After reading the lesson this morning from the Gospel of Mark about Jesus’ first time in action in the synagogue where he is confronted by a man with an unclean spirit whom he had to silence to restore order, I’m hoping that my first annual meeting at St. Mark’s does not have quite that kind of excitement.

Today’s reading is about Jesus, a faithful Jew, beginning his public ministry by teaching in the synagogue. His new teaching unsettled people and troubled them at times, yet many were deeply attracted to the spiritual life he opened up in front of them.

This view into the worship life of Jesus in the synagogue invites us to consider our own worship and community life here at St. Mark’s. Why is that we gather in this place each week? For many of us, we gather after a hectic and challenging week to find some peace, some comfort, some time to recollect ourselves for the week ahead. For others, our gathering here is a very purposeful search for meaning and direction in our lives. We come to listen, to open our hearts to the message of God, however it may come to us this day: in the readings, a phrase from the sermon, a line from one of the hymns, the nurturing moment of the Eucharist, or a conversation with a friend at coffee hour.

Worship is at the center of what we do as a people of God. Worship is where we are reminded of who we really are, beloved people of God, called to be God’s people in the world. Worship is not meant to be productive time, we are not trying to accomplish anything or check anything off of our to-do list. We are simply spending time with God. As Urban T. Holmes said it so beautifully, “When Episcopal worship is at its best, its liturgy, its poetry, its music and its life can create a world of wonder in which it is very easy to fall in love with God.”

When we gather as a community we are listening, trying to turn our lives in a God-ward direction, attempting to tune our hearts in a way that we can be open and ready for what God wants to do within us. If we take a rather profound approach to worship, worship is not where we come to get what we need from God, but rather where God gets ahold of us, where God can get our attention and get what God desires from us.

I have a good friend who is fond of asking, “Where have you seen God at work in your life this week?” It is a wonderfully juicy and terrifying question. And it is a question that I want to try to ask about our own community of St. Mark’s. Where has God been at work in our midst these past months?

The answer to this question has many answers and I hope that it begins a conversation within the parish that takes on a life of its own. This question is not just about activity and accomplishments, it is about where we have sensed the spirit at work in our midst and where the spirit might be leading us as a community of faith.

On my first Sunday here, the community threw a big party. We had a wonderful celebration in the Fish Memorial Garden that made it clear we were going to be a people who knew how to celebrate, how to party and to thank God for new beginnings and a future. While eating hamburgers on the lawn, we enjoyed accordion music from some of our storied members and the fellowship of nearly 200 people. I was overwhelmed by the hospitality and joy all around. One of the things that I have come to believe about St. Mark’s is that it is and will continue to be a community that knows how to have a good time, knows how to celebrate and enjoy God’s goodness together. After all of the pain and loss that came with the church split in 2009, it is an incredible blessing to once again be a growing community that has a future to celebrate. God has indeed done something truly amazing in this place. Our God is a God of surprises and I think that there were many who did not think that St. Mark’s would once again be filled with people and children and joy. Surprise! The gift of fun and joy was again palpable at our Celebration of New Ministry, where we danced and ate and created fellowship together. It will soon be true again at our Mardi Gras Celebration that I hope all of you will try to attend and bring your friends for a wonderful party that sets the stage for the season of Lent.

Early on in my time here, we asked a group of people to come together to talk about ministry with children and youth in our midst. That meeting was a very moving one for me as 19 parishioners, old and new, arrived to not only talk about children but to make commitments and to create teams of people willing to reach out in loving care to the children and youth of our parish. Many have come together to collaborate and create a wonderful environment for nurturing our children’s spiritual lives, for sharing with them our sacred story and to invite them into a lively conversation about God’s loving purposes for his creation and his people. We are truly blessed at St. Mark’s by all those who have joyfully taken a share of our responsibility to teach our children and to become their spiritual friends and mentors. It is something that we want St. Mark’s to be known for in this city, one of our legacies that I am so grateful to be a part of in this place. One of the things that God has been doing here in the last four months is bringing families with children into this community and I cannot tell you how many people have expressed their joy at seeing this church once again full of children, laughing, playing soccer in the garden, singing at the offertory in our Treble choir, eating handfuls of cookies during coffee hour, serving as acolytes, participating in the Christmas pageant, and taking communion with the community each Sunday.

