Lay Homily

John Gordon Hill
October 30, 2005

Twenty-six years, and four rectors ago, a young couple showed up at St. Paul’s on a Sunday morning. They had a one-year-old daughter and were expecting their second child. They were looking for a church home, and not ten minutes into the service, they found it. Certainly they were impressed with the lovely liturgy and music. They liked the diversity and inclusiveness of the congregation. They appreciated the thoughtful and intelligent tone. But the thing that struck them so powerfully was the unmistakable presence of the Spirit.

Through more than a quarter century of joys and pains, births and deaths, comings and goings, through raising three children to adulthood, the presence of the Spirit at St. Paul’s remained a constant for them – well, (let’s drop the third person) for us. You see, Ellen and I don’t live in the neighborhood, and I know that quite a few of you don’t either. We drive from Mercer Island several times a week because there’s something here, something that we haven’t found in quite the same way anywhere else, something unique and tangible that permeates everything that happens in this place.

What do I mean by the presence of the Spirit? Is this some New Age woo-woo thing involving wind chimes and Ouija boards? OK, maybe not – though there is a mystery at the heart of it. The Bible describes the Holy Spirit as like a great wind – a pretty good metaphor. Wind is not visible itself, but is seen by its effects: what it carries, what it pushes along, what it puts into motion.

Three years ago, our beloved Fr. Hauge retired as rector, and the parish was once again pushed to take stock of itself, of who we were, where we were going, and what we wanted. I was privileged to serve as convener of the Search Committee, presiding over a group of quite diverse, highly opinionated and impassioned St. Paul’s parishioners. Our first task was the struggle to adequately describe this place in print. We seemed to be carried along collectively to create a parish profile that did not feel like the work of a committee. It was quirky, beautiful, frank, and in some places downright poetic. People said they had never seen a parish profile quite like it.

The search process was anything but smooth, and yet… something was at work. Time and again this diverse committee found itself of one mind. The agonizing delays turned into blessings. And in the fullness of time an extraordinary woman, Mother Melissa, was called to be our new rector. You may ascribe the chance encounters and unexplained delays that led to this brilliant outcome to random coincidence. I prefer to see us carried, pushed along by the working of the Spirit in this place.

But what happened during that two-and-a-half year interim period that ended so long ago last February? We were blessed with the warm and wise interim leadership of Fr. Charles Ridge. We struggled with budget and membership decline as some people left and some adopted a wait-and-see attitude. We saw new energy well up from the congregation to raise the visibility of our parish and honestly address its financial problems.

I am a film and video director by trade, a professional control freak, if you will. Over and over St. Paul’s has schooled me in the desirability of letting go, of being carried, put into motion by this beautiful wind, as over and over much better things came into being than I could have imagined possible.

On the corner of First North and Roy stood a decrepit yellow house, charming in its day, but now pretty much beyond repair. Where some saw merely an opportunity for additional parking, a vision began to emerge, a vision of a green space. The vision was pushed along, carried as if by an invisible force. Money came forward. People came forward: Barbara Timms as facilitator of the vision; Larry Woodin, the architect; our own Becky Birinyi as landscape designer; and most miraculously, Dan Niven, a labyrinth designer, who decided to visit St. Paul’s for the first time in more than a decade on the very Sunday that the garden design, with a big hole in the middle for a labyrinth, was being presented.

The yellow house came down, revealing the amazing roof of St. Paul’s. Over the next two years, little by little, the labyrinth, fountain, masonry and stonework, landscaping, lighting, fence, and signage created our Centennial Garden, an urban oasis, a refuge. It is a visible testament to the power of the Spirit. There is no other explanation for its existence. If you watch, there is someone there nearly every hour of the day, reading, meditating, talking, eating, walking the labyrinth, or any combination of the above. It stands, day and night, as an open invitation to our fellowship.

What is all of this worth? What value do you put on sanctuary and solace, refuge and refreshment, contemplation and comforting? What is the price of a place apart from the racket and striving of day-to-day life, where the still, small voice can be heard? Here is where we are instructed, challenged, supported, and uplifted. This is the place where the doors are open to all. This is the house of the Lord, a container for grace, a home for the work of the Spirit. You, like the multitude who have sat in these pews before you, are the agents of God’s work in this place.

Let us tell the truth. What keeps these doors open? Pledges and volunteering. Work and money. For me and Ellen, St. Paul’s is the most important entity in our lives, and we are compelled to support it accordingly. All of us in this place are the ones called to uphold this work with extravagant love and open-hearted generosity. There are no others. No foundations, corporations, agencies, or endowments. And what a beautiful thing it is to know that this is here because of all of us. But it also means that what St. Paul’s is, and what St. Paul’s is to become, will be a direct result of how well each of us chooses to support it now.

We are being carried, pushed by the Spirit at this very moment. All around us are new condos and apartments. They are filled with all sorts and conditions of people, with different needs and gifts, in different places on their personal journeys. Most of them don’t know it yet, but this church with the pretty garden and the crazy roof was made for them. Maybe they’ll see an ad in the Weekly, or walk the labyrinth, or – most effectively of all – get a warm invitation from one of us.

If you are a newcomer or visitor, welcome and thank you. This holy space, this beautiful ancient liturgy and sacred music was made for you. And if you, too, feel the presence of the Spirit here, consider it an invitation to enter into a life-changing, life-long relationship – just like that young couple with the toddler all those years ago.

Amen.