It was such an amazing & extraordinary honor to serve as the keynote speaker for the 90th anniversary celebration of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Gary, Indiana! I was baptized at St. Aug's, most of my relatives have been baptized there, married there, served there and/or were buried there, and my great-grandmother Anna Washington was one of the church's prominent founders in 1927! Thanks be to God for the wonderful continuing legacy of St. Augustine's in Gary - the first and only predominantly black Episcopal church in The Diocese of Northern Indiana and (I'm told) in the entire state of Indiana!
It is such an honor to be here for this incredible event, to
celebrate the anniversary of our beloved church, St. Augustine’s. It is so good
to see all of you here, to celebrate, to remember, to give thanks and to
prepare ourselves for the road ahead as we mark this 90
th year of
our little church on 19
th street that continues to bear witness to
Christ in what our Presiding Bishop reminds us is this Episcopal branch of the
Jesus Movement. This week, which happens also to mark the great feasts of All
Saints and All Souls, I am especially reminded of that great cloud of
witnesses, the myriads and generations of those who came before us, those whom
we remember with fondness and those whose names go unrecorded, those whose acts
of generosity, of stewardship and of leadership carried on the faith and
brought us to where we stand today.
I’ve said often that I’ve been a member of St. Augustine’s
even since before I was born! By that I mean that my family has had the
enormous honor to be part of this church for now four generations, going all
the way back to its founding 90 years ago. My father grew up here, my
grandparents were married here, my great-grandmother is memorialized here and I
was baptized here. St. Augustine’s is quite literally in my blood! Love of this
place, our church, flows through my veins so deeply that now as the first
clergyman in our family, I intend to celebrate my first Eucharist as a priest
right there at St. Augustine’s! Our church is a special place, a very special
place and we must never forget it.
So as I’ve promised Fr. Hyndman, I’m nor going to preach, I
didn’t come for that today! I am however, going to speak on a text, and say a
few words on a scripture that is near and dear to my heart, that I think sheds
some light on where we are and where we ought to go from here. So I want to
attract our attention to the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, going back
to the Old Testament, and the end of the great story of the Exodus, the escape
of the Israelite people from slavery in Egypt and their wandering through the
desert for 40 long years. Now, the people at this point find themselves at the
edge of the desert, preparing to cross the river into the Promised Land, and
Moses, now aged and long in years stands at the top of the mountain and gives
the people a long discourse on what to do and how to conduct themselves after
he’s gone, and a new leader comes to carry the people on to their next journeys
in the land of Canaan. And this is what Moses says:
Read Deuteronomy 6:10-15a
All of us, the daughters and sons of St. Augustine’s are the
inheritors of a great legacy. We, standing 90 years after the founding of our
beloved community, have all been blessed to inherit in St. Aug’s houses that we
did not build, vineyards we did not plant and cisterns we did not hew. Even the
eldest among us here weren’t yet even born or at most were little children in
1927. It was those who came before us,
those who are no longer here who came up to Gary, largely from the cotton
fields of the south on which they and their parents had labored in slavery. It
was they, who arrived here seeking jobs, a better life, and maybe even an ounce
of relief from the brutal racism of the South. They whose faith in God carried
them through that great Exodus and once they had arrived in this place, built a
temple to God where future generations would worship Him in centuries yet to
come!
The author Ann Lamott, is known among many things for saying
that when it comes down to it, all prayers come down to three words “wow”
“thanks” and “help”. That at the end of the day, our expressions to God are
either (1) expressions of pure amazement, wonderment, straight dumbfounded
energy at the radiance of God’s work in the world, (2) Gratitude – thanksgiving
for those works of God and for God’s love in our lives, and (3) supplication,
asking God’s and God’s people to intervene in our lives and in the lives of one
another.
So when I think about St. Aug’s and all that we are and all
that we have achieved, the first thing I can say is just Wow! Wow that the sons
and daughters of slaves and sharecroppers were so filled with the spirit of
Christ that they built this first and only black Episcopal church in this
diocese and in this state! Wow that its architecture is a recognized historical
treasure and a lighthouse for the love of Jesus! Wow that its founders were the
first generation of black college graduates at the height of segregation. Wow
that those great matriarchs and patriarchs passed down so much of themselves
and their histories and their legacies that generations later we can gather to
celebrate all that they accomplished. Wow! And so we stand in awe of all God
has done and continues to do in the lives of this church an in our world.
