Report of the Pastor
“Bringing in the Sheaves”
Psalm 126
Scholars of the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that this Psalm was written for use during the Jewish holy-day known as “Shukos,” better known as a the “Festival of Booths.” This week- long festival celebrated both the journey in the wilderness, during which God re-shaped a band of slaves wandering in the desert into a holy nation, as well as the fruit-filled harvest of the fall. The nature of this holy celebration can be clearly seen in both the words and the structure of the Psalm. It is both a recollection of the blessings of the past and hope for the blessings of the future. The first three verses recall the grace of God that led the people through the darkness of their journey in the wilderness into the light of the Promised Land. Verse four, the transition of the Psalm, implies the darkness of the present, while the final three verses proclaim the hope of restoration and blessing that God has in store for the people. The strong affirmation of the final verse sums up the intent of the whole: “They shall come home rejoicing, bringing in their sheaves.”
The Advent message of this Psalm is quite clear and appropriate. In this time of anticipation, when we are looking for the hope that comes in an infant laid in a manger, we hear the Word proclaimed clearly: your time of rejoicing is at hand. Thus, during this season, we take the time to remember and celebrate the grace of God that has guided us through this year of our lives as did the ancient Hebrews. We deck our homes with the memories of Christmases past and sing the great carols of the Church that warm our hearts. We take the opportunity to renew our love of others through greetings and letters and cards. And we find ourselves strangely and mysteriously drawn into the church, the dwelling place of our extended family and the source of our strength.
We also become painfully aware of the dark times that surround us. We miss those of our friends and family who join us no more in our celebration. We acknowledge that we are not the same people that we were and that, for those of us who grow older, many of the things that used to be must now live only in our memories. Those things that once excited and motivated us have given way to new traditions as time has assigned them to the archival shelves of our mind and spirit. We easily fall into the trap of grieving for the loss of what once was, but is no more.
Yet the message of Advent is to raise our heads and see that our savior comes. Within our darkness a light shines, beckoning us to a journey from the past into the future. We are led by the announcement of the angel chorus to come and see our salvation that arrives as the Christ Child, humble and laying in a manger. Only when we journey to the light, only when we accept the invitation of the angels, can we understand the promise of God: “You shall come rejoicing, bringing in your sheaves.” The bountiful harvest awaits us, which is nothing less than the re-formation of our lives and spirits by the gift of God’s grace. There is, however, a catch: like the Hebrews of old, we must shed the trappings of our slavery and be willing to journey through the wilderness; like the shepherds, we must leave the familiar hillsides of our comfort to find the manger.
Today I stand before you as your pastor, one welcomed into your hearts and homes with the joy of new life that God has given to me and my family in your midst. I thank God (and Bishop Bledsoe!) for bringing us together, knowing that there is a great ministry ahead of us. I have been touched by your warmth and openness and enlivened by your desire to be a church in ministry. Waples is a good church. We carry a heritage that has been a banner waved high over the North Texas Conference. However, we are aware that the banner has now faded and many of those who carried it have gone. Citing twenty five years of statistics, in 1991 Rev. Bob Robertson called Waples to commitment with a dire prediction: at the current rate of decline the church would hold its last Sunday School class in 2013 and its last worship service in 2023. We pray that that prediction does not come true! Unfortunately, however, the trend has continued, at an even greater rate than projected. There are many who remember and long for those days when they could say “The Lord has been good to us!” The temptation is for us to say, as did the wandering slaves “take us back to those days,” for in the midst of decline it is difficult for us to focus on the good things God is doing. But God is doing good things among us: we need only remember the recent joy of Cocoa and Carols; the fun of the Christmas parade; the pride we felt on the tour of churches; the servant’s heart we displayed at the Denison Fall Festival. The goodness of God is to be found in the warm celebration of All Saints Day and in the Patriotic honor of the Day of Remembrance on 9-11. Can we deny the goodness of God when we remember the joy of children running up and down our halls at vacation bible school? Instead of dwelling on the glory that once was, we must begin to focus on the hope that now is. The cry “Take us back to Egypt” must give way to “Let us join together in the Promised Land.” We must join the shepherds as they gather at the manger and honor the one who comes to bring us new life; then we must live the new life brought to us. Now we walk in darkness, but a light shines on the horizon, begging us to journey forth. Are we up to the journey? Are we ready to face the desert so that we may one day reap the harvest again? I believe that the answer is yes. That harvest may not come this year, or even the next, but it will come, provided that we become faithful stewards in the vineyard.
