Sermon for Sunday, June 8
The Rev Aron Kramer, June 8, 2025, Sermon, Day of Pentecost
Our Lifeboat
I sat in a meeting this week at the Diocesan Offices listening to a metaphor about how the Episcopal Church is in need of a change. Not just a change, but a sense of realization we cannot function the way we have always functioned. The metaphor was the Bishop’s metaphor about how the Episcopal Church is an ocean liner, an ocean liner damaged beyond repair and after years of trying to repair the ship, we are finally realizing we have to launch the lifeboats.
But there are two problems with launching lifeboats, right? One, it essentially gives Churches permission to become congregationalist and forget our commitment to the greater diocese and to one another. Two, it also gives the impression that the Diocese, or the Institutional Church itself is dead, when in fact, there is quite remarkable life in Churches across the country, small, big, corporate and rural churches experiencing the Spirit in profound and rich ways.
The metaphor was going well until the people around the table, all clergy and lay leaders invested in the success of the institutional church, got their hands on it. Because once they started thinking about it, we suddenly had a fleet of life boats, which someone changed to ships, a militaristic theme emerged, with an admiral, and a communications system in place telling us what to do and when, as well as who was allowed to sail when and where.
Someone actually implied, “We need to keep an eye on those lifeboats on the margins, we don’t want them getting away.”
It was a fascinating exercise in clinging to the past, and working hard to preserve a system as it exists now. We took the framework from the ocean liner and firmly ensconced it onto the idea of a bunch of ships plowing towards an unknown destination.
I say all this not to disparage the metaphor or the people who were around the table. I bring it up as an example of how hard it is to truly change. To truly set oneself in a new direction and start travelling. Easier when you are an individual trying to change habits or behaviors. Now upgrade that to a Church, a community of faith trying to do the same thing. Then upgrade it to the Diocese, and to the Episcopal Church. It is hard to effect change, it is hard to trust the Spirit.
But we also know deep in our hearts that God is about a big purpose in and for the entire world, for all of creation. The Church, we as a community of people have been called into existence not to solely care for one another but rather to care for the entirety of creation. We are an instrument of God’s presence in the world. The very nature of our being, the very core of our being together here today is to serve God and be God’s missionary people in the world.
Can we imagine ourselves as God’s missionary people in the world? Can we see ourselves as a people called to spread from this place, from this room into the world carrying with us the idea, the simple idea, that we, you, all of us are deserving to hear God’s word, experience God’s love, know the power of God’s Holy Spirit? Can we move our habits, our behaviors, our perspectives in such a way to see the world, and to see this Church differently? What sorts of things do we need to let go, do we need to throw up and leave behind?
Think about this moment we hear about in Acts. I get you’d have to be fluent in multiple languages to have heard and listened to this text today, but I assume many of you read it as our readers read through their sections. All these people gathered together, understanding one another and being overwhelmed by the amazing sight of dancing tongues of flame and understanding people who were speaking in languages different from their own.
This is a powerful moment, and it is the moment we ascribe to the Holy Spirit coming among us. It is the birthday of the Church, the day the community was born from something old and made into something new. I wonder if this kind of story is more hurtful than helpful, as we hold it up as something beyond our ability, only a few special people have these types of Holy Spirit moments and we just don't have the faith to have our own.
But then the Gospel of John appears and we discover a second way that the Holy Spirit was given over to us. If you remember from last week I talked about how this section of the Gospel is Jesus’ farewell discourse, it is a moment when Jesus is praying for the disciples, and not just the 12 disciples, but all those who will come to faith through the works the disciples do after Jesus’ death. This is a moment of vulnerability, a moment of quiet, a moment when Jesus is simply praying.
Jesus prays for us, and as part of Jesus’ prayer for the disciples and for each of us, he asks God to send the Holy Spirit. Not in the flames dancing on our heads type of way, but in a calm and peaceful way.
I dated a woman shortly after my divorce, I fell head over heels for her, it was like fireworks and explosions and breathtaking joy all rolled into one single moment. A year later our breakup was exactly the same. Fireworks, explosions and breathtaking pain. Several years later I met Erin in a little cafe in Duluth. I had been invited by one of Erin’s friends to join them for beers and lunch, Erin was coming from a soccer game. I was not blown away by Erin, and in fact I don’t remember thinking much about her after I left that afternoon. But over time, I began to sense something different about her, something I found attractive. Several months later we began to date, and after a few starts and stops, and something like almost ten years later, we have shared some of the hardest and happiest moments of our lives together.
