Homily Year C Week 20

 Year C WK 34 

Homily Christ the King

Theme : In this feast we see the great sacrifice on our behalf, we see our eternal God becoming human and in an exchange of his divinity in his death we gain the reward of eternal life for us. This homily was lay the foundation to moving the Parish from maintenance to evangelization 

Today is the Feast of Christ the King , a feast dedicated to reminding us the Christ has control and dominion over all things. 

You know I have three adult children, my middle child still lives at home to as he puts it "take care of my old man".... In spite of these inspirational words, I still love him very much. ... Sometimes I think I live on the set of the TV show, the big bang. Only geeks live in my house and while I claim no similarity to any of the shows characters, the show is funny to me because I seem surrounded by either the scriptwriters from the show or the fear they are filming in my house. At any rate like these television characters all three of my children are graphic novel collectors, for you and me than means comic books. All my kids and their grandchildren are taken by this modern phenomena and in particular the world of "Marvel Comics" . I have seen every avengers movie and being dragged along to all the other nonsense as well. 

As I was reading today's Gospel I had a flash back to the very first "avenger's" movie and the scene when mild manned bruce Bannerman becomes the incredible hulk and fights the Norse God "Loki" and whoops him . There is some wry humour when at one point Hulk drives "Loki" into a concrete floor and say "Puny God".... Everyone in the theatre laughed, including me.

You see when we look to the cross as is described in today's Gospel we look at with an evolved understanding of “Christolgy” . We see a great sacrifice on our behalf, we see our eternal God becoming human and in an exchange of his divinity , in his death the reward of eternal life for us.

However in the context of the time of his death and in the spreading of the "word" over the next two centuries, this was known as the great Christian scandal. For crucifixion was reserved for non-citizens and slaves. It was a state sanctioned execution, that was meant to dehumanize , diminish and act as a brutal warning to all who saw it. This in a time of ever powerful gods; Greek. Roman and Egyptian amongst many others. So the fact that the Christian God was crucified made him an outsider and something to be derided. It would be as if today instead of wearing a crucifix around our necks we all walked around with a little electric chair hanging around our neck with a body extended from the pain of the execution on it.

We hear this attitude of the "bad thief" who derides Christ on the cross and the Christian response of the"good thief" who accepts his own punishment as just and that Jesus the man as one who has done nothing wrong. Christ then tells him "That today you will be with me in paradise". This along with all his other teachings defines Christ's dominion and control over all things. This promise is a promise to all and gives us the hope of eternal life.

Paul's reading clarifies that Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

So we give our lives to him so that we may receive them back from him.

Since the feast of Christ the ing is the last Sunday of this church year I am going to spend the rest of the homily providing a little bit of a state of the union address to you. In other words how is the parish doing, what has a been done and what needs doing.

To start I want to say that this is not a detailed financial report, that will come at the end of the calendar year from Finance council, but rather just the highlights. The other thing I want to say is that while we still have challenges to face their is much good news to share overall.

First lets talk about the parish debt. The total debt the parish carries is approximately $280,000. Here is its history

In April 2005 debt was $38,336 related to building repairs etc.

Over the next year $180,000 was borrowed from the diocese to repair the roof and do some exterior brick work

By 2010 more than 100,000 had been generated to pay of substantial portion of the debt and the debt was at $71,668.

Over the next four year periods $76,000 was spent to restore the glebe and another $81,600 to create office space in the basement of the glebe. Because of this debt rose to $245,345.58 of which approximately $20,000 was added just to meet operational bills. 

Since 2013 $33,500 has been paid on the debt the preponderance of which has been paid in 2016

The current balance of Diocesan debt is $217,113.73

This year our 50 year old collapsing furnace was replaced with a near $95,000 cost and a loan was negotiated with St Peter and St Pauls parish, to pay for the furnace.

The parish had sufficient funds on hand (i will explain that in the next section) to contribute $30,000 to the cost and has since October  raised approximately $27,000 to further offset these cost. Approximately 27 % of the total cost has been fundraised already . To be clear we through our own efforts have already offset nearly 60% of the cost of the project.

The bad news about debt is that we spend approximately $900 a month on interest to the diocese just to maintain the debt at par. We must do better.

 

To pay off this debt we need to generate about $60,000 per annum over five years to pay it of. In stark terms just more than $1,200 a week.  This seems insurmountable but it isn't!

Because of the $95,000 expenditure on the furnace the Parish will be in the red this year by approximately $45,000. The good news is that it appears that operating costs have been reduced to the point that even with selected program increases we should be able to generate an operating surplus of more than $30,000 per annum. Further we have yet to experience the costs savings generated by our new heating systems which we will be able to measure over the winter but we are told they may be as high as $10,000 per annum.

This means that over five years we should be able to generate an operating surplus of $200,000 . In addition to that Father has asked Finance Council to look at other forms of debt reduction planning which may include the sale of an asset to get this debt burden off of shoulders.

Now you may be asking what the surplus is all about. There are two principal reasons for this. The most significant is the reduction of staffing costs at the parish. We now in fact have 1/2 a priest with the parish of St Peter and St Paul sharing the payroll and overhead costs. The second is that Father has been spending your money as if it were his own, in other words wisely and with diligence. Thank you Father.

Here are a breakdown of expense by percentage as of Oct 31st

Church Supplies (Stipends) 27%

Furnace 23%

Salaries 20 %

Glebe costs 6 %

Diocesan Assessment 6 %

Maintenance 5 %

Utilities 4 %

Insurance & Taxes  2%

Office costs 2%

Interest costs 2%

Cathecetical Costs 1 %

So lets look at giving!

189 identified givers

19 contribute an average of $38.46 a week 10 %

Average contribution is $16.30 all in 

If you remove the top 10 % falls to $12.91 

Remember that your giving is not about the money , your giving is a prayer to Christ , a commitment to his mission and a respond in faith. What you give is up to you and should be reflective of your own financial situation and circumstances

But consider that if any contributor increased their weekly giving by $5.00 the cost of two Tim Horton coffees the parish would increase revenues by nearly $50,000 a year which would allow us to increase our expenditures to support the mission of the church, to grow our numbers and enrich our christian life's.

We as a team commit to increased transparency as to what is going on, how we spend the parishes money on the mission. We are going to focus on developing lay leadership starting with a volunteer leadership team to help us move forward and provide advice and council to Father on each of the systems of a healthy church and keep the church on focus for the future. There is much work left to do , but we are on track. Both Father and I see a sense of the Holy Spirit in the congregation , a sense of a new Pentecost in the Church of Halifax.

There is a team of parishioners working on Pastoral planning, in other words strategic planning for the next five years including vision and mission statements. They will report to  Pastoral Council and you in the New Year so you can share and have a role in looking at the future 

With all this review our building committee will continue to inspect our buildings so we can have managed and planned spending and not emergency repairs

We are moving forward and we have a sense of great hope in what lies before us.  We will roll out a preaching theme during Advent of "Guess who is coming for Christmas ?" To address evangelization and parish growth from Christmas.... Thank you to each and every one of you for all that you do. We invite you to continue or increase your engagement so that the parish will become a beacon, a light of Christ in the community.