Before our family left for our cross-country trip during this summer’s sabbatical, I had been warned by a fellow parishioner.  “I never really understood the word ‘awesome’ until I saw the Grand Canyon,” she told me.  The word awesome seemed so underwhelming – maybe because we use the word for things that are less than awesome – an awesome movie, an awesome meal, an awesome day.  But as I stood at the rail, overlooking the massiveness of the Grand Canyon my brain scrambled.  It was as if my brain could not comprehend the sheer vastness of the view in front of me – how far does the canyon stretch?  How deep is the bottom?  How long did it take those specks that must be hikers to get there?  Or maybe, more deeply, how did God conceive of such an indescribably beautiful thing.  As tears welled in my eyes at the Grand Canyon’s inconceivability, I finally understood the word:  awesome.

In today’s Gospel, that is the reaction of the crowd to Jesus.  Jesus comes into the temple on the sabbath and teaches like no other teacher has.  The teachers they know “always say, ‘as Moses said,’ or ‘as Rabbi so-and-so said.’  Jesus [speaks] with a quiet but compelling authority all of his own.”[i]  And the people are astonished, awestruck, amazed.  And their amazement does not stop with Jesus’ unique authority in his teaching.  They see his unique words carry with them power to make the unclean clean.[ii]  Like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, their minds are scrambled.  They cannot understand this new thing.  They are just beginning to taste what one scholar describes as “One of the salient characteristics of [the Gospel of] Mark…the motif of surprise, wonder, awe, and fear…reactions [that] embrace all aspects of Jesus’ ministry…”[iii]  Those gathered today watch Jesus and can clearly say he is awesome.

This past year of ministry at Hickory Neck has struck me in a similar way.  I have stepped back many a time and looked at this community with a sense of awe.  I have told you repeatedly that one of the core values of Hickory Neck is our sense of curiosity – our willingness to try new things.  I talk about that core value a lot because that core value is extremely uncommon in churches.  Put more simply:  our core value of experimentation and playfulness is awesome.  I watched as your Sabbatical Team and your Vestry this past year embraced the idea of mutual sabbatical with gusto, confidence, and playfulness.  I watched as this parish didn’t just look at sabbatical as an obligation or a burden to bear, but as an opportunity to grow, try on new things, and encounter God in fresh ways.  I watched you learn, laugh, and love.  I watched you push yourselves and encourage one another.  I watched you grow in your relationship with God and one another.  And the view was awesome!

But I also watched you in the hard things this past year.  I watched as you grieved, struggled in your faith, and said goodbye to dear friends – all while embracing and comforting one another.  I watched our Stewardship Team take on a hefty deficit budget and decide to try a new approach to stewardship that felt uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and hard – and yet ended the year not only not incurring a deficit, but only using 8% of the savings we planned to use.  I watched as your Vestry held itself accountable to strategic goals the Vestry set for itself and I watched the Vestry struggle through hard questions of process and systems – and I saw the Vestry grow into the fullness of their leadership.  I watched a community struggle with decreased volunteerism and long-held preferences for the “way we have always done things,” – and I watched our community step boldly into doing things differently.  And I have to tell you, even (and maybe especially) in the hard stuff of ministry, the view has been awesome!

We started 2023 as almost two communities:  those long-timers who have been a part of Hickory Neck for ages but were away during long portions of the pandemic; and those newer members who made their way to Hickory Neck during- and post-pandemic who didn’t have a clue how things had “always been done” but knew they have found something special in this community.  One of our hopes had been that these two communities within a community would use our time of sabbatical to form a new Hickory Neck – to build a new way of being that involved shared leadership, creative ministries, and fresh encounters with the sacred.  I stand here today in wonder as I look at Hickory Neck a year later and I have to tell you:  the view is awesome!

We head into 2024 with some revenue challenges, with some needs for increased participation and leadership, and with the tensions that always exist in a growing church.  But we also head into 2024 with a renewed sense of wonder and awe in all that God is doing in this place.  From reenergized ministries to the wider community:  hosting the homeless, building beds for the children in our community who haven’t had a bed, feeding the hungry, and clothing those who struggle; to fresh, creative ministries that we have never tried before:  a children’s music ministry that will launch this summer with a chorister camp; to invitations to grow closer to that Jesus who is truly awesome – through liturgies, study, and service.  God has incredible things in store for us this year:  and the view is awesome!  Amen.    

[i] N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 11.

[ii] Gary W. Charles, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 311.

[iii] John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 2 (Collegeville, MN:  Liturgical Press, 2002), 79.