2020 Annual Meeting Sermon

This week is my first back at St. Peter after paternity leave, and it also is our Annual Meeting Sunday. So, here’s my 2020 annual meeting sermon for Epiphany 3, January 26, 2020 on Matthew 4:12-23 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-18. 

Although the parable of the life-saving station is found in many places and versions, here’s the version I adapted, credited to Dr. Theodore O. Wefel. I also drew from this column by Dr. Rolf Jacobson and this week’s Sermon Brainwave podcast.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

I want to share with you a story I heard a few years ago. On a dangerous section of seacoast, where shipwrecks often occurred, there was once a little life-saving station. The building was just a crude hut, and the station only had one small boat, but a few dedicated volunteers kept a constant watch over the sea. With no thought for their own safety, whenever they were called upon after a storm, they would spend day and night out tirelessly searching for the lost at sea.

As word spread about their bravery and dedication and people heard about their good work, they wanted to be associated with the group at the little life-station. Other people gave of their time and money to support their important work. New boats were bought. New crews were trained. The little life-saving station grew.

Some members of the life-saving station were concerned that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. The first refuge for those saved from the sea ought to be a more comfortable place, they believed.

So they went to work, and added on to the building, replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building.

Now it was a pretty nice building—right there on the coast—so often, members of the lifesaving group would gather there for special occasions. They decorated it beautifully, and added everything they needed for good hospitality for each other and for their guests.

Few members were now interested in personally going out to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired professional lifeboat crews to do this work.

They did keep a nautical theme in the club’s decorations, and someone even donated a very nice miniature lifeboat to be prominently displayed in the room where the club initiations were held.

It was right around that time that a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick and some of them were foreigners, difficult to understand, and the beautiful new club was in chaos.

The property committee immediately voted to build a shower house outside the club where shipwreck victims could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next annual meeting, there was a great deal of controversy. Quite a few of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities and focus on what was bringing in new people. The expectation of going out at night during storms was not only unpleasant, it got in the way of the club’s normal social life. Other members, though, insisted that lifesaving was their primary purpose, pointing out that they were still called a lifesaving station; it said so right on the sign.

At this meeting, they were voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could start their own lifesaving station. So they did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of very nice, exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.

“As [Jesus] walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”

Beloved of God, this is the work to which we are called. Jesus is at work in our world: Saving lives, curing diseases, proclaiming good news to the people.

And Jesus calls us to join in this mission. You and I are called to drop our nets, to follow Jesus, to go beyond what’s comfortable, and to fish for people.

Fishing for people doesn’t mean we’re baiting a hook so we can reel people in and yank them up into the boat. It doesn’t mean we’re going to lay out nets in the street so we can drag people in the doors.

Actually, if we’re thinking about going that direction, I wonder if we could re-slope the parking lot and the sidewalk, so when it gets icy, people will just slide on in…no, that’s not what we’re called to.

We are called to continue the work of Jesus, to announce the good news of the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew says Jesus’ fame spread throughout the area. His fame spread because he was doing good things—and the people he impacted were telling others.

The church exists for the people who aren’t here yet. Our congregation exists not just for us, but for the people who haven’t heard the good news of Jesus.

We are here today because our neighbors in Greene, Iowa, need to know that God’s love is for them, just like we do. We’re here because Jesus has called us to follow him and to fish for people, to share the hope God has given us in Jesus death on the cross and in his resurrection.

It’s the message on the sign some of the Sunday School kids made in the fellowship hall: “Everyone has a place in God’s family!”

We’re here because the Holy Spirit has called and gathered us. If we can remember this calling, if we can remember why we are here, and act accordingly, we’ll be in good shape.




Of course, as the parable of the life-saving station illustrates, it’s awfully easy to get distracted. Both as a congregation and as individuals, we constantly need to be called back to following Jesus, because we suffer from a tendency to focus on other things.

For some people, it’s wanting to keep things the way they’ve always been, the temptation to stay where it’s comfortable. For others, it’s focusing too much on the building, risking turning the church into a museum instead of a tool for life-saving.

For some, it’s the temptation described in the parable, becoming a social club instead of a church. Supporting friends in church is good and vital, yet we can’t become insular and exclusive. For me, the temptation is often numbers, to think that we must be doing God’s work better on weeks when the attendance is better or the offering is higher.

Two thousand years ago, the church in the city of Corinth was tempted to split apart into factions. Different groups focused on different goals and priorities rather than working together. Some people were saying “I belong to Paul,” while others said, “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas” (that’s Peter).
Surely you can’t imagine factions in a church today, right?

I wonder if some of their divisions were rooted in fear. I think fear is behind a lot of what divides us, whether it’s in families or politics or the church. We like things the way they are, or even if we don’t, we worry about things getting worse. It’s so easy to see how things in our country, in our world, in our town, or in our church can get worse.

You can picture the followers of Paul worrying that maybe Apollos is leading them down the wrong track, or Peter’s followers fearing that Paul is too focused on the gentiles and not paying enough attention to their own Jewish children.

At least when they’re divided, they know where they stand. When we’re divided into factions, it’s all too easy for our factions to become part of our identity.

Hearing of these divisions, Paul calls all of them back to the core of who they are. They are followers of Jesus, claimed in the waters of baptism in Jesus’ name. For all of us, our primary allegiance needs to be to Jesus.

We can disagree on the little things, on the secondary issues, but Christ has not been divided. Maybe building a shower-house outside the life-saving station is actually a good idea, but only if it’s for the right reasons, to serve those whom we are called to serve.

We don’t need to live in fear, for as the Psalm we just read declares, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” We don’t need to make decisions out of fear, or divide out of fear. “The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

All our decisions as a congregation, all our priorities as Christians come from knowing God has claimed us. Our mission comes from knowing who we are as God’s people.

Paul’s command might be one of the most radical instructions in the Bible. He writes to them and to us, “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” That’s a tough command!

Listen to Jesus’ proclamation: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As you know, that word repent means to turn around, to make a change, to do something different. Because God’s kingdom is coming near, because we know the truth of heaven and the good news of God’s grace, forgiveness, and love, our lives change.

We’re able to live for others, to care for those who aren’t here yet. Because God’s light has dawned upon us, we can see how we ought to live and love. We are called to be the church, the body of Christ. We know who and whose we are.

Every year as we get ready for the annual meeting, I’ve thought about introducing a motion to close down the church, to disband as a congregation.

I don’t think it would pass, but I think it might be worth getting each of us on the record as saying, “Yes, we do want to be a church. Yes, we do want to follow Jesus. Yes, we want to continue on this journey of faith together, in this place, with these people, in Jesus’ name.”
Amen