There is a church in Rome called San Paolo fuori le Mura… Saint Paul’s Outside the Walls. I had never been there before this pilgrimage, and I was not prepared for what I experienced. It is where the bones of the apostle Paul are buried.
As I knelt there gazing at the ossuary, I prayed. And as I did, I was struck by the fact that from these very bones the church sprang forth – from Paul to people in Philippi and Rome and Ephesus and Galatia, and across the known world, along the roads carved into the land saturated with the blood shed by the Roman Empire.
The word of Jesus could not be contained, and the church grew.
There was resistance. There were martyrs. And still the church grew. Over time it crossed languages and oceans, until it arrived here in Madrona, named Epiphany, defined by the building in which we sit today.
As I stood up from that altar and turned around, I looked out across a room the size of a football field, maybe bigger, flanked by eighty massive columns, surrounded by the portraits of every pope who has ever lived, including Leo the XIV. Over my head in the apse was the Pantocrator, a mosaic of the image of Jesus Christ all compassion and all judgment all at the same time… staring down upon me. To his left stood Paul and Luke. To his right stood Peter and Andrew. I felt very small.
St. Paul’s Outside The Walls was both our first stop and our last stop in Rome. And then we came home. Twenty-eight of us made the pilgrimage, while Kate stayed here, in the Shire, caring for the congregation… seeding your mind, I hear, with thoughts of St. Francis – I’ll come back to that in a moment.
I use the word Shire because Jon Roberts was one of the pilgrims, and so, naturally, a Tolkien reference bubbled up one evening during our reflection time together.
Those of you who know Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings know that the story does not end when the great quest does. Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin destroy the ring, defeat the dark lord, and then go home to the Shire, that gentle, green, ordinary place where hobbits have always lived, only to find it scourged and diminished, conquered while they were away.
These four hobbits had spent the better part of two years on a pilgrimage, fighting battles of cosmic scale. They walked into the land of the enemy, a place of ash where hope goes to die. They faced wraith-like servants of evil, neither living nor dead, terrifying beyond measure. They stood at the edges of fire and despair and kept going. Things were big and majestic and grand, not unlike what we experienced in Rome. And then they came home to find that the real work was waiting for them there.
And their insight is our insight: the great journeys are really to teach us how to fight the battles at home. The small, local, human-scale things that swirl through the Shire, through the cities in which we live.
Eleven of us pilgrims went on to Assisi at the end of the trip. I was with that group. We arrived on the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis, as Kate was preaching on him here at Epiphany. On Saturday night there was a walk taken by thousands of pilgrims, from the Church of the Angels at the foot of Assisi, up to the great Basilica of St. Francis above the town. Throngs of the faithful gathered from around the world, singing, praying, marking eight centuries of a life that refused to let the grand swallow up the ordinary.
As I walked in the dark I found myself next to a group of German women chanting Taize hymns. And I thought of our walk on September 13th, when we carried the bell around the bounds of this parish, our Shire. That was not a lesser version of the vigil walked at Assisi. It was the same thing, at the scale of the Shire.
We returned from Rome as the hobbits returned. Formed anew. Imprinted. Called. Reminded of Paul’s injunction, which we hear read today: “keep doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen.”
This message is not epic, it is simple: Keep doing what you are doing.
And so, I repeat, Epiphany, keep doing what you are doing here in the Shire, where we have been set to reveal the Kingdom of God.
The annual appeal that begins today funds this work. Once a year, every year, we ask everyone who calls Epiphany their church to make a financial commitment for the coming year. This keeps the lights on, the buildings warm, the grounds tended, the staff paid. It funds worship and formation and pastoral care and outreach initiatives that make Epiphany what it is: a creative, dynamic, thriving parish.
This is the ordinary, faithful, on-the-ground work of the church, where we come to learn and receive and hear and see what is happening in the Kingdom of God. That is what we do and Paul says: Keep doing it… Sages and Sunday school. Evensong and choristers. Summer concert series and RELATA. HAH and Operation Nightwatch. Pilgrimages and Spartan races. The Messiah and tiny homes. All Threads, and the spiritual exercises.
Because, as Paul writes, our faithfulness in these small, ordinary things reveals the peace of God’s presence. No grand gestures necessary. No cosmic battles required. Just continue showing up in the Shire.
Together, 100% of us. Because it takes all of us to continue the work of the church. Everyone who calls Epiphany their spiritual home; anyone who considers Kate or me their priest; all who claim Epiphany as their Shire are needed…. 100% of us.
The annual appeal is not a transaction. It is an acknowledgment that we belong here, and that what happens here belongs to us.
There are many ways to determine your pledge. Some give the Biblical suggestion of ten percent. Others I know draw five percent from their net income. Some make their pledge the largest gift they give each year, while others set it in the top three. All of these are ways to think about it.
But here is another idea for those of us who love to adventure beyond the Shire. Write down all the places you traveled this past year. Maybe your travel was to epic places where big things have happened, where you have gazed upon remarkable art; or stood where kings or captains of industry have left their imprint. Or maybe you walked a pilgrims trail trod by millions before you. These cosmic encounters enliven the spirit, and, I think, are good for the soul.
They strengthen us and enrich us, to return to the Shire we have chosen to call home.
And so, maybe, tally up the airfare, the train tickets, the rental cars, the gas, the hotels, the meals, the souvenirs. And let that number equal your 2027 pledge.
The travel, after all, is for us, but we are God’s for the Shire… it is where our Kingdom of God work is required and revealed.
Just a thought – not for everyone, but maybe for some. But for all of us, the call is to consider the context in which God has set us: the blessing of our birth; the foundation of our families; the skills of our mind and the power of our body; the work we have mastered; and the relationship we have built…. all from God.
We finish this annual appeal November 22nd. I encourage you to watch the videos that come out on Saturday’s in your At-A-Glance email. They were made by people you go to church with to be helpful. And if you have any questions please let me or Kate or Diane know.
390 pledges… this is the number of households who call this place their spiritual home. 390 who aligned with the legacy of the Apostle Paul and the words that he shared with the world about Jesus Christ to the Philippians and the people of Ephesus and Galatia and the Romans across the continents and over the oceans and down through time until they arrived here in Madrona at Epiphany to 390 households strong.
I’ll finish by saying as I stood near the bones of Paul, I was moved and inspired and changed. The words he wrote were from a prison cell, yet not asking for help, or declaring some cosmic battle, rather asking ordinary people in ordinary places to keep doing the ordinary things of faith. That is what our annual appeal supports; for us to keep doing; keep showing up; keep tending the Shire.
I loved being on pilgrimage. Rome was epic. Assisi moved me to tears. But I love being home more. This is where Paul’s words landed, twenty centuries later, in this neighborhood, in this building, in this Shire, amongst us, the people of Epiphany, where we find ourselves together, 100% of us, called to reveal the Kingdom of God.