St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL

Jeremiah 1:4–10
Ezekiel 37:1–14

This sermon was part of The Year of the Bible—a yearlong initiative in which all sermons, classes, and formation for all ages followed a parish-wide journey through the entire Bible. With the bishop’s permission, we used a custom lectionary: two readings drawn from that week’s section of Scripture, plus a psalm and the regularly appointed gospel of the day.

Good morning, St. John’s.
Every once in a while
in the life of a church,
there are those days
when we need to talk a bit
about what I like to call
“family business.”

Days when we gather here in the living room
and bring ourselves up to speed
on things we do not discuss that often
but that do matter.

Days when we need to have ourselves
a good old-fashioned
family meeting.

Well, my friends,
today is one of those days,
and the topic at hand
is not glamorous,
but it is important.

Today’s topic is not something
you can
see,
touch,
taste,
or hear . . .
but it is something you can definitely feel.

Or—more precisely—
it is something
the absence of which
you can feel . . .
a powerful, invisible force . . .
the kind of force that,
when you do not have it in your life,
life becomes
difficult,
uncomfortable,
nearly unbearable.

What is this life-giving, invisible force?
Am I talking about the Holy Spirit?
No, I am talking about . . .
. . . the air conditioner.

(I know, I know.
I can feel your excitement.
Settle down.)

We will get to that,
but first,
let’s talk about
the business that brings us here every week . . .
the business that matters most of all.

Let’s talk for a moment
about the business
of God’s love.

* * *

Over the last many months,
we have been trudging together
as a parish family
through the entire Bible.

Some of you are reading the whole thing.
Some of you are reading the condensed version.
Some of you are just catching the core stories
right here on Sunday mornings
as we listen and preach and teach our way through.

And some of you have very rightly begun to say,
“Now wait a minute,
hold on, hold on.
Fr. Lonnie,
back when we started this whole thing,
you and Mtr. Leslie said
this was a love story—
God’s love story
for all humanity—
and all I’ve seen so far is
war and wrath,
judgment and degradation,
hucksters, tricksters, shysters,
and a whole lot of
dysfunctional people
and terrible family dynamics.

Where’s the love?”

Ah, you noticed that too, did you?

Here’s the thing.
We are about midway through.
Midway through
this book of books,
this story of stories,
this complicated mirror
that shows us
what humanity has so often been like
for centuries and centuries.

We have seen stories
of incredible beauty
and devastating power.

We have seen God interpreted
as kind and benevolent,
as angry and vengeful,
as firm, flippant, ferocious, fierce, and faithful.

But embedded in all of this
have been glimpses of God’s love . . .
a golden thread
shining under the threads
of our tangled tapestry,
holding it all together.

Sometimes it is easy to see,
and sometimes it is so buried
under all of humanity’s mistakes and hard-headedness
that you might doubt whether it is even there.

But God’s love is always there, my friends.
It has been since the beginning.

And now is the part
when we are beginning to see it
shine and sparkle more and more.

Just as the tapestry of humanity
begins to look its darkest and bleakest,
God’s love is on the move
to make right what has been made wrong.

In our reading from Jeremiah,
everything has gone to pot.
The kingdom is on the verge of collapse;
powerful nations are taking over;
years of bad kings and bad decisions
have brought utter ruin.

But over on the margins,
God is speaking quietly
to a young man named Jeremiah, saying,

“Before I formed you in the womb
I knew you.
Before you were born,
I consecrated you.
Things are broken,
and they need repair.
Come, Jeremiah,
come and help.”

At the same time,
over on the margins,
God is speaking quietly
to a man named Ezekiel, saying,

“My people have become
like a graveyard, Ezekiel . . .
like a bag of bones.
Go and speak to them.
Go bring a word of new life and new love.
Things are broken,
and they need repair.
Come, Ezekiel,
come and help.”

In certain seasons in my life
when I have found myself
truly worried about the future,
a friend of mine has often been quick to say,
“Now now, Lonnie.
God has not brought you this far
just to drop you now.”

We are only halfway through the Bible,
but this is the message
we’re beginning to hear.

This is the golden thread
of God’s love shining through.

This is what God has to say
to Jeremiah and Ezekiel,
to Israel and Judah,
to St. John’s and to you . . .

“Now now.
I have not brought you this far
just to drop you now.”

* * *

So let’s talk about air conditioners.

If you were here on my very first Sunday,
you may remember
that our air conditioner—
specifically the chiller
which is the giant machine
that supplies the cool air—
collapsed completely,
putting us with 400 people
in this sanctuary
at 86°.