St. Mark’s not only cares about children and youth, they are also very committed to caring for our senior members whom we call Celebrities. Each month, a wonderful group of people, prepare a special time for them on the second Thursday that includes Holy Eucharist, a luncheon and often entertainment. It is a ministry of connection and community and pastoral care that I am so pleased to be a part of in this place. I have never been a part of an Episcopal Church made this kind of effort to stay connected and to honor its seniors and it is an example of what a blessing a church community can be throughout one’s life. I have felt God at work through this ministry, and it is an important aspect of Pastoral Care in our community. In addition to this ministry, I have been part of an emerging group of people who are deeply interested in providing pastoral care to our members and who have begun to shape a team that will help the clergy of the parish to reach out in this area of loving care, prayer and presence.

One of the most remarkable things about St. Mark’s in the past four months has been the growth and change. At times I myself have been overwhelmed by the goodness of God in the form of people arriving at St. Mark’s from all over the city and from our neighborhood to help rebuild a faith community at just the right time. It is hard to imagine the kind of growth and life that has emerged in this place in such a short time, but it is a sign of God’s work among us. We are blessed and I think that many of us are still pinching ourselves to make sure that all of this good news is really true. Our congregation has more than doubled in the past months and I wish that I had a recording of the hundreds of times the members of St. Mark’s have expressed their deep joy and gratitude about this welcome infusion of members into our spiritual community here. Jesus in his high priestly prayer prayed, “that they all might be one” and we as a community need to remember that prayer and live into it as much as possible. We are intended to be one people of God here in this place. One of the most important things we can do to make the possible is to work hard at breaking down any sense of old and new members, to work hard in all of our areas of ministry to make them permeable to newcomers, to work at welcoming one another into this new community that God is creating in and through us. So, I want to encourage you to speak with people you do not know yet or are new to you at coffee hour and during forum. Invite one another out to lunch or over to dinner. Do all in your power to integrate this community in a way that at next year’s annual meeting, there will not be any need to talk of old and new members but rather of one vital and dynamic people of God, one body of Christ. Our vestry elections today are a good example of integrating the parish and including both new and old members into the sphere of leadership. I believe this is an important sign of health for our community. If we are to survive as a faith community, we will have to work hard to make sure that all are truly welcome in this place. Together we are a part of something remarkable that God is doing in this city, rebuilding a congregation that many had left for dead. I was called here to rebuild this congregation and to the extent that any one leader can do that I am working hard and will continue. But the truth is that rebuilding this community is a calling, for all of us. I need your help. Or perhaps a better way to say it is we need each other’s help.

One of the signs of God’s work in the world is in reaching out to those in need both within our community and beyond it. In these past months, I have witnessed the loving and compassionate care of our community in many ways. I have seen a team of people come together to help a family in our parish that was in severe crisis around housing. It was for me one of the most tangible acts of God’s love in the world that I had ever witnessed. We are blessed to have people within our parish who even throughout the darkest days of the division continued to reach out to those in need through our Friends Feeding Friends ministry. We are also blessed to have an emerging group of people who are interested in the connection between faith and democracy and who have begun to partner with other area churches and other institutions in our city through Albuquerque Interfaith to advocate for the most vulnerable in our society, children, the unemployed and immigrants by becoming active and faithful citizens animated by the core values of our Christian faith and life. All of this tells me that St. Mark’s will continue to be a place of powerful witness to the values of the Kingdom of God in our neighborhood, our city and our state for years to come. As a people of God, we have something powerful and worthwhile to offer the world. The promises of our baptismal covenant to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being” and to “seek and serve Christ in all persons loving your neighbor as yourself” shape a powerful calling to us as a community. If we are bold and courageous enough to act on this calling and to reach out beyond the wall of our church community into the larger community, we will find that our witness to God’s goodness will grow and so will St. Mark’s as we become not an enclave of our own private concerns but a transforming community that is open and relevant to the people in the neighborhoods around us. This will be the theme of our All Parish Lenten retreat in March that you will be hearing more about at the annual meeting.

