Epiphany 5 (Annual Meeting) VICAR’S REPORT

February 4, 2024 1

During the pandemic my family started a new tradition. We would gather on the evening of New Year’s Day around the fire pit in my backyard to reflect on the past year and talk about our hopes and plans for the coming year. This tradition grew out of a pre-pandemic tradition. January 1st is our dog, Toby’s birthday, and pre-pandemic we would take him on a hike and then go to the Lazy Dog restaurant in Concord where we would gather on their patio, beside their firepit and eat appetizers while Toby scarfed down a bowl of chicken and rice as a birthday treat. We still take a hike which is more of a long walk these days, as Toby is getting old and can’t manage as much as he used to. We still eat appetizers (homemade), and Toby still gets his bowl of chicken and rice, but we have to kindle our own fire.

This past New Year, however, none of this happened. I was sick with the flu and the weather wasn’t good, and I missed the usual reflection and dreaming around the fire. But as it turns out, an annual meeting is a good opportunity to look back and reflect and look forward with hope and curiosity.

As I prepared this report, I have spent a lot of time reflecting back over the past year. A lot has happened for me personally, as I imagine it might have for you.

I welcomed my granddaughter, Finley, into the world, and yesterday, celebrated her first birthday. Cindy retired. I went vegan – mostly! I became a US citizen after 34 years in this country. I lost a friend I was just getting to know. We remodeled our kitchen. After three years I ceased to be the farm missioner for Jubilee Farm. We attended a family reunion and reconnected with old friends for the first time in seven years. I became a great aunt. Our old and much beloved cat died. And through it all Saint Anna’s remained a constant in my life.

A lot has happened at Saint Anna’s too:

• The bishop made his regular visitation and over twelve new members were officially welcomed into our community through confirmation, reception, or reaffirmation, as well as several others who were moved by the spirit on the spur of the moment.

• We said goodbye to people we love dearly, welcomed back one who had moved away, and greeted several new people to our community.

• Rev. Mees graduated from seminary, was ordained to the priesthood, and came back as our curate. • We continued to support Kimball Elementary School; helping at the roar store, handing out popsicles to celebrate the last day of school, working Kindergarten registration, as well as providing uniforms for almost two hundred students. We even have representation on the school site council by Michelle Price.

• We had a voice in the wider diocese through Jim Wiant on Executive Council, Kathleen Crisp on the Bishop Search and Transition Committee, Michelle Price as deanery president, and myself on Standing Committtee.

• We did much some needed repair and maintenance on our buildings and grounds, including repairing the gutters and fascia boards, and painting the church, parish hall, and education buildings.

• We started a welcome ministry and a newcomer ministry.

• We continued our work with Vital + Thriving and are planning some community events this year.

• We had our first baptism in many years.

• We established a growing youth group!

• We survive floods and vandalism and theft.

• We had a successful stewardship drive.

• ECW started meeting again and we resumed monthly potlucks.

• And most of all, we continued to gather in this space every week for worship, break bread together around the altar, and meet for fellowship in the parish hall.

We hear a lot about how the Church is dying but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the life and vitality here at Saint Anna’s.

But despite all the ways in which we are growing, all the ways we are already vital and thriving, we still face an immense challenge – our financial situation. I hate to bring this up, because you have all worked so hard and really stepped up and put us in a better position than we would be in otherwise. And this is not just an issue for saint Anna’s. This is a problem confronted by every church in our diocese. I do not know of a single congregation in our diocese that is not operating at a deficit or that is meeting its expenses through the donations of its members. But one of things our diocese did last year was elect a new bishop. And a new bishop means new opportunities. And I cannot wait to see what this will look like in our context.

In this morning’s OT reading from the prophet Isaiah, we hear the people of Israel being assured of God’s great love for them despite the hardship of their exile in Babylon. In the Gospel, we read about how that great love plays out in the ministry of Jesus. I haven’t always liked this passage from Mark’s Gospel. I struggle with the idea of Jesus and his disciples returning home from a hard day’s ministry and, finding Peter’s mother sick in bed with a fever, Jesus healing her just so she can get up and make them dinner. It doesn’t help that the NIV translates it as, waited on them, and the Message as, fixing dinner for them.

