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 The Call of Your Calling On behalf of the wardens, vestry and membership of this parish, I welcome our many visitors who are celebrating with us this morning. Your presence enriches our community and we are delighted that you are here. Whether you are just passing through or looking for a home, you should know this is a parish that embodies nuestra casa es su casa. So, please make yourselves welcome, visit often, and tell your friends about us. We want to welcome them too.
When a goodly number of the visitors here heard that I had accepted this call confessed that they really didn’t know much (if anything) about this parish. Several of you asked “Are they still terribly high church?” St. Paul’s seemed sort of hidden away, lodged up in this back corner of Ft. Sam, a High Church anomaly in a Low Church diocese. But since coming here I’ve discovered that our parish is one with a fascinating history, it is a parish that has always seemed to march to a different cadence than others, a cadence that others eventually learned to follow. I think of St. Paul’s as “the hidden jewel in the Diocese of West Texas even-more-hidden miter.” And I’d like to share with you why I’ve come to think that way.
St. Paul’s sprang to life in 1883 when Fort Sam Houston was an outpost on the outskirts of San Antonio. St. Mark’s, which had been in existence for some time, and a small little mission known as St. Luke’s, which would soon close before being resurrected into its current glory, were the only other Episcopal churches here. One of the Army officers (a young Lieutenant, Robert Coles) stationed on this frontier outpost wrote to his mother back in Philadelphia that there was no church near the post and no good public transportation here (hmmmmm, some things never change) except by horseback and mule drawn wagon, making it difficult to get all the way downtown to attend services at St. Mark’s. His mother, Mary Coles, was a member of St. James the Less Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. St. James was a parish founded by charter to “promote the principals and ideals of the Oxford Movement”--those being the High church principals of emphasis on worship and theology, beauty and devotion, the sacramental life, and, most importantly, a concern for the poor, the neglected, and the un-churched. Evidently, these concerns had found a home in the soul of Mary Coles, for in 1881 she purchased two lots adjacent to the post and gave them to Bishop Elliott. Two years later an organization committee was formed for St. Paul’s Memorial Free Church, and $4,000.00 was raised. Later that year Mary Coles donated $8,500.00 toward the building of the church and rectory, with the following stipulations: 1. The church was to be a memorial to her mother; 2. A rectory costing at least $2,500.00 was to be constructed, and 3. All the sittings were to be free (that is at a time when it was common for parishioners to buy pews and lock them, this church was to be open to anyone). She wanted all to be welcome in this place. These conditions were agreed to, Mrs. Coles sent the $8,500.00 in gold bullion by train and stagecoach, and St. Paul’s was off and running.
For much of the early history ties to the military were formative for St. Paul’s and the parish would rise (or fall) with the influx or dislocation of military families in the area. There were some glorious times and some rocky times in the first 50 or 60 years, but the people of St. Paul’s always seem to exhibit a hold on, adapt, and rebound attitude in face of trial. The fact that people were always coming and going, going and coming meant that we had to learn to be a welcoming community, a receptive community, a place open to different people and the ideas and traditions they brought with them. That openness to being different is evident in the events of the next significant phase of our life began in the late 1940's, when the decision was made to become “the High Church Anglo Catholic parish” in San Antonio.
Fr. Paul Osborn, rector during that period, tells me that becoming the High Church Anglo Catholic parish in the Diocese of West Texas at a time meant at first having the Eucharist at more than one service each Sunday and using Eucharistic vestments in the color of the liturgical season. Later it meant having the Eucharist at all services, being the first to hold Ash Wednesday services using ashes from the palms of the previous Palm Sunday, using incense and Sanctus bells on high festivals of the year, and installing an ambry for the reservation of the sacrament and a confessional for the Sacrament of Penance and having a monstrance for the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. It strikes me as ironic that at the time these practices seemed so different and perhaps an oddity but now, with the exception of the confessional, almost every church in the diocese does some, if not most, of these things every week, and even one priest has surreptitiously asked if he could borrow our monstrance. Ya’ll who had ears to hear heard and followed our cadence.
In 1955 Fr. James Joseph came to St. Paul’s and remained here for some 19 years. During this time membership swelled to over 1,100, and these facilities were built and expanded. Numerous ministries were flourished, both local and worldwide. And, once again, St. Paul’s could be seen marching to a different cadence, as this became the first parish in the diocese to elect women to the vestry and, it is said, became the first parish in the entire Episcopal Church to have a woman as Senior Warden.
The changes in society, the church, and in the neighborhood which took place during the mid 70's and 80's had a diminishing effect on this parish. Though numbers began to decline out of those times grew significant ministries which define us today. During the tenure of Jack Beebe St. Paul’s was named a Jubilee Parish and provisions for the ministries of the Ella Austin Health Clinic, English as a Second Language classes, Government Hill Neighborhood Alliance, after school and 12 step programs came to be housed here. Later, during the tenure of Art Bevins, Bexar County Detention Ministries, an ecumenical ministry to inmates and their families, found a home here. These ministries have made a significant mark on this community. I'd like to give you two examples of what that mark looks like.