That day was an intersection
of pure joy
and pure hell.

What you may not know
is that that was not the first time
such a thing had happened,
and it would not be the last.

The chiller is now at the ripe old age
of 20 years old,
and for the last many, many months
we have been keeping it propped on its last legs
with expensive repair after expensive repair.

We joke that we are holding it together
with duct tape and prayer,
but it is no joke to the repair companies
whom we have been keeping in business
more than we would like.

Another thing you may not know
is that that chiller supplies the cool air
not just for the sanctuary,
but for almost the entire campus.

It is the café that welcomes people in four days a week.
It is our meeting spaces where you
go to EfM and Sunday School
and learn and pray.
It is our choir room and other facilities
where adults and children
are learning to sing and play music.
It is our offices where your staff meets with you,
collaborates, prays, dreams big dreams with you,
and helps facilitate everything good that St. John’s does.

We own half a city block,
and it’s about to be a really hot block.

To that end,
St. John’s Property Commission
and St. John’s Finance Committee
have used the last several months
working with our engineering company,
undertaking massive studies,
and studying recommendations
to determine what needs to happen.

And the long and the short of it is
that we have done our best with what we have had
for longer than could have been expected.

This chiller is going to give up the ghost at any minute,
and if we want to make it through the next summer,
we need to replace it now.

The Vestry has received all this info,
studied, affirmed, and approved
the work of the Property Commission and Finance Committee,
and has ordered the chiller now
to guarantee arrival and installation
before the worst of summer hits.

Based on our engineering company’s recommendation,
this will include the new chiller for the whole campus,
a tie-in for the choir room and sacristies,
and a dedicated outdoor air system
that significantly reduces humidity in all our areas,
and guarantees fresh air to all our spaces—
which, ever since the pandemic,
is now a requirement for all new A/C projects.

The price tag is in the neighborhood of
$1.3 to $1.5 million dollars.

I should tell you,
there are two other components
our engineering company recommended,
and as a matter of stewardship
we decided not to pursue them at this time—
otherwise the price tag would be well over 2 million—
but the work we are doing will make it
so that those things can be easily tied in in the future.

The biggest challenge is that,
unlike other fundraising campaigns,
we are on a limited time window.

For the chiller to arrive
and be installed in time,
we need the full amount by June.

You will get a letter soon,
asking you to participate in this project.
We already have 100% participation
from your Vestry and Executive Committee.

Now, you may be wondering:

When do we need the money?
By June.
That is the only way we can get this chiller here
and installed before summer sets in.

Can’t we just take out a loan?
We could . . .
but that would mean paying interest
on something we could handle ourselves—
and we would rather be good stewards of our resources.

Can’t St. John’s Foundation tackle this?
The Foundation’s funds are restricted
by bylaws and legal structures
that make it impossible to be used for this need.

Do we have a major capital reserve?
We have a modest one—
enough to help in emergencies—
but not enough for this scale of work.

Are there any special gifts?
Yes.
As we became aware last year
of the impending HVAC needs,
St. John’s was very fortunate
to receive a major gift.
It is not nearly enough to cover the project,
but it is enough to help us with
cost overruns and the unexpected.

And as we all know—
with any construction project—
the one thing you can expect . . .
is the unexpected.

To that end,
that gift is being held in reserve for that purpose,
and we are so grateful for it
and for those who gave it.

Why are we just hearing about this now?
Because it has taken this much time
to get engineering reports done,
to study what’s what,
and to get solid, trustworthy answers
before we came to you with a plan.

Thorough work takes thorough time.
And we needed thorough answers
to make thorough choices.

I want to thank Charley Redding,
chair of our Property Commission.
Cindy Sessions, our Treasurer.
And Ramsay & Mary Byrd Sims,
chairs of our fundraising campaign.

If you have any questions,
these folks are happy to talk with you.

* * *

So let’s tie this up
and bring it full circle.

This project is not glamorous.
No one will get a shiny plaque
and be remembered forever for it.

But it’s not just for us . . .
it is actually about
something greater than ourselves.

It’s about hospitality . . .
making St. John’s a welcoming place
for all people,
newcomers and longtimers.

It’s about health . . .
keeping St. John’s a safe place
where we do our best
to take care of one another.

It’s about history . . .
being good stewards
of this nearly 200-year-old building
in which people have made their prayers
and woven their complicated tapestry
with the golden thread of God’s love
for almost two centuries.

Folks, we can do this.
God has not brought us this far
just to drop us now.

Things are broken,
and they need repair.
Come, St. John’s,
come and help.

Amen.