May 18th Vestry Meeting
The Vestry met for their regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, May 18.  

• 3rd Avenue Arts Steve Kiely presented a 3rd Avenue Arts update to include the organization’s background/history, near-term directions, long-term directions and planning for the continued relationship with St. Mark’s. Scott Hagler will continue to serve as the Executive Director of 3rd Avenue Arts. 
• Financial Reporting  Moni Grushkin provided the monthly Financial Update to the Vestry.  The report is posted in the Parish Hall for St. Mark’s member review.  The external auditor is not able to complete our external audit until the end of June or first part of July.  The Vestry and the Finance Committee agreed to go forward with the scheduling of the audit in June/July when the auditor is available. 
• LED Lighting (LED) Project Ted Carr forwarded to the Vestry information regarding the project to convert all St. Mark’s lighting to LED.  LEDs have many advantages over incandescent light sources including lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, improved physical robustness, smaller size and faster switching. Ted is working with the Vestry on the planning for converting the lights throughout the building.  Please look for further information regarding progress and fund raising for the LED Project. 
• Landscaping Bob Cox forwarded to the Vestry information regarding the planning and pricing for the grounds upkeep and landscaping.  Azteca Landscape is the new contractor replacing Joe Choquette Lawn & Garden.  Joe has left the Durango area and we wish him well in his retirement in Arizona. 
• Outreach Flags Lynne Murison is working with Albert Halverstadt to determine the best options for displaying the Outreach Flags in the Parish Hall.  Lynne’s efforts will provide us all with more information regarding the incredible ministries and support found in the various Outreach programs.
• Music Program Interim Planning The Vestry discussed early planning for the music program in the coming months following Scott Hagler’s departure.  The Vestry considered options for putting together a group of parishioners to organize and support Sunday Services music during the coming months.  In addition, a Task Force will be created to lead the search for a new Music Director.  The Task Force will work in coordination with the Vestry.  Further updates will be forthcoming in the near future. 
• New Rector Search Committee Scott Wallace, Vestry Representative on the Search Committee, shared the plans for the Search Committee to have their first official meeting tentatively set for May 25th.  The committee will also be meeting with Bishop O’Neill, Canon Missioner Blanchard and the Vestry on June 8, 2015.
• Columbarium Proposal On behalf of the Building and Grounds Committee, Ted Carr and Bob Cox presented a proposal related to the ongoing maintenance and planning for the St. Mark’s Columbarium.  The Vestry will review and consider the proposal in preparation for a formal presentation by Bob and Ted during the June 15th Vestry meeting.  

The April Vestry Minutes are posted on the Parish Hall Communications Board for parishioner review.

Blessings,
Jessica Cox
Sr. Warden

The volunteers who serve on committees and handle various ministries at St. Mark's are the life blood and the engine of the church. Because of the size of our congregation and budget, we rely on volunteers. They are the ones who donate the "man-hours" that ensure everything gets done - from making coffee, to handing out bulletins, to setting up the altar, to serving at Manna Soup Kitchen, to planting in the garden, to reading lessons during services, to providing Sunday School..... need I go on?

Like other types of non-profit organizations, we may have an advantage when it comes to finding volunteers. Patricia Lotich of Smart Church Management wrote:

At the same time, "church" is comprised of people - people who perhaps have families, jobs, hobbies, responsibilities....LIVES. Today's world is demanding, to say the least, and sometimes sending out the request for help feels like releasing a balloon with no helium. 

Call it "spring fever", "burnout", or just "life", but right now, St. Mark's has a shortage of helping hands for the many jobs that need to be covered in providing our Sunday services. Aside from clergy, it takes about seven (7) volunteers to cover a typical 8:45 a.m. service and about a dozen (12) for the 11:00 a.m. service, including coffee hour after each. In her recent report, our Sr. Warden, Jessica Cox wrote:

Would you like to join in the ‘family fun’? An added bonus of the volunteer experience is getting to know other members in the church community. Maybe it would be less work and more fun than you think. Just sayin'.

Contact Joan in the church office to find out more.

During the early centuries of the Common Era, the Church struggled over its identity: was it a Jewish sect or was it something else? It became the official religion of the Roman Empire and got involved in war and politics. It split into camps that fought about the nature of Christ: was he God and man existing separately in the same container or was he God and man mixed together inseparably in the same container? During the Middle Ages, the Church started burning witches and heretics and launched the Crusades to take the Holy Land by force from the non-Christians who lived there. During the Renaissance, it split over many things and fought major internecine wars. During the Enlightenment, it resisted science, fought more wars and continued burning witches and heretics.

