Sermon by the rev'd. Pamela Snare

Sermon
Whitsunday, May 27, 2007
Mother Pamela Snare

The Rev’d Pamela Snare

“Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”

The sermon that I preached at Bishop John’s consecration in January was the most difficult sermon of my life to write. Today’s sermon is in close competition.

The nine and a half years that I have spent among you have been the happiest of my life. It was here that I met and married Jerry. When I moved to Covington, I thought that perhaps God was calling me to a monastic life. I never expected or imagined being married. But God surprised me, as he is wont to do, with blessing and goodness beyond my imagining. You celebrated with us our marriage – a most extraordinary blessing in both our lives. You, the people of Christ Church, will therefore go with us wherever we go. You are indelibly written in our hearts and a part of our lives.

I love Covington and southeastern Louisiana – the food, the culture, the beauty, the seafood, the gracious manner of life. I have been more at home here than anywhere I have lived in the U.S. Even post-Katrina, I love this place.

Christ Church has challenged me to discover gifts that I was not aware resided in me. Living among you and ministering with you has made me more of the person God intended me to be. I must thank you for that. You have been a channel of the presence of God –of the Holy Spirit - to me, and God has used you to bring me closer to him and to his will.

The sabbatical that Jerry and I had in the fall of 2004 was a second extraordinary blessing in our lives. It was a privileged time of living close to the Lord and being showered with his goodness and mercy. Those three months exceeded all that I could have imagined or desired. They changed me forever and they gifted Jerry and me with an intimate relationship of love and support with the nuns and the monks at the Benedictine monastery. Again, I must say thank you. You have been a partner in God’s blessings in my life and Jerry’s.

“So, if all this is true,” you may be asking yourselves, “why is she leaving?” I am leaving for the same reason that I left Holy Trinity Church in Greensboro, N.C. to come here. I think, as best I can discern, that God is sending me to a new place and a new work. I could be wrong, but if I am wrong, I am confident that God will show me, and will lead me to where he wants me to be.

I am telling you how you and Christ Church, and Covington and Southeastern Louisiana have been a blessing to me beyond my expectations and desires because I believe that that is how God works. The Holy Spirit surpasses all that we can desire or imagine. The Holy Spirit enables us to be and to do things that we do not think we are capable of being or doing. The power of the Holy Spirit transformed twelve ordinary and mostly uneducated men into a powerhouse that changed forever the course of this world. That same Spirit is living and active here. And I have witnessed to but a few instances of his power and working. I now ask you. Have you seen the presence and power of the Holy Spirit here? When and how have you seen and experienced the fruits of the Spirit here – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control?

What has been at Christ Church is no longer. What is to come is as yet unknown. It seems to me that Christ Church is in a similar situation to those first disciples in today’s gospel. Their leader is gone, but not to be a bishop, or a Canon to the Ordinary. He is dead. They are forlorn, deserted, and afraid – so afraid that they have locked the doors where they are gathered. They don’t have a clue what to do next. They don’t even have a Search Committee. It’s not occurred to them to look for an interim.

All they know is that they need to look to each other for support because they are all in the same boat. So they continue to meet together and to pray together. And it is while they are all together and praying that Jesus suddenly is among them and the Holy Spirit descends upon them.

My friends, do you understand what this means? Their leader was gone, but they kept on meeting together and praying together. Let me repeat. Their leader was gone, but they did not take a vacation from meeting together and praying together. It was more important with their leader gone for them to meet together and to pray together. And God honored their faithfulness. He did not leave them desolate. He did not leave them orphans. He came to them. He came in the midst of their anxiety and their fear and he said, “Peace be with you.”

Most of you know that I read the Rule of St. Benedict daily to help me learn how better to live the gospel. One of Benedict’s favorite verses from the psalms is, “Seek peace and pursue it.” Peace, in the scriptures, is not the peace of compromise between two opposing viewpoints or parties. It is not the absence of difficulty or hardship. Many of the disciples, after receiving Jesus’ peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit will face beatings, imprisonment, and martyrdom.

Jesus’ peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit did not free their lives from conflict or trial or changes or challenges or risks. What it did do was strengthen them, embolden them, to face conflict and trials and changes and challenges, and to take risks because they knew that God was with them. They knew in their hearts that this world was God’s world and that nothing could finally thwart his purposes. They were not afraid because they knew that God was with them every step of the way, even in the face of death. And in the face of death they knew that all would be well; and all would be well and all manner of things would be well. No one and no thing could take that peace from them because it was the gift of God.

In her last letter to us, Sister Sarah wrote: “So, the new adventure begins. Tell Jerry to put on his hat and prepare for the unknown of God. The Spirit is blowing we do not know where he comes from or where he is going. Leave like Abraham, without looking back; God is our all.”

So it is for all of us, my friends. A new adventure is beginning, for Jerry and me, and for you, the people of Christ Church. The Spirit is blowing, breathing with the promise of new life. We do not know where he will lead us, but it matters not, for God is our all.

Jesus came and stood among them and, “Peace be with you…peace be with you…peace be with you.”

The Reverend Pamela P. Snare

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