Our food distribution program, Our Lord’s Table, provides food baskets to 150 families every two weeks. That is significant in itself. What is more significant, I have observed, is what is provided along with the food. As parishioners work alongside recipients from the neighborhood who help administer the program, a community is formed in a place where community could very easily be non-existent. Here people are known by name, welcomed, cared for, noticed, given choice, given life. Here people pray together, bodies and souls are tended and fed. Through this ministry, and that of our emergency food pantry which feeds additional families each week, the body and blood of Christ pours forth from St. Paul’s in the form of fresh vegetables, canned goods, hot sauce and bread--sacraments given for the reconciliation of this neighborhood.
Another ministry, which is housed here, though not specifically ours, is Alamo Recovery, a group which works with parolees and persons in narcotics recovery. The other day they received word that a parolee group they began working with 5 years ago was doing something rarely seen. They had gone through the program and were forming a 12 Step Narcotics Anonymous Group of their own, which they named The Winners Circle. And they have asked to come here, to St. Paul’s, to form and meet. To me, that desire to return to the place where their healing began, speaks to the deep need in all lives, but especially in those who have been fragmented, for places of safety, of comfort, of healing, of reconciliation--things which this parish makes possible by our presence here through the ministry and generosity of its members. In many ways, St. Paul’s (and other faithful inner city churches) are in positions not unlike the monasteries of the Middle Ages, which in the face of vast societal change, conflict, and fragmentation, were the centers which preserved, sustained, protected, healed, restored, enlivened the community around them by through their presence as an intentional community of prayer living under a rule of life. [NOTE: Bexar County Detention and Alamo Recovery Ministries moved out within a few years of writing this sermon. Narcotics Anonymous eventually outgrew the available space and relocated, at the time our Montessori School was forming.]
Today St. Paul’s finds ourselves living, as this diocese always has, in the midst of change. We find ourselves in an estuary of the near inner city, a place where poverty and affluence lie side by side, hope and despair wash up against each other, and where the shoreline between power and helplessness is symbolized by an open fence bordering Ft. Sam Houston. Like most estuaries, this is a fertile place to find one’s self. So, as we enter a new millennium and begin a new ministry, what will it mean for us to be a “self styled Anglo Catholic parish” named St. Paul’s in this inner city estuary of San Antonio?
As I’ve thought of that these past few months, I’ve been drawn to consider our namesake, our Patron, St. Paul. What do we know of Paul? How might he inform our future? Well, we know he was someone who had a powerful conversion, who held firmly to his faith with strongly held convictions which he was not afraid to express. He had a ministry to all different sorts and conditions of people. He was concerned with the health of congregations so that they might live faithfully as the body of Christ in their communities. He was also someone who liked to write letters, though some may have been written in his spirit by others. So, why should I be surprised when, as I was sitting at the computer writing this sermon, one of those “You Got Mail!” messages appeared on the screen. I thought it was The Rev. Betty Fuller or Marjorie George, our Diocesan Communications Director, but when I opened it found instead, this:
FROM: Paul@Saints.heaven.God
TO: St.Paulschurch@San Antonio.westtexas.org
RE: E-mail to the San Antonians
Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ. I rejoice with you, my little flock, on this occasion of the celebration of your new ministry. I have seen your faith in Christ Jesus and your love towards all the people and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you this day in my prayers. I pray that the God our Lord Jesus Christ may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation that you may know what is the hope to which he calls you and the immeasurable greatness of his power working in us who believe. I pray that you may be led to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called as you go forth in ministry together.
As you consider your calling, remember that it is not so much what you do as who you are that allows God to live in the world. (Re: Fr. Thomas Keating) Your calling, your vocation, is to be the Body of Christ where you are. You are called to go into those cruciform places where your life may be poured out for the world, just as our Lord’s life was poured out for the world. Therefore, be attentive to the call which calls you. Listen for Christ’s call in the voices of the poor, the hungry, the dispossessed, and those who society would like to forget which you find around you. Listen for the call in the crisp cadences of the military whose presence helped give you birth and sustained you. Listen for it in the voices of those in your community of retirement age, whose experiences of life and faith have given them wisdom to share and whose advancing age gives them new challenges to meet. Listen also in the very quiet voices of the young, who desire a place of belonging where they may be formed in the faith. These voices will call you into a life where you may be a divine possibility in the world.
As God’s chosen ones, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, openness, and love. Be an inviting and welcoming presence, that you may be a truly catholic church. Remember always that catholic means “with wholeness”. That wholeness is to be that family in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, black nor white, rich nor poor, straight nor gay, young nor old, native-born Tejano or Texan by adoption and grace, because here, in this place, all find their deepest identity around this altar in their common need for Christ.
Finally, let your worship and prayer be at the heart of all that you do, the font from which all that happens here flows, and may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you always. AMEN.
(Re: Ephesians 1:2, 15-19, 4:1; Colossians 3:12; Philippians 2:6-11, 4:6;
Galatians 3:28; II Corinthians 13:13)
The Rev. Doug Earle
Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1018 E. Grayson, San Antonio, TX 78208, May 15, 1999.
Hymns:
Opening: Glorious things of thee are spoken
Sequence: Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round
Post Sermon: Holy Spirit, Lord of Love
Offertory Anthem: Be thou my vision O Lord of my heart
Communion: Humbly I adore thee
I come with joy to meet my Lord
Let all mortal flesh keep silence
Father, we thank thee who has planted
Closing Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim
Propers (adapted from “For the Unity of the Church” and “For the Ministry II”
Isaiah 35:1-10 Ps 146 Ephesians 4:1-16 John 17:6a, 15-23
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