St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church saying sad farewell to Rector Brooks Graebner
Posted: Tuesday, September 19, 2017
The morning of Sept. 24 will be a bittersweet one at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, as the Rev. Brooks Graebner, the church’s Rector, officially departs after 27 years at the church. The church and local community are paying their respects to Graeber and his wife, artist Chris Graebner, with a series of events commemorating their departure.
“For 27 years it has been my privilege to work with a host of generous, talented people in a beautiful setting, and to assist St. Matthew’s parish in discerning and fulfilling its God-given mission here in Hillsborough and Northern Orange County,” Graebner said. “Much of that has to do with the character of the place itself. The St. Matthew’s buildings and grounds are conducive to rest, repose, and renewal. We host a fair number of retreats. For 15 years, our bishop Michael Curry made it a practice to hold an annual quiet day here, when he could reflect upon his ordination vows. Our new bishop, Sam Rodman, did the same this July, as he prepared for his consecration. Many days I find people simply strolling our grounds, sitting in the churchyard or the church building.”
“Over the years, he has brought faith, leadership, vision, and strong engagement with Hillsborough and the community beyond,” Hillsborough resident and St. Matthew’s member Steven Burke said. “As we would hope from our priests — as from our friends and civic leaders in any realm — he unusually well combines spirituality, intelligence, wide-ranging thought, and remarkable decency by every measure. During his tenure and reflecting well his good sensibilities, St.Matthew’s has gained, implemented, and enriched much.”
Graebner’s work over nearly thirty years at St. Matthew’s cannot be quantitatively measured. But some of his more significant accomplishments at the church include ever greater and stronger membership, including unfailing commitment from young families and their younger children, the renovation and enrichment of its unparalleled 1826 historic church building, architecturally appropriate and thoughtfully conceived new buildings and added components to a place of remarkable beauty, establishment, with no small vision, of an area-unique Faith & the Arts program, with about 70 events over the years bringing literary, musical, and cultural offerings to an appreciative community.
“I also rejoice when St. Matthew’s can open its doors and be a place of lively engagement, hosting events for the community,” Graebner said. “Arts programming is certainly a part of that, such as the long-running annual performance of Dickens’ Christmas Carol by Allan Gurganus and Michael Malone, and the wide-ranging offerings that Mary Rocap has helped to facilitate, including the Women’s Singing Circle that she founded and continues to direct. But equally, if not more important, are the projects and programs that help meet the needs of underserved or vulnerable members of our community, such as the Food for All program, or literacy programs, or Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Graebner has brought recognition to the church through his roles within the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, including his work as Diocesan lead historiographer. He’s also demonstrated a commitment to racial and societal equality, particularly seen in the partnership established with Hillsborough’s Dickerson Chapel AME Church.
“In taking our place in this community, we are blessed to have forged and deepened partnerships with other congregations and organizations,” Graebner replied. “Our membership in, and support of, Orange Congregations in Mission was already in place when I came, and it continues. Habitat for Humanity is another example. For a number of years, members of St. Matthew’s joined with members of the local Unitarian-Universalist congregation to form an AIDS care team, and later a prison re-entry support team. But of all the partnerships we’ve nurtured, the one that has meant the most to me personally and spiritually is our sister church relationship with Dickerson Chapel, with whom we share worship and fellowship every time there’s a 5th Sunday on the calendar. Since 2009, we take turns worshipping in each other’s churches, and we combine our choirs. It’s a witness and reminder that we are never at our best when we live in isolation, and only for ourselves, but when we join hands and forge relationships with others. I pray that St. Matthew’s will continue to seek ways to weave itself into the fabric of this community.
Members of the Hillsborough community are heaping praise on Graebner for his dedication and wisdom over the years.
“It is impossible to put into words the impact of Brooks Graebner’s tenure at St. Matthews or the loss we shall all feel at his leaving,” Elizabeth Matheson, an architectural photographer from Hillsborough, and member of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church for approximately 70 years. “He is a scholar, musician, friend—a pastor of rare grace and kindness, who has made St. Matthews a welcoming center for all of Hillsborough. The church of my childhood, while sweet and nurturing, was decidedly sleepy. It is now vibrantly awake, but manages to retain the warmth and beauty of its long history. This tricky balance has been deftly navigated by Brooks over the past decades. We are profoundly grateful.”
“Brooks has the best large picture view and best detail view of anyone I have ever been around,” added Mary Rocap, musician, composer, and parish administrator at St. Matthew’s. “He remembers everything, every face, every name and pronunciation, every context. He knows St. Matthew’s through and through: our past and our present. We wish him the absolute best as he and Chris begin a new chapter in their lives. We will absolutely miss his leadership, vision, and quiet way of holding us all together.
“In our time of political and racial division, Brooks and Chris Graebner have lived their unifying principles,” added Allan Gurganus, a nationally-respected novelist and Hillsborough resident. “Their very presences have been enlivening and calming. They’ve stood always for empathy, community, inclusion. Though I myself am a wayward Presbyterian agnostic, I secretly consider myself a member of their flock. Brooks has brought theatre, secular music and controversial literature to Saint Matthews. Saying that the Graebners will be missed constitutes an epic understatement.”
“Brooks brings a keen intellect, a deep sense of history, a broad vision, and a full measure of mercy and generosity to everything he does,” assistant priest to the Rector Lisa Frost-Phillips said. “These have been great gifts within the community of St. Matthew’s and our diocese, but also within the larger community of Hillsborough and the world. For these things, St. Matthew’s is grateful and looks forward to celebrating and lifting up at our farewell weekend of events in later September. It will be a loss for all of us to say farewell, but there is joy in knowing that wherever he lands, the gifts that are simply a part of who he is will continue to impact the community and world around him.”
“Part of what has distinguished Brooks's tenure at St. Matthews is his loving attention to local history, to the history of the parish,” said Lauren Winner, an Associate Professor at Duke Divinity School. “He has led the congregation in facing head-on the ways the parish's history is entangled with slavery -- and he has helped the church not only look at that history, but use that history as a way to fund present-day ministry.”
“Brooks has been devoted to men and women who are moving into ordained ministry,” Winner added. “He has devoted countless hours to mentoring people who are entering the priesthood. In that way, he has given an incalculable gift to the wider church. All over the state, and indeed nation, are Episcopal priests who owe part of their gift, confidence, and competence to Brooks's nurture. I'm one of those. The summer internship I did at St. Matthew's was hugely formative.”
No comments:
Post a Comment