From the Rector

Many & One, In the Spirit / Muchos y Uno, en el Espíritu

Rector’s Address to St. Michael & All Angels Annual Parish Meeting
January 26, 2025

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many,
are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—and we
were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (First Corinthians 12:12-13)

As I spoke on briefly in my sermon this morning, the First Epistle to the church in Corinth was
written to a fledgling Christian community, struggling to come to into its own identity with core
theological understandings, values, organizing principles, and commitments—and situated within the
context of a secular society based on extreme hierarchy exercise of power to maintain order.

There was one major overarching problem that seemed to plague the Corinthians more than anything
else (an indication that they were struggling to distinguish and separate from the experience
Empire): disagreement and division. Factions were prone to form, and silos be erected, spurred by a
host of differences of experience, opinion, and visions of the future.

In the passage we read in worship today, we learn there had become a habit among the folks of
giving preference to those with certain honorable or useful qualities or abilities; and
marginalizing others less desirable, useful, or glamorous qualities or abilities.

In response, Paul lifts up this powerful metaphor for the church as the Body of Christ. The image
of the body is especially helpful for its after layer of complexity and integration. The metaphor
doesn’t break down easily.

Paul writes: “Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the
body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”

It is an image of existential interconnectedness: members of the community in Christ and with one
another. If challenges basic assumptions underlying all the most divisive and explosive
disagreements that crop up in the church, then and now.

In this understanding, church isn’t just another hierarchical organization, nor a club, nor a
well-organized service organization; it’s not simply a system of gives and takes to keep everybody
in line. The church is a body – a living and breathing and interconnected organism, in which even
the head cannot survive and function properly without the rest, and yet each part only thrives when
it is honored and cared for to function fully as its own self and according to its own gift and purpose.

If we as church purpose to grow into this identity of interdependence and interconnectedness,
celebration of diversity and complexity, then what does this mean for the year ahead?

It means that we will share a lot of time together in listening to one another, honoring one
another, and building our capacity to work together.

  • The Strategic Vision process is essential to this process, perhaps more important now than ever
    (even as new urgencies arise in the evolving political situation). In the Vision & Strategy
    Committee, we have a team that is unique to St. Michael’s in recent years, with a truly
    multicultural and bilingual composition, representing a broad spectrum of diversity on many levels.
    While together the VSC team is learning tools to facilitate this process, the committee is also
    experimenting among ourselves with new ways of being together and sharing power, influence and
    resources. It will help us walk with the entire parish community, growing into our identity as an
    interconnected and interdependent body.
  • This call to be a body (honoring and celebrating diversity and complexity and
    interdependence) doesn’t stop at honoring individuals. It’s also about blessing various ministry
    groups and commitments (the ones in place now, and the ones that will arise as we move forward).
    St. Michael’s engages a wide and wonderful array of ministries–within the parish, out into the
    neighborhood, and to God in prayer and worship. Our ministries must also come to see one another
    with honor and respect, seeking how we can bless each other and learn from one another and share
    resources together. It means less defending of territories, and staking out domains. More
    listening, honoring, and building up one another.
  • Also, in the year ahead, our staff community will take a new shape with new calls and hires, and
    with the retirement of Gloria. It will be difficult to say goodbye to Gloria in this
    central and practically indispensable role she has fulfilled for many years; In the past year and a
    half, I have come to appreciate and rely on Gloria’s insight and expertise, as I know many have for
    a long time. It will also be disruptive to search for and hire and enfold new colleagues onto the
    ministry team; and it will require patience and trust in one another to navigate the transitions
    into a new season. Please know that the way we continue to invest in staff is directly related to
    my own ability to fulfill the call as your pastor. These wonderful individuals – Gloria, Leslie,
    Hannah, Brian, Lenia, Manny and now Padre Jesús – extend our capacity to equip, train and bless
    folks to share in our ministries of worship, connection, and service as a parish community. As we
    meet additional transitions, the goal is to expand our ability to fulfill this ministry among you.
  • Finally, I will mention that we will begin talking this year about fundraising and the kind of
    capital campaign necessary to upgrade our HVAC system and efficiencies in the building. This won’t
    be a quick project or a quick fix, and we should pray that things don’t break faster than we are
    ready to repair and replace! But our building is part of what enables us to be together and to serve our neighbors; as stewards of this place we
  • must build on a good year of financial stewardship to plan for the future as God enables us.

In community with one another, we bring and share all that we are. We learn to offer ourselves for
the good of the whole community, even when that means there isn’t an immediately apparent place to
do our best or favorite things. Patience, relationship, other- focused living for the flourishing
of every member. God is calling us into this becoming in 2025.

This is Church. It is being the interconnected, interdependent, loving, messy, forgiving,
accepting, growing organism that exists for the sake of Jesus’ ministry in the world.

And in it all, I am with you – and I pray that you are with us, with one another.

Many and One / Muchos y Uno, en el Espíritu / In the Spirit

Amen.

The Rev. R. Scott Painter, Rector
Email: scottp@stmaa.org

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To Seek and Serve God in all Persons

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger people for the living of life! Do not pray for tasks equal to your gifts. Pray for the gifts to meet the work in front of you! Then the doing of your work will not be the miracle. But you shall be the miracle. And every day you shall wonder at the grace, mercy, love and power that has come from God through you into the world.

Dear Siblings,

When I was serving in Texas, I often encountered the words above. They are adapted for our times from writing by Phillips Brooks, a priest and bishop who served in Massachusetts in the years following the Civil War. (Brooks penned the Christmas hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem.)

These updated words are preamble to a blessing that Bishop Andy Doyle of Texas almost always offers at the conclusion of liturgies.

Serving progressive parishes in a blue city within a dark red state, I was readily aware of how much I needed it to be true. Always mindful of tension between our core commitments of faith and the wider culture that had us surrounded. Over time, the words, prayers, and blessing for the work got deep in my bones. I am so grateful for that gift.

This week we have entered into a difficult time, particularly as a parish in solidarity with many members and neighbors who are immigrants and LGBTQ+ folk. In truth, it is a hard time for almost everyone: a disorienting, overwhelming, frightening. We find ourselves with less power and agency than we’ve known in a lifetime in this country.

During the last few days, I’ve been leaning hard into Bishop Doyle’s exhortation and the prayers that flow from it—that God will give me and you and us the gifts, strength, courage, wisdom, tenacity, and the love to undertake the work that comes to us.

I believe this is a prayer God faithfully answers. God will help us as we continue to do as we promise in our baptismal covenant: to continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers; to resist evil; to proclaim in word and deed the good news of God in Christ; to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves; to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. These are enormous promises to keep, and we’ll need divine help and guidance to accomplish them.

There will be more to share soon about planning and organizing that is underway to prepare for the needs and challenges ahead. For now, let us pray that God will bring miracles of grace into the world through us, one day at a time.

With you,

The Rev. R. Scott Painter
Email: scottp@stmaa.org

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