Therefore, as your pastor, I promise to you the following agenda for 2012 as the means of planting the seeds and nourishing the vines that will produce that harvest.
1) We must plan to bear fruit. The work of the vine dresser in the winter determines the abundance of the harvest in the spring. Now is the time when we must prepare our church to bear fruit in Denison and the World. As your future Administrative Council Chair, Ivan Banfield and I have already determined our first agenda, calling together all the elected officials of the church in early January to create a plan of ministry, not just for the coming year, but projected over the next five years. Our task will be to spend time in prayer and study to discern God’s vision for Waples, call upon the spiritual gifts among us to determine how to best rise to that vision, invite the congregation to make the vision their own, then roll up our sleeves and get to work!
2) We must realize that the journey to the Promised Land is not and can never be a solitary one. Every Sunday morning we sing “I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together.” We must come to understand what those words truly mean and make that meaning our own. The language of “my church” must become the language of “our church;” the vision of what “we” want must yield to the vision of what God wants; the response of “I’m too busy” must get lost in “What can I do.” In short, we must come to understand that the responsibility for the church rests on the shoulders of us all, not a small handful, and we must come to trust those with whom we labor, knowing that we all love Waples and want the absolute very best for our church. I will be asking the Administrative Council to help me plan ways in which we can create new relationships within the church that increase the trust level among us and allow us to appreciate one another for our uniqueness and God-given gifts.
3) We must turn our attention away from ourselves and onto the mission field that surrounds us. While many factors can be blamed for the now forty years of decline that Waples has experienced, we must avoid playing the blame game and realize that the only way long term decline can be reversed is through making disciples. Our ministry must turn outward and we must seek vital ways to make Waples visible within the Denison community. We must become so visible that people will no longer see Waples as “that church behind Kroger,” but know us as that church that is changing lives. I am excited that the SPRC has revised Kim Huff’s job description to be “Director of Mission and Ministry.” I believe that Kim will help lead us into the community in such a way that mission becomes exciting and fun for us and I look forward to the harvest of fruit that will result from her labors. At the same time, however, we must also realize that “every Methodist is an evangelist.” We must not only become hospitable in our welcome of others, we must become invitational in our relationship with persons that we meet. We must reclaim the evangelistic spirit of the early Methodists, knowing that reaching out to others with the invitation to join us on the journey is the best thing we can do for God’s Kingdom.
4) Finally, we must adopt a “Yes We Can” attitude. A few weeks ago I preached a sermon in which I said that “fear paralyzes us into inaction.” In the past few weeks I have watched that sense of fear take its toll on the leaders of this church: fear that we could not pay our apportionments; fear that no-one would show up to help with the Christmas parade; fear that the task of decorating the church would once again fall upon a handful of people; fear that we would not receive enough pledges to balance the budget; fear that we would have to cutback still further on the program and ministries of the church. Several of those fears have been laid to rest in the midst of huge successes; some, we pray, will be laid to rest in the days and weeks to come. But I call your attention to those fears now laid to rest: what turned them around? It was dedicated men and women, members and friends of this church, who set aside their personal agenda, their time away, and, yes even their pride (Linda Sullivan in her donkey ears) to give of themselves to the church. Because of them we all enjoyed the events that brought us so many blessings. From this we must learn the example of servant leadership: it is when we offer ourselves as a blessing to others that we most often find the blessings of God. As a church we must not allow the fear of the future to paralyze us: we must boldly step forward to journey through the desert, not knowing exactly where that Promised Land is, but trusting in the God who guides us to it. We must join the Shepherds as they journey to Bethlehem to welcome a newborn babe who will grow to become our salvation. We must kneel at the manger with the Wisemen to worship the King, offering our gifts to the Savior. We must find the hope that leads us to plant the seeds that will become the harvest of fruit within its due season.
As your pastor, this is the journey that I have chosen to make, trusting in the grace of God, the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to be my guide. I invite you to join me on that journey, believing that the Promised Land will truly become ours and we shall all come rejoicing, bringing 