But the word translated “serve” is diakonos, from which we get our word deacon. It means literally to “kick up dust.” It refers to ministry service; the kind of work that changes the world. And the word translated as, “took her by the hand,” means to waken, or raise. It is the same word used to describe Jesus’ resurrection later in Mark’s Gospel, when the angel tells the women, He had been raised.

In many ways, Peter’s mother was the first deacon.

We are named after the first black deaconess, and that means something. It means we have a legacy to live into. A legacy of the kind of ministry service that kicks up dust, that changes the world. And we are doing a pretty good job already of living into that legacy. Our work is to serve. To serve God through our ministry at Saint Anna’s.

As I pondered on how I am called to serve God at Saint Anna’s this verse showed up on biblegateway.com verse of the day: Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

This doesn’t mean being a doormat or allowing people to take advantage of us, or never getting what we need. It means putting the welfare of the whole above our own individual needs and preferences. It means doing what God needs us to do the make our world reflect God’s best intentions for it. And if we do it faithfully, we can trust that Jesus will take us by the hand and raise us up to give new life to our church, our community, and our world.

He already is. There are signs that we are growing:

• Our ASA increased from 30 in 2022 to 39 in 2023.

• We added eight new pledging units for a total of almost $20,000.

• We gained new members.

• We had ten more people at Xmas Eve service than 2022 and fifteen more for Ash Wednesday evening service.

And, while we know we are so much more than our numbers, all of these are ways in which the institutional Church measures success. Our hard work and vitality is being recognized. The Department of Congregational Development run by our Canon to the Ordinary, Cn. Debbie Low Skinner, doubled our grant this year from $5,000 to $10,000 because, as she recently told me, “Saint Anna’s is doing great things out there.” We may be on the literal and figurative edge of the diocese, but people see what we are doing and want to encourage us, and I plan to capitalize on that this year. I hope you will join me.

From the curate:

In May of 2023 I stopped being your seminarian; at the end of August 2023 I became your curate. Life as an intern and as a curate in some ways is not so different: I still plan Sunday school lessons once a month, I still meet with Rev. Jane weekly, I still talk acolytes through their roles in the service on Sunday morning, I still find myself up late on Saturday night finishing sermons for the next day.

But in other ways it’s very different: some Sundays I put on a chasuble, not just an alb, and I get to give you all the peace of Christ and the blessing of God. I say the words of the Eucharistic prayer and when it’s time to hand you the body of Christ, broken for you, I do so with great joy (and hope I’ve finally managed to break the bread into appropriately-sized pieces–it’s harder than it looks!). I spend more time in Antioch and environs, some of which is at your houses, listening as you tell me the stories of your life. At diocesan convention, when the Task Force for Trans and Nonbinary Inclusion gave the report on its work of the last two years, I did so as not just Mees, but Rev.-Mees-from-St.-Anna’s.

But the biggest change is perhaps how moving from 8 or so hours a week, most of which was sandwiched in between seminary obligations, to 30 hours a week means I get to do a lot more planning for the present and dreaming for the future of St. Anna’s. I can get to know you all better and hear what this church was to you in the past, is for you now, and what you hope it will be in the future. I can walk the neighborhood with Rev. Jane on Monday mornings as we pray with our feet about how we can be more deeply rooted in this community. I can support the lay leaders involved in Vital + Thriving as their dreams for this community unfold, and Mission Possible as it works to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world. I can explore ideas for intergenerational faith formation at church and at home (something will be coming your way soon for Lent!). And, perhaps my favorite, I get to plan youth group meetings and witness our young people wrestle with hard questions about who the world tells them they are, and who they are in Christ (plus eat Oreos. Snacks are an essential part of any youth ministry).

Additionally, over the past five months, I’ve preached seven times, presided nine times, prepared one candidate for baptism, explored how to support LGBTQ+ teens and adults in our community, agreed to serve as the deanery secretary, volunteered at the Roar Store, started an Advent card writing project, learned about innovative church ministries (but also church insurance), and a whole lot more. I’ve already learned so much, and thanks to the salary grant provided by Trinity Wall Street, I will be with you until summer 2025. I look forward to seeing what we can dream up and do together in 2024 and beyond.