and partners we can learn from and work with, on several of our emerging horizons. We don’t always need to build our own thing or reinvent the wheel. It can be work to find the right partners and develop relationships. It can be a different kind of work to adjust to other priorities, cultures, and habits, and let the common mission be more important than doing things our way. But the partnership, the togetherness, the capacity and connection have real value. 

Years ago I learned from friend of the parish Jonathan Melton that ____ always asked two questions about a new situation: What does the Gospel say about this? And, Whom can we ask for help? 

The third thing that I am not the Messiah means is that, well, we should expect God to be at work, among us and through us. That seem like it should be obvious, but we really do need to change our hearts to see where the Kingdom of God is coming near. Scholars of modern American Christianity sometimes talk about functional atheism – meaning, we talk as if we believe in God and expect God to be active in the world, but we do not act as if those things are true. Church consultant Gil Rendle explains, “While speaking of depending on God, the functional atheist actively depends on [their] own agency and the resources that can be produced.” Parker Palmer describes functional atheism as “the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with me.” 

Churches and church folk absorb from the wider culture this mindset that human actions alone shape the future. Even me! Listen, becoming a priest is not a promotion for being the most faithful layperson. So, I can look at all the obvious signs of God at work among us, doing far more than we could have asked or imagined, and still look at a new idea or need and think, Oh no, we couldn’t possibly. I still measure what’s feasible by what we’ve been and done yesterday, and not by what God can help us be and do, today and tomorrow. 

We’re not the Messiah. We shouldn’t, and can’t, do all the things. But we’re called to be light. And we’re not alone. God’s got us, and we’ve got each other. Let’s see where this new year leads us. 

Here’s one of my favorite prayers from the prayer book; let us 

pray. O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were being cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by the One through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.