Sustaining a community of faith – Dedication 2003
Ordinary Sunday 18: 3rd August, 2003
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Last year at this time I talked about the wonderful vision and hope and sacrifice of that splendid group of our forebears, who gathered together on this weekend in August 1848, to dedicate this place of worship on this Eastern Hill. In bricks and mortar terms and in community of faith terms, that saw the beginning after two years of preliminary building here on the edge of the growing village of Melbourne.
Today, 155 years on from that first Dedication, I will be talking very little of bricks and mortar and very much of what is now among the things very directly needed to gather and build and support our continuing community of faith here at St Peter's. I have no doubt that the challenge issued 155 years ago was direct too. If something is valued and cherished it has to be supported. If enough people can be gathered together to achieve a goal or to enable a goal to be continued to be achieved, then that will happen. If you want to have a church and a particular kind of church in a particular place, you have to work for it and give for it. If we Catholic Anglicans value and honour the tradition that is ours and want to see it live, then we have to work for it, give for it, share in it. We cannot think that somehow we might just limp along. What we have is too good, too fundamentally important, for that approach. In times as challenging and confronting and directly attacking as these, this is the time, by the grace of God, to be flourishing. But we will need to be tackling this together, bringing as many as we can along with us.
So then, what am I getting at? This is a time to consider again what each one of us is able to do to support St Peter's Eastern Hill and what it stands for. At the end of September those of us who use the planned giving envelope way of supporting what goes on here in our church and community will be getting a new set of envelopes for the next quarter. At the moment, with the various comings and goings that can be expected there are around about 90 of us who are doing this. As it happens, the vast majority of those who do this so well are getting older and have reduced means. They are not the ones I am talking to, except to say thank you and keep up the good work. You are doing a magnificent job.
But I am speaking directly to those not yet part of the planned giving envelopes, who are new to the parish. And I am speaking again to those who for whatever reason are very much part of the parish and are in receipt of a regular income. We do need and want your sharing of your resources and skills for the life of this community of faith here and the ministry we all have.
But on this Dedication festival day, this particular call is towards the financial. It takes money to keep this place going. Stipends, staff salaries, insurance, diocesan payments, repairs and maintenance, mission giving and social outreach, light heat and power – of course it is obvious that all these need to be resourced from somewhere. We do have some endowments which do help us and we do have some rents from some tenancies in our buildings, but the bulk of what we do and who we are is held up by æliveÆ giving – the generous and ongoing financial giving from those who are here as the people of God in this particular community of faith.
My request and the challenge to each of us who value what we do here and what we stand for, is a request and a challenge once again to commit yourselves to give to the ongoing life of this place week by week, whether we are able to be present or not. According to our ability, we are asked to do this. We are challenged to do this to a degree that is representative in financial terms of what St Peter's actually means to us and what St Peter's means in our overall scheme of things.
These are very basic issues. It starts with an assessment of the place of God and the place of the spiritual in our lives. It moves from there to a consideration of how and where we would wish to live out and to explore those core issues. And then it is a question as to how and to what degree you are able and wish to put your own resources into such a place. And the particular place we are considering here is St Peter's Eastern Hill, because if we do not put what we can into this place, who will?
So, what value God for us and what value this particular tradition of worship and service? What value a supportive community of faith and in particular this one? What value a place to grow in spiritually and in service and care to others? What value a place and a community of faith that honours and stands for a particular and generous expression of the tradition of the Catholic faith, as we Anglo Catholics have received it?
It is clear that these values and gifts and opportunities cannot be effectively nurtured and proclaimed and shared without adequate resources. How then is this all to happen and how is to happen here, if we do not better all get in there and make it happen? How can it happen if the load is not better shared by a sufficient and varied number of people across the generations and across all sorts of life experiences?
That is the crunch. What is involved is a larger group of people having a firm commitment to giving week by week to the work and witness of a particular community of faith. It is as simple as that and as hard as that. Another 20 or 30 people embracing the hopes and needs and vision of this great place and great community, in this particular and practical way, would make an enormous difference. It would make all the difference in the world. Just look at many of the practical things that we have achieved together this year. Look at the wonderful building resources we have here. Look at the skills and talents and delightful characteristics of so many of the people here. Look at our foibles and limitations too. This is no ordinary place. There is great beauty and colour and movement – and so much more. This is where almost anyone should be able to find a spiritual challenge and a spiritual home and be welcomed. So, what about it!
Right now there are people on the move, searching for just this sort of place to be part of. They will be here today, having a look. And there will be some of you who are just waiting to be asked, just waiting for the challenge to be explicitly stated. This is not because things are desperate here – far from it. Rather, this is because there is a huge job to be done and we would very much like more people to share in it
This is a time to be standing up and being counted. This is a time to be proud to be an Anglo Catholic church and community, loving God and loving neighbour. Our tradition and our community will live and thrive and be passed on to the next generations only to the extent that we ourselves are willing and able to do it. We do need to encourage more of us who are indeed regularly attending here, to make a real commitment to the life of this community here at St Peter's.
There are something like 250 of us who are on the parish lists, and there is a much larger number who visit or who come from time to time or at major festivals. But it is because we are a city church and have always had a considerable degree of fluidity about who is attending and when, that so much, too much, of a burden falls on too small a core of absolutely committed faithful who dearly love this place. In each generation we are happy to encourage more, lots more, to feel that way. Without that we die. But since we are obviously by no means dead, that message must be getting through. We do have to work at it. We do have to share what we know is good about this community of faith. We do want to welcome and encourage more of us to willingly share in the provision of the resources that are necessary, not just to survive but to flourish.
These are really challenging times. These are times when some will be questioning whether the Church is for them at all. Others will be saying that now is a time when we are going to need to gather together to worship, to care and to serve others. There are storm clouds around. There are battles that are being brought on. There are some very basic issues of who God is and what is Church and who are the people of God that have to be addressed. They will not be able to be avoided. They should not be avoided. A central city Anglo Catholic church is going to be right in the thick of things – if we were not to be, it would be because we had simply become a nostalgic museum of what had once been. The gospel is not like that and neither is the living faith of Catholic Anglicans.
If you would like to know more about the planned giving system or if indeed you would like very much to be part of it here, there is an immediate way that you can respond. At the end of many of the pews there is a welcome form. There is place on that to indicate that you would like a set of envelopes, whether you are new to St Peter's or not. Or just put a note in with the offering today or any day. We can do this better than we are. I myself am part of this. So are about 90 others who will be here some time today. Certainly though, if you have heard this message loud and clear and would like now to respond: please, simply fill in one of those forms with that information and someone will be quickly in touch.
This of course is something to actively consider for those who come new to St Peter's and who want to stay and make a contribution to the community. It is something to hear again too for some who are not new at all and who have not decided to support our life together in this way up until now. This is something for us all. To each according to their ability, from each according to their means. That is the way it works. This is the clear and simple response of thankfulness and gratitude, for what a Christian community like St Peter's can and does offer.
So this year our envelopes that we have just reordered will return to a good St Peter's red instead of green. The inscription is to read
St Peter's Eastern Hill
A community of faith:
celebrating, growing, supporting.
And that strikes me as reasonable starting point for a consideration of what we might be on about, on a Dedication festival such as today.
The Lord be with you.
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