The following was given as a closing presentation to the 201st Convention of the Diocese of Georgia by Bishop Frank Logue.
Let Your Light Shine
Matthew 5:14-16
The longest serving Secretary of Convention for the Diocese of Georgia, was the Reverend Doctor James Bolan Lawrence, who served several decades in leading these meetings. When he arrived at Calvary Church in Americus in 1905, they didn’t know what to do with him. He was a 27-year old priest and he was different, having earned a Masters in Classics at the University of Georgia before going to seminary, he fluent in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. He was known for his love of “good food, good drink, good tobacco, good music, good clothes.” He once created a scandal by preaching a sermon about how good it was to play golf on Sunday.
In the history of Calvary Church in Americus, they talked about how his sermons were not that inspiring, they were to erudite, technical. But he served there for 47 years as a pastor to that community. One person said we forgave him for his sermons. When he died, his funeral was at Calvary and he was to be buried 13 miles away beside the log cabin church he had built in Andersonville. Many people walked the route with the procession itself stretching out for a mile. He was such a pastor that they saw the light of Christ shining through him.
The people in southwest Georgia loved Brother Jimmy enough to forget his sermons while recalling his example of “kindness, selflessness and utter goodness.”
The previous year, when he retired, Bishop Barnwell told the diocesan convention, “During these years Dr. Lawrence has shed the light of his life not only in Americus, but also in a half dozen or more mission stations scattered over a vast area in western and south-western Georgia.” He founded churches in Blakely, Cordele, Dawson, Moultrie, Benevolence, and Pennington, wherever he could ride a train to during the week and gather a congregation and preach and pray. When there were enough of them, he founded a church.
He shed the light of his life, the Bishop said, which caused me to look at the Gospel anew. Jesus put it this way, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
I am struck by Jesus saying, “Let your light shine.” This is about the gifts God has given you, that make you unique in what you have to offer to the Body of Christ.
While I have held up the very unique priest who his neighbors called, Brother Jimmy, he was not alone. Anson Greene Phelps Dodge Jr. accomplished much on the Georgia coast, dying before he turned 40. The Rev. Paul Hoornstra more recently planted churches on the islands at St. Francis of the Islands and St. Peter’s on Skidaway.
Then there is our beloved Saint of Georgia, Deaconess Anna Alexander, who accomplished so much with so little, especially little help from her diocese. And we see others who also served their African American communities with similar devotion, like her sisters Mary and Dora who started the school at St. Cyprian’s in Darien. Then there was Father Perry who led the school at Good Shepherd in Thomasville for 32 years. And from 1884 to 1928, St. Athanasius’ in Brunswick ran a very impressive secondary school with an Industrial Arts curriculum. I could go on to tell of generations of black Episcopalians who have been and are today leaders in this Diocese.
Rita Griffeth, a Glynn County native who led summer camps in this Diocese for 25 years at Camp Reese on St. Simons Island. Every year of 1925 to 1950, she drove the backroads of central and south Georgia to personally find counselors and campers and then tirelessly run the program. It is impossible for those of us who know camp in more recent decades to fail to compare her to Pam Guice, who also provided such dedicated service.
When I said yesterday that we find evidence of the Diocese of Georgia having creativity and resourcefulness deep in its DNA, these are the people I am talking about who decade after decade served the towns we now serve. My list could go on and on and would include names of people in this room. I find followers of Jesus meeting the challenge of their times led by the Holy Spirit. That same spirit abides in this Diocese.
My parting offering to you is a list of ideas and tools that are just a starter to get you thinking. We will email out the PDF files and the web page version is linked at the diocesan website now. There are ways to deepen faith, and ideas for engaging with your community, alongside new ways and time-tested old ways to engage with stewardship.
As I said yesterday, these ideas are not an invitation to work harder and do more. Some of the resources will assist you in what you are already doing, like having free studies to choose from as an offering on a Wednesday evening. For any new initiative, you will have to find something else you have been doing that it is time to stop. Some really good ideas from the past need a plaque and a sheet cake. Celebrate what was accomplished as you discontinue an effort that bore good fruit for a season.
Assess what you are doing now as a congregation. Any area that takes more energy than it seems to offer parishioners or the community in return, is probably ready to give thanks for and end. Anything that lacks leadership and volunteers, that could be a sign to let up for a season. There could also be great ideas from your past, that are time for a return. What we need now as a church can very well be what worked well before. None of this is about the institution of the church per se. I know I have a job that would make it seem otherwise, but the institution of the church is not worth getting up for in the morning unless it is serving the Gospel of Jesus Christ and making a difference in the lives of the people in the community. If the church is doing that then it is worthwhile. To the degree the institution of the church gets in the way of that mission, we have to acknowledge that it is getting in the way of our reason for being. Because there is a lost and hurting world that does not know that they were fearfully and wonderfully by the creator of the cosmos. There are people made in the image and likeness of God who have seen themselves in the eyes of others. Showing the love of God, however we do it, is something that matters so much.
My deepest conviction as we embark on a time of holy experimentation, is that the Holy Spirit will use our faithfulness. We don’t have to let the potential for the perfect prevent us from doing something good. I learned in working with Kairos Prison Ministry that being merely flexible is still far too rigid. Flexible is, here I stand. I can bend a little. They said that in the prison, that is not enough. We can be working as the whole prison goes into lock down and we are in the room longer, or it can go into lockdown overnight and we can’t get back in the next morning. We want to be fluid like water going down a mountain toward a river and the sea. The water knows its purpose and never loses track of the ultimate goal. The water may have to take a different path to get to the river and the sea, but it will accomplish its purpose.
In this way, we need to be fluid about methods, but we know that we are about is people coming into a relationship with Jesus Christ that transforms their lives as they see that God loves them, wants better for them than where they are now. This is the offering of healing, repentance, and new life. That is the goal, which is why we can be fluid in how we go about it.
Since the first Anglicans arrived in 1733, and while so much has changed, that core purpose has remained the same. Sharing the Good News of Jesus is worth getting up for in the morning and is worth spending your days, and giving your life to accomplish. As we commit together to looking for new ways to share our ancient faith, we do not do so alone, the true missionary is God, the real work is being done by Jesus. We are given the grace to be on the team. Amen.
