“God gives each of us gifts and talents for ministry…”

by the Right Reverend Thomas Clark Ely, Bishop of Vermont
Mountain Echo, June 2003

There are many days when being your bishop is the most amazing and wonderful thing in the whole world. Actually, most Sundays are like that, when I have the great privilege, joy and opportunity of worshipping in one of the fifty communities of faith in the Diocese of Vermont. Sunday May 11, 2003 was one of those very special days.

My visit (or homecoming as the Bishop of Maine likes to call them) that day was to Saint Luke’s in Saint Albans. It seems there is always something going on at Saint Luke’s and I have always enjoyed those times of fellowship in which I have participated. This particular weekend was the weekend of their Art Show. The Art Show was advertised as an opportunity for parishioners to display their creative talents. It was a “fund raiser,” but it was also a community event. The public was invited to the Saturday afternoon event and my plan was to attend. A late meeting kept me from getting to Saint Albans on Saturday, but the display of art was still set up when I arrived at 7:30 in the morning on Sunday for the first of two services.

I need to be honest here and say that my expectations for this “Art Show” were not that high. The thought of a few parishioners displaying their paintings, photographs and arts and crafts sounded like fun, but not really that big a deal. Despite repeated assurances from the rector, Dennis Hayward, that this was really a great event. it sounded to me more and more like one more church “gimmick,” one more chance to hold a raffle and “fleece” the locals! The minute I walked in the door that Sunday morning, I knew God had surprised me once again. Sure there had been a raffle, actually a fine painting by a gifted parish artist that fetched a pretty sum, but it was what I saw all around that room that really amazed me.

There, spread out on tables and hanging from every wall of the parish hall, were the beautiful and astounding works of art created by the parishioners of this active parish church. There were nearly thirty different artists, ranging in age from six to ninety, on display in that room. They expressed their creative gifts in every medium, from pencil to charcoal to paint, from needlepoint to counted cross-stitch to quilts and from wood to storybook to graphic design. I hesitate to single out any one artist, but the six-year-old who whose first appliqué of a butterfly was on display certainly captured my heart. I showed her the butterfly on my pectoral cross and we talked about the butterfly as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection.

What does this mean, and why am I so taken by it all? As I reflect on my experience that day, two things seem most important to share. One is the sheer delight in being surprised—how often that can happen to us if we give ourselves over to the opportunity for surprise and not just expect things to be a certain way. I wonder, for instance, how close I came to missing all this. How grateful I am that most of the Art Show was still on display the next day.
The other reflection is my delight in the incredible gift that was given to others by virtue of the willingness of those artists to be vulnerable, to put the results of their creative side out there for all to see. And not just for anyone to see.

This was a display of one’s gifts for friends and family and community members to see. This was no anonymous display of gifts and talents. This was “letting it all hang out” in front of people who knew their names and where they lived.
This Art Show is for me a metaphor for our life of discipleship. God gives each of us gifts and talents for ministry and invites us to be vulnerable, to share them in a public way. This vulnerability, this giving of our selves, is the risk taking call of discipleship. It is the self-offering of our life to God, the engagement in God’s mission according to the gifts and abilities with which God has blessed us in baptism. There is great power, comfort and support in offering those gifts and abilities in community with other faithful disciples. The community of our relationship with one another as the church can give us great strength and that crucial support we need to risk vulnerability for the sake of the Gospel.

So, let your light so shine before all people that they may see your good works and give glory to God!

Thanks, people of Saint Luke’s, for your gift!

In Christ,
+Thomas