The following sermon was delivered as the Annual Address at Hickory Neck Episcopal Church.

A few months ago, we had a fellowship event on campus that had a large group of parishioners who did not necessarily know each other.  As we made introductions around the room, I noticed a trend.  People began their Hickory Neck story with a reference to our history:  I came in the Kellett days; I came to Hickory Neck through Father Michael; I started at Hickory Neck about the same time Mother Jennifer did.  As I surveyed the room, I knew there would be parishioners who needed to introduce themselves who had never heard of the previous clergy, let alone how their personalities and ministries were different.  Suddenly, I realized there were going to be people who are a part of the Hickory Neck family whose stories start with, “I joined in the pandemic days.”  I have always bragged about how we are a diverse community politically.  But our diversity is so much bigger than our political differences:  we came here at various historical points, from very different denominational backgrounds, at different stages of life (whether as a young singleton, a new parent, or a new retiree).  Even out of your four affiliated clergy, not one of us is a cradle Episcopalian.

I love then, on this day of our Annual Meeting, that we get this reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  When Paul gathered the church in Corinth, he “attempted what scarcely anyone has tried before.  A church composed of rich and poor, Jew and Greek, and slave and free,” with none of the “normal bonds of ethnicity and family that holds a community together.”  As one scholar explains, with such diversity, the factions in Corinth were likely inevitable.[i]  To this unusual combination of people, Paul asks them to be united in the same mind and the same purpose, that everyone be in agreement and there be no division among them.  Anyone who has ever tried to accomplish anything with a group of two or more people knows this request from Paul is endearing, if not laughable.  Bless Paul’s heart!

But having gotten to know the stories of the people in this room, Paul’s encouragement for us to be united in the same mind and purpose is exactly what we are going to be doing in 2023 at Hickory Neck.  We have had an incredible year leading up to this new start.  We have worshiped and learned apart during yet another shutdown, we have gained new members who found us online, we have welcomed longtimers back after a multi-year hiatus, and we have brought along neighbors and friends who just wanted to find a community where they could belong.  We have baptized, married, and buried.  We have celebrated, grieved, and grown.  We have said goodbye and lots more hellos.  And now we find ourselves at the start line of 2023 in a season of vibrancy, of hope, of promise. 

I confess, I am feeling more invigorated and excited about Hickory Neck than I have at any other time in our almost seven years together.  We have an almost entirely new staff:  a staff who is extraordinarily talented, creative, passionate, and fun-loving.  We have a Vestry who is not only a brilliant combination of longtimers and newer members, but also a group who is dedicated to strategic thinking and leadership – not to mention laughter and love.  We have a Sabbatical Team who has thoughtfully and lovingly prepared a twelve-week plan of renewal and community-building activities that will bring health, refreshment, and renewed discipleship to our parish.  And we have some percolating ministries that are going to help us grow our stewardship, evangelism, formation, community engagement, and worship.

One of the things we teach our Vestry about every year is about church-size dynamics.  There is a whole science about behaviors and leadership patterns that are indicative of a church’s size.  A church who is family-sized, with just a few family units is run collectively and where everyone knows everyone else, whereas a corporate-sized parish has a highly structured leadership system and people find a sense of community through smaller groups within the larger system.  In that scientific analysis, Hickory Neck is situated in the most challenging size:  the transitional-sized parish.  We are not so small that everyone knows everyone or that one pastor can be hands on with every member; but we are also not so big that we are in a more complex and large-staffed system.  The reason our size is challenging is because there is always a tension:  a pull to be smaller, and more intimate, and a pull to grow and focus on programming and creating intimacy in multiple small group settings.  That tension has been here throughout my tenure at Hickory Neck, and I feel that tension acutely as we emerge from this pandemic:  where we have the choice to shrink into a more comfortable, manageable size, or to grow into a dynamic, changing size requiring creativity around funding, programming, and invitation.

Living in tension year after year can feel exhausting.  But living in tension can also be transformational.  When carbon is put into tremendous pressure, a diamond emerges.  I think Paul wanted the Corinthians to know that they were under that same kind of diamond-making pressure.  His advice for those hoping to become diamonds?  Be united in the same mind and the same purpose.  And how, might you wonder will the Corinthians (or Hickory Neckers) accomplish such a feat?  According to Paul, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Whether you found Hickory Neck when children were sitting in the window wells of the Historic Chapel because there was no room elsewhere, whether you were crowded into this newly constructed space with hopes and dreams about where we would go, whether a preschool on our campus meant an encounter with our community, or whether a livestream gave you a peak that made you want more – we are a community united in purpose and mind:  to seek and serve Christ, to make Christ known, to love neighbor as self, to experience belonging and meaning.  In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you will be invited into a year of pressure and transformation.  The promise is a diverse community who is ready to emerge with you.  Amen.

---

[i] James W. Thompson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 279.