Seventh Sunday of Easter
Our homily today is from our Program Director, Melissa Simpson in honor of graduate Sunday and Mother’s Day.
Today is an intersection of a lot of change in our lives. Some of us are graduating from high school or college. We are parents watching our children take those first steps of independence. We are mothers watching our children reach milestones, embrace their personalities, and move further away from our arms. We are a church who has transitioned through three rectors in the last two years. As Episcopalians we have a new bishop in Arkansas and soon to be a new presiding bishop later this year.
With change can come anxiety about the future. We’re at the end of the Easter season, a period after the resurrection of Jesus where we look internally on how we can change and be born again. Our disciples though had Jesus to lean on and ask for guidance, including what was going to happen in the future. And just before he ascended into Heaven, he told our disciples not to worry about everything, that is for God to know and do, but to leave this place and go be Christ’s witnesses to the world.
In our reading from Acts we see them gather after Jesus has left. Peter is now their designated leader and his first order of business is to replace Judas. There’s no rule that says there needs to be 12 disciples, but this is what Peter has decided. Perhaps that was a way to help with the anxiety of the situation, to bring some semblance of order they had during their time with Jesus. But they trusted Jesus and believed in his ministry. They lifted their concerns through prayer and invited the Holy Spirit in. Matthias is chosen. And in a few days the Holy Spirit will descend on them on what we call Pentecost, which marks the beginning of the Christian’s mission work in the world.
When anxiety exists around change, we must remember like the disciples to stop and pray, allowing the Holy Spirit to work through us. We must remember too that during these changes we must lean on each other. This is the unity that Jesus speaks about as he prays over the disciples in the Gospel reading today: “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
A few weeks ago, I was experiencing a lot of anxiety. I made the decision to give up Coffee and Soda to maybe help my heart from racing at night and my lack of sleep. That didn’t work. After doom scrolling about the news for the day and seeing the horrific images out of the Middle East, the damage from the tornados across the United States, and protesters getting arrested I just sat in my bed crying.
The next night, same course of events, same heart racing as I laid down in bed about to open my phone to catch up with the news. But something stopped me. I had this thought that I needed to pray. I pulled my Book of Common Prayer out and prayed the Daily Office service In the Early Evening.
That Sunday a parishioner stopped me and asked if I was ok. Normally I would just brush it off and state that I was fine just busy, but instead I felt like this was Christ working through the parishioner to hear me. I opened my anxieties to her, and she listened. She didn’t have an answer to fix it, nor was I looking for one, but she said she would continue to keep me in her prayers.
We shouldn’t be afraid to be vulnerable and share how we’re feeling. There’s plenty of people in this congregation that have probably experienced the anxiety we’re feeling. Our mental health and our spiritual health can sometimes go hand in hand.
But how do we continue through these difficult times and not lose our faith.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde wrote in her book, “How we Learn to be Brave”, Jesus told his disciples the parables to encourage them to pray continually and not lose heart. Jesus knew life was hard and would continue to be. The disciples felt disappointment, but the perseverance they had to keep going, to keep moving, to hopefully connect to what Bishop Budde calls the “heart energy” and draw strength from it, even when there may be little to nothing to show for their efforts.
While we’re dealing with anxiety let’s not lose hope in what we have in front of us.
We are seeing that resurrection today in our church. Perhaps you’ve seen the national headlines that the Episcopal Church is dying. But at our parish we’ve steadily grown in membership of families with children and young adults. The Episcopal Church in Arkansas is maintaining its members, as per my conversation with our Deputy Delegation alongside Bishop Harmon last week in Little Rock. We are doing something right.
We need to stop living like we are a dying church. We need to start living by faith in our own resurrection that we are a growing church.
When I travel for work, whether it be for Episcopal Youth Event and It’s About Love in Baltimore last year, or FORMA (a gathering of Christian Formation leaders) and I start to witness what we’re doing in Arkansas and at All Saints’, I’m often met with a surprise look on their face. Two weeks ago, I attended an Episcopal Church Women’s lunch at St. Michael’s in Little Rock. At the table when asked about our parish I told them of our garden, our beautiful grounds, our solar panels, our youth, young adult and college ministries, our Neighbors Table ministry, and our new Rector. The table collectively asked, In Russellville? Yes in Russellville we have so many wonderful things happening.
And yet, I know we want to do more.
We have been so adaptable here at All Saints’ through a pandemic, staff changes, life changes, building issues and more. This time presents itself an opportunity, for both our church, our graduates, and their parents, to prayerfully discern with God our call to help continue to serve our community in new and innovative ways.
Let us leave here today lifting our anxieties to God with the knowledge that amid all our worries about change, Gods perfect resurrection is coming.