St. Mark’s is being blessed by your presence and participation in what God is doing. We need the talents, energy, resources, ideas and determination of all of our members to help St. Mark’s move from a place of trying to survive to one of thriving. I’m hopeful that this next year will continue to be one of growth and change and excitement within this community and I’m thankful for your radical sense of welcome and your openness to God’s transforming ways in our midst.

St. Mark’s is an amazing place and I for one am grateful to be a part of this faith community. Three years ago the idea that the associate rector from St. Michael’s would become the rector of St. Mark’s was inconceivable and now it is just another example of God’s surprising and hilarious ways.

It is my hope that St. Mark’s will represent a different kind of Christianity for many in our city that is much needed. Not the hard-edged, brittle, judgmental Christianity that so many of us have escaped or are recovering from, but rather a Christianity that has a deep reservoir of grace at its center. One that believes that God continues to reveal a faithful way that draws ever larger circles to include one another.

I’m reminded of the words of a rhyme:

They drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, something to flout. 

But Love and I had the wit to win: 

We drew a circle that took them in.

In a place that has suffered so much under the forces that divide people of faith, it is my hope that St. Mark’s will become a truly reconciling community: a place where all of God’s children are truly welcome, a place where you don’t have to check your brain at the door of the church, a community in which the questions are as important as the answers. A place where you can belong while you are figuring out what it means to believe. A place where all who present themselves at our door are to be welcomed in the name of Christ. A place that embraces fully our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ and invites them into all areas of ministry and life including access to ordination and the celebration of their lifelong and loving relationships.

It is my hope and desire that St. Mark’s become a faith community in which the life-changing way and teaching of Jesus is a lively word for us today, a word we believe our world needs now more than ever. A word of hope instead of despair, a word of forgiveness instead of hate, a word of building community rather than taking sides, a word that compels us to protect and serve the most vulnerable in our midst, a lively word that gives us the motivation and energy to be Christ-like in a world that has nearly forgotten what it means to be civil and respectful let alone loving and compassionate.

St. Marks’ is a gift to families who desire that their children to grow up around the diversity and joy and care of a place like this. We are a gift to parents who want their children to have the spiritual grounding and faithful story of God’s ways deeply planted in their heart so that they know a more excellent way to live than the cutthroat competition and rampant consumerism that surrounds us on every side.

We are a gift to every person who comes into this place on a Sunday morning to discover anew the source of their life energy that they depend on each and every day. Our open and nurturing Eucharistic table, the heart-stirring words of our liturgy and preaching, the powerful music and healing silence are all part of nurturing the life energy within each of us in the power of God’s Spirit so that we can do our best to do good work in the world, to be loving and patience and attentive parents, to be sensitive and sacrificing lovers, to be supportive and pastoral friends.

I want you to think about what the legacy of St. Mark’s will be in this city? What do we want the city of Albuquerque to say about us in the years to come? That we took care of ourselves? That we survived? I think we want them to say more than that. How about that as faith community we really loved one another and that it was demonstrated in the way we cared for one another, the way we reached out to our neighborhood and our city as the compassionate people God called us to be?

To you, the people of St. Mark’s, this day, I tell you that you are blessed to be blessing in this place. This is truly an exciting time to be a part of this community. You have something special and it will be my joy and delight to see how God will work in and through you in the years to come to transforming lives through the power of God’s love and compassion. Together, we are rebuilding something beautiful for God and that is a deep privilege that binds us together as one.