Sermon for 21st Pentecost
Not to be served but to serve
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
Shortly after our worship service on Sunday, March 9, 2020 it became clear that we were not going to be able to meet for worship in person the following weekend. So, a few of us gathered in the church on Tuesday evening, March 11, to record our first YouTube worship service. It went well. Okay, we thought, we can do this. Besides, it will just be for a couple of weeks, or so we thought.
Now it is nearly 20 months later, 83 weeks to be exact, and we are finally able to gather for worship @ Mt. Olive in person again.
It has been a long and difficult time for so many – illness, death, loss of jobs, home schooling, quarantine, testing, face masks, looting, political unrest, racial reckoning, and so much more.
And yet, through it all, Mt. Olive and its many ministries have continued and even expanded.
Although we have not been able to gather for worship in-person, we have continued to worship, albeit remotely via YouTube, but with record numbers in “attendance,” numbers which equal or surpass the 1960’s “glory” days of Mt. Olive – 534 for Good Friday, 546 for Easter Sunday, nearly 100 more each weekend in 2020 over 2019.
While we also could not host our Second Sunday Jazz in-person concerts each month we were able to record six jazz concerts which are still available on our YouTube site. Again, the audience for these concerts has surpassed any “live” audience we have ever had for jazz at Mt. Olive. One of these concerts has more than 4,300 views with more still coming!
Mt. Olive never closed during those many months. Yes, our preschool had to close briefly, and our shelter could not open last fall, but both are back and so much more service to our community has happened.
We took advantage of the church building space availability and have just completed a major renovation of our Narthex, the church lobby, which we are dedicating during worship this Sunday. We also installed a new sound system for the church. Yes, the Narthex renovation took much longer than we had hoped and cost more than we had planned, but it is finished and is beautiful and we offer our thanks to Michael and Ron, our architects, and to Tim and his crew from H.A.S construction.
We were also able to do major work at the preschool and parsonage and so much more.
But what pleases me the most and, I dare to say, pleases God the most, is that we were not focused on our property alone during these months.
When we heard that people in our neighborhood were food-challenged - that’s a fancy way of saying our neighbors were and still are hungry – when we heard people in our community were hungry, we began a neighborhood Little Food Pantry through which we had fed hundreds during these days. We also helped feed hungry families from the Will Rogers grade school community and provided regular donations to the Westside Food Bank. The response from our congregation and community in donations of food and funds and volunteer time for these efforts has been wonderful.
One member was so inspired by the efforts of Joan Howard who cares for the homeless throughout Los Angeles County through the “Food on Foot” ministry, one member was so impressed by Joan’s work that she organized several of her friends and, through their major donations, Mt. Olive purchased a van for Joan to continue her work.
We will dedicate the pantry and the van during worship next week.
We also hosted flu and COVID vaccination clinics in our parking lot, provided a carry-home Thanksgiving dinner and helped a local senior girl scout troop with their hunger projects.
And our service outreach was not limited to our local community. Through our Mission & Ministry fund and your donations we helped five struggling area Lutheran congregations continue their own community ministries. We provided more than $8,000 to help purchase an oxygen generator for a Lutheran hospital in India, something they desperately needed to help people with COVID-19. We gave generously to Lutheran Disaster Response efforts in response to California wildfires, Hurricane Ida and the Haiti earthquake. We also supported the California Firefighters Foundation.
Our efforts to help Afghan refugees struck a special chord with our members who thus far have responded with more than $11,000 for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service’s work to settle these refugees.
And, yes, there is more, a lot more.
Thus far I have interviewed more than 60 people for Mt. Olive’s still new YouTube video interview series, Hope Matters, all reflecting on the theme of hope in their lives. Hope Matters has attracted new connections for Mt. Olive from around the USA and beyond.
Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels, who recently retired as the senior rabbi at Beth Shir Shalom synagogue here in Santa Monica, Rabbi Neil has joined our staff as our “Rabbi in Residence.” In this role he has preached monthly and led a Zoom study on Judaism and more. We are excited about what Rabbi Neil will be able to share with us in person in the coming months.
We pride ourselves justly on being the “church for the whole community.” During these COVID months, both the Westside Coalition for Housing, Hunger and Homelessness and the Students 4 Students organization came under Mt. Olive’s official sponsorship. The Westside Coalition had their best year yet financially in 2020 and Students 4 Students expanded from our Bruin Shelter here at Mt. Olive to include the Trojan Shelter at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, with the Aggie House at the University of California in Davis opening this fall and the Slug Shelter at the University of California in Santa Cruz opening this winter. All four shelters are or will be staffed by student volunteers from UCLA, USC, UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz.
Despite not having in-person worship services we have welcomed nearly 20 new members in 2020 and thus far in 2021.
And, just for something even more exciting, our Council has begun conversations with Community Corporation of Santa Monica about the possibility of building affordable housing on our parking lot, housing which would include underground parking and a new first floor preschool.
And I am happy to say that I certainly have forgotten some activities and initiatives!
We are church for the whole community and that community extends around the USA and the world.
In today’s Gospel lesson from St. Mark Jesus sees his disciples, who are starting to understand that Jesus’ kingdom will not be fulfilled on earth during Jesus’ time with them, Jesus sees his disciples, once again, arguing over who among them will be first in Christ’s heavenly kingdom.
In response Jesus offers some of these important words, important for Jesus’ disciples then and now - “whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be servant of all.”
As we return to something closer to what we once knew as “normal” here at Mt. Olive with in-person worship returning, I think Jesus’ words give us a clue at what Mt. Olive and its ministries should be for the next 20 months and far beyond, a congregation focused not on itself but on others, striving to be “church for the whole community” and seeing ourselves as servants to God through our service to others.
Thank you to all of Mt. Olive’s members and friends for your support during all the times that have led to this time, to this day for your prayers, your financial support, your volunteer efforts. I thank God for you all each day and love being your pastor in this time and place.
The best days for Mt. Olive are not sometime in the past. The best days for Mt. Olive are now and are to come because they come with God’s continued blessings and love for us all and they come as we serve others.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
October 17, 2021