Church struggles and failures not only affected western society socially and politically; they affected individuals at a very personal level. In Scotland 1696, Thomas Aikenhead, a 19-year-old theology student at the College of Edinburg, passed the Tron Church in that city along with 3 friends. Despite it being the month of August, it was cold and blustery, and it had been raining and freezing all summer. As they walked past the church, Thomas remarked, “I wish right now I were in the place Ezra called hell, to warm myself there.” Someone, however, overheard this remark and informed the kirk (church) authorities. When those authorities investigated the accusation, they learned from other students that Thomas Aikenhead had been systematically ridiculing the Christian faith and making claims including the following:

• the Bible was not the literal Word of God, but the invention of the prophet, Ezra;
  
• Jesus performed no actual miracles;
  
• the story of Jesus’ resurrection was a myth;
  
• if Moses actually existed at all, he was a better politician and magician than Jesus and that Mohammed had been better than either;
  
• Jesus was an imposter;
  
• God, nature and the world were one, and had existed since eternity.

Aikenhead’s remarks constituted blasphemy as defined by an act of Parliament in 1695, which decreed that a person “not distracted in his wits” who railed or cursed against God or the persons of the Trinity was to be punished with death. He was, therefore, put on trial by civil authorities per the recommendation of church leaders. Despite repenting and recanting all his heretical statements, following a lengthy trial during which he received support from the philosopher John Locke and other Anglican “latitudinarians,” Aikenhead was finally found guilty and hanged on January 8, 1697. With his last words he forgave all concerned in his trial – including Mungo Craig, the other student who was the chief witness against him. Aikenhead also noted that his fall had been initiated solely by his pure love of the truth. Thomas Aikenhead was tragically and cruelly executed due to the failure of his own church.

So, if history and our own lives are rife with examples of church failures, problems and pain, why do we need this community we call “church”?  Why can’t following Jesus just be about Jesus and me? Why does Matthew’s gospel quote Jesus saying that he will establish his “church” and that the very gates of Hell will not prevail against it? Why did the early Christians continue meeting in churches – those communities reminiscent of Jewish synagogues – even when many of their members were gentiles? Why did St. Paul seem to care so deeply about churches, calling them “the body of Christ”? Why does John in today’s gospel describe our relationship with Jesus using a metaphor that includes not just Jesus as the “vine” but “branches” – other Christians – connected to us in a community that often gets messy – a community that finds itself involved in conflicts of leadership, kinship, membership, economics, and aesthetics. Why did Jesus and his apostles seem to recommend participation in the Christian community over a simple individual “personal relationship” with Jesus and heroic, uncomplicated “Lone Ranger” spirituality? In short, what could God have been thinking?

In this way, we are no different that Jesus and his disciples. They had expectations of each other, and they failed to live up to them. Jesus’ disciples frequently failed to understand his teaching, they fell asleep during his emotional turmoil, they deserted him during his trials and execution, one of them denied him, and one of them finally betrayed him. And Jesus didn’t always live up to their expectations: he wasn’t the triumphant militant Messiah they wanted, he did not restore the Davidic kingdom, and he died like a common criminal on the garbage dump outside the city. 

The imperfect community of Jesus’ followers, what we now call the Church, is ironically the perfect environment in which to practice and experience forgiveness leading to love. Forgiveness can certainly be tough – but not as tough as we often think. In my own case, I did forgive my church of origin and have continued to love and respect my friends and family who are still participating in that Christian tradition. Doing so, however, was not the result of heroic spiritual effort on my part. Forgiving my church happened slowly, almost mystically, over several years as I continued to muddle along my own spiritual path in other Christian communities. Of course, part of that forgiveness was coming to understand that I had misjudged my church – coming to understand that some of those folks were not just interested in being doctrinally correct. Some of them sat with my mother, prayed with her and read her the Psalms as she lay dying. Some of them prayed for my nephew while he served a 20-year prison sentence for the murder of a homeless man, gave him a good job when he got out of prison, and helped him rebuild a life from ashes. My church helped me understand the fallibility of my moral assessments of other people. It taught me to be less righteous about my resentments and grudges –especially those that were fueled by my perception of motives I had imputed to others. Forgiving my church was, I think, the work of the Holy Spirit mediated through the lives of other Christians who forgave, loved and mentored me along the way. 

And what about here and now? In case you hadn’t noticed, St. Mark’s is an imperfect Christian community. It is also a place where we have legitimate expectations of our sisters and brothers – expectations that we do not and will not consistently meet. But it is a place where many of us have continued to experience forgiveness and genuine love – in spite of our warts. In this season of transition, I hope we can realize that what we need to do is probably not rocket science. The grace to continue forgiving and loving one another comes from being connected to (or as John says “abiding in”) the Jesus Vine – and thus connected to the other branches. The pruning described in today’s gospel is not about us cutting the bad people out of the church – it is about our choices to remain connected and about God removing the sickly, dying pieces of detritus from each of us so that we all can flourish communally in God’s vineyard. But we must stay connected to each other through Jesus. To do so, we will probably, as Stanley Hauerwas has written, “have to break our habit of having church in such a way that people are deceived into thinking that they can be Christians and remain strangers.” The practices that keep us from remaining strangers, practices that help us remain connected to each other as branches on the Vine are, fortunately few and relatively simple: worshiping together, praying together, eating together, studying together, playing together – and perhaps even putting a few more shekels in the collection plate. Mostly, I think we just need to show up.

Blessings, 
Jessica Cox
Sr. Warden