It’s a bit simple, but it's a similar way to look at these readings, fire and wind and loud noises, and a slow, prayerful quiet approach. Both ways of approaching the Holy Spirit and its presence among us are valid and important. Christianity is not always massive profound epiphanies and realizations. Oftentimes, Christianity, belief, holiness and faith are slow burns that develop over years and decades.
Our stories, each individual story of faith, your arrival and understanding of how God is in your life is valid. But more importantly, your story is a part of a larger story, a story that is bigger than you, bigger than this place, bigger than the community gathered here, bigger than all of creation. Each of your stories is the driving force for this moment in time when we are being faced with one of the greatest challenges the Church has had in the past 500 years, since the Reformation in the 1500’s. It will be our stories of faith that maintain and sustain this community, this Diocese of Minnesota. Our stories of faith and transformation, rootedness and epiphany, evangelism and mission and discipleship. It’s why I am so earnest about hearing your stories. Because they matter.
As our lifeboat is set off from the old sinking ocean liner, let’s take stock. We have to remember our interdependence. We depend on St. Martin’s, St. Mark’s, Trinity, St. Stephen’s, St. George’s and they depend on us. We must constantly stay in visual and communicative contact, sharing food, helping one another steer, signaling to one another in the dark. The fleet represents communion without uniformity, a distributed but connected Body of Christ.
All of us, as we embark into the unknown still share a compass, not an admiral, but a shared compass, something that points our direction and is built on a tradition that is not static, but fluid and adaptable. We all share a common identity and mission.
Our lifeboat isn’t floating aimlessly. We are heading toward a new shore, a new expression of faith, a Church less bound to institutional survival and more open to creative opportunity. God isn’t interested in our lifeboat, after all, God is only interested in each of us.
And finally, remember our lifeboat does not pull us away from the world, it keeps us rooted in the world as we know it, as witnesses to injustice, active advocates repairing broken relationships and children of god, arms spread wide, welcoming everyone we come across into the boat. Each lifeboat becomes a place of hospitality, pulling from the waters those who are lost, questioning, or wounded.
I am grateful this challenge before us is a challenge I get to experience with all of you. Because, there is no place more prepared, more ready, more willing, more faith filled than you all gathered together. As we push off into the unknown, flames dancing over our heads, the rush of wind in our ears and our hearts filled with Jesus’ prayer for us, have courage and compassion, not because we know exactly where we’re going, but because we know who we’re going with.
I sat in a meeting this week at the Diocesan Offices listening to a metaphor about how the Episcopal Church is in need of a change. Not just a change, but a sense of realization we cannot function the way we have always functioned. The metaphor was the Bishop’s metaphor about how the Episcopal Church is an ocean liner, an ocean liner damaged beyond repair and after years of trying to repair the ship, we are finally realizing we have to launch the lifeboats.
But there are two problems with launching lifeboats, right? One, it essentially gives Churches permission to become congregationalist and forget our commitment to the greater diocese and to one another. Two, it also gives the impression that the Diocese, or the Institutional Church itself is dead, when in fact, there is quite remarkable life in Churches across the country, small, big, corporate and rural churches experiencing the Spirit in profound and rich ways.
The metaphor was going well until the people around the table, all clergy and lay leaders invested in the success of the institutional church, got their hands on it. Because once they started thinking about it, we suddenly had a fleet of life boats, which someone changed to ships, a militaristic theme emerged, with an admiral, and a communications system in place telling us what to do and when, as well as who was allowed to sail when and where.
Someone actually implied, “We need to keep an eye on those lifeboats on the margins, we don’t want them getting away.”
It was a fascinating exercise in clinging to the past, and working hard to preserve a system as it exists now. We took the framework from the ocean liner and firmly ensconced it onto the idea of a bunch of ships plowing towards an unknown destination.
I say all this not to disparage the metaphor or the people who were around the table. I bring it up as an example of how hard it is to truly change. To truly set oneself in a new direction and start travelling. Easier when you are an individual trying to change habits or behaviors. Now upgrade that to a Church, a community of faith trying to do the same thing. Then upgrade it to the Diocese, and to the Episcopal Church. It is hard to effect change, it is hard to trust the Spirit.
But we also know deep in our hearts that God is about a big purpose in and for the entire world, for all of creation. The Church, we as a community of people have been called into existence not to solely care for one another but rather to care for the entirety of creation. We are an instrument of God’s presence in the world. The very nature of our being, the very core of our being together here today is to serve God and be God’s missionary people in the world.
