What was your vision for your life when you were a young adult?

Imagine taking a trip to Honolulu, Barack Obama’s birthplace, or to the British hometown of Nick Varney, the CEO of Merlin Entertainment, or to Swansea, Wales, where Rowan Williams, the current archbishop of Canterbury, was born. Imagine each of them going back to their hometowns as young men and announcing, “I’m going to be the leader of the free world.” “I’m going to be the CEO of the largest entertainment company in the world, even bigger than Disney.” “I’m going to unite the Anglican Communion through an historic Covenant.”

I think we can understand why the hometown folks might be skeptical, might question the ability or the capacity of their native son to effect such a transformation, to have such an impact.

We can understand why they might want to see some demonstration or proof in their own hometown.

We can even understand why they might even resist their visions for the future, either because they might be left out of the benefits of such a transformation or because they might have to change in order to take advantage of the benefits of their visions. We like things the way they are. The bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Rocking the boat might make things worse instead of better.

You and who live in Lake Wales and Polk County, however, have become the beneficiaries of their visions. Central Florida will never be the same because of those three men born so far away, and those who have joined them and supported their vision along the way, bringing us the promise of a bullet train, the largest Legoland in the world, and participation in a visible expression of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church through our commitment to the Anglican Covenant.
I wonder in anyone from those hometowns have joined Barack or Nick or Rowan, have followed them, helping make our own transformation possible here in central Florida? We know that Jesus’ mother and one of his brothers eventually left Nazareth and followed Jesus, joining him in the biggest transformation project ever, converting fallen human beings into sons and daughters of God, alive with the same resurrection life and Spirit that is in Jesus Christ.

You and I have been transformed by the love of Christ. His love has touched us, infecting our hearts and minds, our bodies and our wills. We have become followers of Jesus. We have left our hometowns and our families of origin to join Jesus in spreading his kingdom into the lives of those around us, like a good and very contagious infection.

Our annual meeting gives us the opportunity to reflect back and to give thanks for those whose faithful discipleship has transformed the lives of others, and in so doing, has also transformed them more and more into copies of Christ.
We must not be surprised, however, when we encounter resistance, either from within or from those around us, just as Jesus did, and I’m sure Barack, Nick and Rowan have, not only from the folks in their hometown, but many others along the way, especially from those, including our own selves, who are pretty satisfied with the status quo.

But if we’re honest with ourselves, our hometowns and every hometown could use some of Jesus’ kind of transformation, a kind of bullet train between ourselves and God, enablisng us to make real spiritual progress rather than continuing to fight the worldly congestion and aggravation fostered by a lifestyle filled with too many distractions. We all have areas in our lives like Cypress Gardens as well, places where we have been richly blessed by God, but which need complete redevelopment with the grace which comes from God in Christ.

This is the hope which is ours as Christians, that each and every year the Spirit of Christ will continue to work in and through us to transform us into true copies of Christ even as we become his children by being adopted and incorporated into the life of God’s family, this parish, extending that hometown into our earthly hometowns and communities in the most ambitious and rewarding kingdom-building project of all. AMEN.