🔊 Patience & Miracles

Welcome to AnchorCast, a weekly podcast of homilies and sermons from Christ our Anchor Anglican Mission in Nashville, Tennessee.

Let us pray.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable on thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.

Amen.

So I know Dan and Clay have heard this at least once or twice, but I like to call it out each time it happens, because especially with the work we do, it’s relevant.

But this week, you know, being bivocational and a father, work got in the way of normal homily prep.

Now the way that happened is I usually plan my week out on Monday mornings, and generally that’s a fine and good practice.

But this Monday, you see, was a holiday.

So I skipped my planning and just went about doing the special work I had planned for the day.

I met someone to work on a lecture for tomorrow night.

You know, I took Tracy to the bus station.

I did trail life with Oliver and just went about my day.

And this was all fine until Tuesday morning, when I did do my planning and realized that I had a nine to five training Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at work, and several important meetings, and that I had something to do each and every evening of the week.

Now I’m sure I could turn all of this into some sort of wisdom on planning or rolling with the punches or something like that.

But in all of this, that’s not kind of what I find important.

That’s not what stands out to me.

And what stands out to me is the special way that work and family impact our lives.

So no matter how much I want to step away from the training, I can’t take a longer lunch during a training and write a homily.

And no matter how much I’d rather be writing or preparing for board meetings or any of those sorts of things, Rosemary at the end of the day needs to get to ballet, and Oliver needs me to be his dad at trail life.

Work and family are non-negotiable parts of our lives, and they often pull us from the things we’d rather be doing, but they must be done.

And in the end, we are better people for fulfilling the duties that God has given us to fulfill.

So I say all of this to kind of expand upon what I posted to the website this morning, kind of what’s been accomplished in Tracy’s life over the last, I don’t know, really only five weeks.

And it’s that because of being bivocational, I totally get the sacrifice that I’m asking people when I pull them into this weird and strange ministry.

And I must admit that there are many days when I myself have moments of wavering.

It would definitely be easy, many rainy Wednesdays to just cancel.

There’s some Saturdays where I would really rather be sleeping in or doing something else.

Because on the surface, these small services, these brief interactions we have with people in the park don’t always feel like in the moment that they are worthwhile.

But thankfully, God gives us days like this Monday.

And we thank God for the days we get to see him complete his work in big ways.

So Monday, when I dropped Tracy off at the Greyhound station so he could go be with his sister who he was now reconciled with, and Monday, I got to talk with someone who had spent their last night outside and was excited about that.

I got to talk to someone who had learned to trust for the first time in a very, very long time, and I left someone who previously had thought he was alone, but now had trust in Christ Holy Church as a place he could turn to for help.

Tracy told me when I was going to the bus station, we were talking a little beforehand, that the night before, when his sister asked how he was getting there, and he told her, oh, I just left my stuff at the church, and Father Michael’s gonna come get me and drive me to the bus station.

And she was just like, what?

Do you have a backup plan?

How do you know they’re gonna show up?

That’s crazy.

What if he doesn’t come?

And he just assured her of like, well, of course, I don’t have a backup plan.

I don’t need one, right?

Like they’re gonna show up.

They’ve been kind.

They’ve helped.

They’ve proven themselves.

I can trust them, which for someone out on the streets is a big thing.

So it helped me, Monday, and I hope helps all of you today, to remember that we are doing important work, that the sacrifice and commitment that we give are big, but what God does with our offering is even bigger.

The warmth we show people on the street brings them to our doors, and the love of Christ’s church that we foster here on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sundays and all the other days of the week encourages folk and gives them the foundation they need to make big changes from.

And the work we provide folk gives them the opportunity to buy that phone, to buy minutes, and to get the courage to have that very difficult conversation with a sister you haven’t spoken to in a very long time.

And so, I know that our services aren’t always busting at the seams, and that early Saturdays aren’t always fun, and that the waiting and the wondering of who will come, what will happen, what will be needed, are hard, but I do also know and have seen that when we wait on the Lord, He comes through every single time.

Patiently, standing by His side, we are graced with seeing His marvelous hand at work.

So many people these days wonder where all the miracles have gone, and I posit that they are happening all the time, that we just need to make the effort to be at God’s side so that we can watch Him work.

The name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Christ Our Anchor is an Anglican mission in East Nashville that meets on Wednesday evenings for prayer and fellowship.

And join us on Wednesday evenings at 5.30 as we live into what Jesus has called His church to be.

Everyone is welcome.