Can we imagine ourselves as God’s missionary people in the world? Can we see ourselves as a people called to spread from this place, from this room into the world carrying with us the idea, the simple idea, that we, you, all of us are deserving to hear God’s word, experience God’s love, know the power of God’s Holy Spirit? Can we move our habits, our behaviors, our perspectives in such a way to see the world, and to see this Church differently? What sorts of things do we need to let go, do we need to throw up and leave behind?
Think about this moment we hear about in Acts. I get you’d have to be fluent in multiple languages to have heard and listened to this text today, but I assume many of you read it as our readers read through their sections. All these people gathered together, understanding one another and being overwhelmed by the amazing sight of dancing tongues of flame and understanding people who were speaking in languages different from their own.
This is a powerful moment, and it is the moment we ascribe to the Holy Spirit coming among us. It is the birthday of the Church, the day the community was born from something old and made into something new. I wonder if this kind of story is more hurtful than helpful, as we hold it up as something beyond our ability, only a few special people have these types of Holy Spirit moments and we just don't have the faith to have our own.
But then the Gospel of John appears and we discover a second way that the Holy Spirit was given over to us. If you remember from last week I talked about how this section of the Gospel is Jesus’ farewell discourse, it is a moment when Jesus is praying for the disciples, and not just the 12 disciples, but all those who will come to faith through the works the disciples do after Jesus’ death. This is a moment of vulnerability, a moment of quiet, a moment when Jesus is simply praying.
Jesus prays for us, and as part of Jesus’ prayer for the disciples and for each of us, he asks God to send the Holy Spirit. Not in the flames dancing on our heads type of way, but in a calm and peaceful way.
I dated a woman shortly after my divorce, I fell head over heels for her, it was like fireworks and explosions and breathtaking joy all rolled into one single moment. A year later our breakup was exactly the same. Fireworks, explosions and breathtaking pain. Several years later I met Erin in a little cafe in Duluth. I had been invited by one of Erin’s friends to join them for beers and lunch, Erin was coming from a soccer game. I was not blown away by Erin, and in fact I don’t remember thinking much about her after I left that afternoon. But over time, I began to sense something different about her, something I found attractive. Several months later we began to date, and after a few starts and stops, and something like almost ten years later, we have shared some of the hardest and happiest moments of our lives together.
It’s a bit simple, but it's a similar way to look at these readings, fire and wind and loud noises, and a slow, prayerful quiet approach. Both ways of approaching the Holy Spirit and its presence among us are valid and important. Christianity is not always massive profound epiphanies and realizations. Oftentimes, Christianity, belief, holiness and faith are slow burns that develop over years and decades.
Our stories, each individual story of faith, your arrival and understanding of how God is in your life is valid. But more importantly, your story is a part of a larger story, a story that is bigger than you, bigger than this place, bigger than the community gathered here, bigger than all of creation. Each of your stories is the driving force for this moment in time when we are being faced with one of the greatest challenges the Church has had in the past 500 years, since the Reformation in the 1500’s. It will be our stories of faith that maintain and sustain this community, this Diocese of Minnesota. Our stories of faith and transformation, rootedness and epiphany, evangelism and mission and discipleship. It’s why I am so earnest about hearing your stories. Because they matter.
As our lifeboat is set off from the old sinking ocean liner, let’s take stock. We have to remember our interdependence. We depend on St. Martin’s, St. Mark’s, Trinity, St. Stephen’s, St. George’s and they depend on us. We must constantly stay in visual and communicative contact, sharing food, helping one another steer, signaling to one another in the dark. The fleet represents communion without uniformity, a distributed but connected Body of Christ.
All of us, as we embark into the unknown still share a compass, not an admiral, but a shared compass, something that points our direction and is built on a tradition that is not static, but fluid and adaptable. We all share a common identity and mission.
Our lifeboat isn’t floating aimlessly. We are heading toward a new shore, a new expression of faith, a Church less bound to institutional survival and more open to creative opportunity. God isn’t interested in our lifeboat, after all, God is only interested in each of us.
And finally, remember our lifeboat does not pull us away from the world, it keeps us rooted in the world as we know it, as witnesses to injustice, active advocates repairing broken relationships and children of god, arms spread wide, welcoming everyone we come across into the boat. Each lifeboat becomes a place of hospitality, pulling from the waters those who are lost, questioning, or wounded.
I am grateful this challenge before us is a challenge I get to experience with all of you. Because, there is no place more prepared, more ready, more willing, more faith filled than you all gathered together. As we push off into the unknown, flames dancing over our heads, the rush of wind in our ears and our hearts filled with Jesus’ prayer for us, have courage and compassion, not because we know exactly where we’re going, but because we know who we’re going with.
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