And in those 90 years, so many saints of our church, beloved
souls have come through this place. They mothered and fathered our beloved
congregation, starting ministries and serving the poor, giving rest to the
weary and clothing the naked. This place has borne witness and even led in the
great histories of the last century and of this century. It was the parents and
grandparents of my generation, many of whom are here in this room, who fought
for civil rights, were black pioneers in their fields. It was they who raised
up and led alongside good clergy to raise up younger generations in the faith –
some of whom are in this room and some of whom have gone on to proclaim and
serve God in other places.
Many of us who sit here today are the children of those
generations – I think of people like my grandmother Jane Graves Hill and my
uncle Tid Washington, People like Ms. McCants and those who donated what they
had in life an even in death to keep our beloved church strong through the generations.
Some of us here were peers of those women and men, people who dug with them the
wells from which my generation is now blessed to drink. People who planted the
olive trees from which I and my generation now gain shade, from whose fruit we
are nourished. They, and many of you here, year after year gave of yourselves
day after day, in the heat of the sun and in the freezing Indiana winters, to
maintain and improve this place for 90 long years.
And so for this we tell God not only Wow but Thank you!
Thank you God that you’ve provided and inspired people through the generations
to strengthen this church that we celebrate today. Thank you that the storms of
all these decades have not dampened our devotion or wearied our spirit. Thank
you that the love of Jesus is as manifest today as it was in 1927 and before.
Thank you that when the first black Presiding Bishop was looking for the best
congregation to visit in Northern Indiana he looked no further than here to St.
Augustine’s in Gary, Indiana! Thank you that there are those of us here who are
willing and able to carry this place for decades more into the future! Thank
you!
And so, I want to return for a moment to the Deuteronomy
text from the 6th chapter and the 20th verse. Moses
continues and he addresses what to do with the next generations of the future
of the Israelite people saying:
Read Deuteronomy
6:20-24
Teach your children and grandchildren of all that God has
done for them through all these many years! Teach them to love and serve God
and one another and the legacies of their ancestors. As Moses says elsewhere in
Deuteronomy, take God’s word and strap it to your foreheads and tie it to your
arms. Wear it around your necks and nail it to your doorposts. Read it as they
wake up and as they go to bed. Rear them in the faith as many of us were reared
in the faith. When they ask you “what is the meaning of these things” tell
them. And do not just stay in our building, no matter how beautiful it may be,
but go out into the world, teaching not just your children, but those children
in your neighborhoods, communities, schools and programs. Reach out to those
around you - get out of your comfort zones and interact with those whom you would
not otherwise interact. Build connections to young and old alike, and let
nothing – not one thing – stop you from sharing the love of Jesus Christ in
this world. Continue to share and give generously, be stewards of this Church
as our predecessors were stewards to us.
Above all, be builders of the Church and builders of the
Faith! Join me in digging wells from which others will drink, planting trees
under which others will receive shade and harvest their fruit, build the City
of God in ministries through which others will live and love and raise their
families! It is my hope, my conviction that Our church – beloved St.
Augustine’s – will last long and strong after every one of us here has left
this life for the next. And it will be left to those behind us to carry on that
joy, that responsibility and that promise into a future yet unknown.
And so the final prayer I have for you and for God today is
simply “help”. Help join with me, with your priest and your bishop, to carry
this church into a future we cannot know. Help me in recommitting ourselves and
our church to the stewardship not merely of a building or an institution but of
the people of Jesus Christ in Gary, Indiana and beyond! And may God help us
every moment of every day, every sunrise and every sunset, to carry on that
legacy as Moses taught us more than 3,000 years ago, that Jesus taught us 2,000
years ago, and that our ancestors taught us 90 years ago! May God guide us and St.
Augustine’s Episcopal Church, not only into another 90 years and another
century, but into countess generations in the movement of Jesus Christ.
Amen
