The epistle this morning is from Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth. Corinth was quite an interesting place. The southern portion of Greece is almost like an island, with only a narrow strip of land connecting the country together. On this narrow strip of land is the city of Corinth. Its’ favorable location made it an extremely good place for trade, as all who went north or south had to pass through it and the city was always full of sailors, tradesmen, and merchants from all over. With all of those visitors, you can imagine that people would be interested in some distraction from their everyday life.
Accordingly, the citizens of Corinth were only too happy to make money providing such diversions. The city became known as a place where you could find nearly anything that you wanted. In fact, it was likely the ancient precursor to another such place, and one can imagine the slogan they used, “What happens in Corinth, stays in Corinth!”
Through the letters to the church in Corinth we get a glimpse into the life of a church at its very beginning. They started with a few people and great promise and grew into a thriving church. They were blessed by God with many gifts, but also struggled a bit to discern what God was calling them to do and to become.
Does that sound familiar to you? There are in fact a number of parallels between the church in Corinth and Epiphany. Corinth was a crossroads city where people came and went, it was a city built on money and the diversions it offered, and it was here that a group of Christians chose to build a new church. Las Vegas too is a transient city, a city built upon money and diversions, and it is here that Epiphany Church was planted.
Many things have happened in this growing church, just as many things happened in Corinth. I won’t take the time to go into the history of our church here, but we have certainly come a long way! For a while this church had two goals that drove our vision; a building of our own and a priest of our own. Take a look around you. God has richly blessed us and we have this wonderful campus to call our home. It supports our ministry and has given us the space to welcome people and expand our mission. Two and a half years ago the vestry called me to be your Priest in charge under special circumstances. This spring they decided to make the arrangement permanent and have called me to be your Rector. So God has blessed us with the answer to our two fondest wishes; we have a building and we have a priest.
But we haven’t allowed ourselves to be content with that. Now that we have them, we have found ways to use them! Our buildings support our worship, our educational programs, and have given us a place for fellowship and prayer. We also use our buildings to support our many outreach events, acting as a collection point for food for Epicenter, school supplies for kids, and clothing and items for homeless folks through Gabriel’s Gift. We share our buildings with Narcotics Anonymous groups, and now host homeless families through our partnership with Family Promise. We have launched new educational programs like Faith Matters, seminars on spirituality, gifts identification, and discernment of God’s call and expanded our worship to include a Wednesday healing mass. You share your priest with a number of ministries throughout the diocese and with other organizations that help people in need.
The church in Corinth was also blessed in a number of ways. Paul tells them “as you excel in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness and in our love for you.” Clearly, they had a lot going for them. But Paul cautions them that they are lacking in one area, in generosity. The Corinthians did a number of very good things, but Paul tells them that their generosity in giving has not kept pace with their other blessings.
I am pleased to say that this is not the case at Epiphany. We are blessed by the generosity of one another as we use pledge offerings to support our mission and ministry. The wheels of progress are moving at Epiphany, but there is one area that acts as a brake on that progress; our very high mortgage debt. A large percentage of our pledges go to pay the mortgages on our buildings and that diverts funds that we could otherwise use to grow our mission.
This has been on my mind for a while and given me a few sleepless nights, but as always, God provides. An anonymous parishioner has offered us a gift of $150,000 if we can raise a matching amount from the congregation. This is a huge blessing. Raising $300,000 will eradicate one of our two mortgages and allow us to repay the diocese years earlier than they expect. You see, when the opportunity to buy this property arose, the diocese of Nevada was so confident in the future of Epiphany, that they gave us all of the funds they had to help us with the purchase. Talk about a leap of faith!
So while we are already a generous people, I am asking you to help us to take advantage of this blessing and make a donation to a capital campaign to eliminate this debt. Your gift, large or small, will be doubled by this donor, and will help us to increase our funding for mission and ministry. We are growing in many ways, just like the church in Corinth; in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and this will help us to grow in new ways so that we can continue to live out the gospel call.
But don’t take my word for it. I leave the last words to the Master. From Matthew’s gospel, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”