October 2, 2016: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
When I first arrived here as your Rector in January of 2014, I was so excited by the possibilities, and my heart was warmed by your welcome. I still feel that way now, and I believe that I always will. You had faith, as did I, that the Holy Spirit brought us together, and that we would, together, be led into a new future as Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge.
At the Celebration of New Ministry held that May, the bishop opened with a collect, as we do at the beginning of each service – a collect being a short prayer appropriate to the day of the church year and one which “collects” or sums up the thought of the day or season). This was the collect:
“O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
It is a collect we read this past week at CREDO, the clergy retreat I attended down in Fairhope, Alabama. Most of you probably recognize that it is also the collect we read on Good Friday. And while it is not the one we said together this morning, my mind kept going back to it in preparing for this sermon and the week ahead. Part of that is because today we celebrate our annual Fall Founder’s Fest.
We don’t do a Homecoming Sunday here, because, well, you all were here through the summer. In fact, many churches are starting to re-think that whole thing. The Homecoming or Welcome Back Sunday was from a time when people would go to a summer place, perhaps worshipping at a summer chapel, and would then return to their regular church in the Fall. But, those days are long ago, and I can look out now and see that you’all were here through the summer, give or take a few weeks for vacations. So instead, we began last year a new type of celebration – our Fall Founder’s Fest, which is on the first Sunday of October, because we were founded on October 4, 1858.
And so, as I heard the gospel lesson this morning, where the disciples asked Jesus to “Increase our faith!” and he told them they need only have faith the size of a mustard seed, I thought about that collect, and these words “let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new.” This prayer speaks about renewal, and about faith too.
Last year about this time, Richard Lamb, a longtime parishioner, sent to me a brief history of the founding of this church, and the thing about it that struck me was the how these early parishioners, the ones who gathered in private homes on Sunday afternoons to worship, how they had faith to plant a church – to build a faith community – to step forward, and raise up a new building, with great hopes for the future. And then, during the time when the Rev. Edwin Augustine White was rector (Good old Fr. Edwin can be seen in the bronze bust high up on this wall staring down at our choir every Sunday), anyway, during his time leading the parish – on a snowy, windy night, Jan 15, 1893, the little wooden church being used by these first parishioners burned down. “Barbara Genin, a parishioner at that time said “I don’t know how it started but when it was finally out, there was little left of Christ Church.”
They did not lose faith – they rebuilt.
The story goes that “members of the church had been coming from a wider area, the greater majority of Bloomfielders and Glen Ridgers [and so it was decided to buy property at the corner of Park and Bloomfield Avenues and the second building of Christ Church began. That new church building was dedicated in 1893 – and it is where we sit today – with the line between the towns of Bloomfield & Glen Ridge running right through our high altar. And the church grew and prospered.
“let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new.”
Christ Church was cast down and then raised up – the old ashes, being made new here, in these stones.
You know, the thing about this gospel today is how the disciples are asking for what they think is extraordinary – this incredible faith that would be without doubt, without question – a sort of super-sized, cape wearing super-hero kind of faith – completely perfect and without flaw. Only that is not really faith at all. Jesus tells them that faith isn’t about size…but about doing the ordinary acts of life. He tells them that with faith the size of a mustard seed, one could do amazing things, but he then underscores it with a metaphor about faith as the ordinary acts we do in our lives. What could he have meant by that?
While placing stone upon stone may be ordinary work, the vision to build after being cast down by fire is an act of extraordinary faith. And for over a 100 years, the church grew and flourished. But like many churches, in the past few decades, Christ Church declined in numbers. Generations of parishioners had provided for the church to stay afloat in those lean years, through endowments given to the church as part of their estate plans. By 2014, when my path and this church intersected, brought together by the Holy Spirit, Christ Church was at a crossroads.
Yet what I saw in the eyes of the Search Committee back then were people who had faith, faith the size of a mustard seed, faith that could move mulberry trees – even if they may not have realized it themselves. It seemed to me too that the walls were shouting with the voices of those long ago, reminding us of our resilient past, and urging us ever forward in faith.
And so we stepped boldly forward into our future together…and just a few weeks in, we made a decision – a decision that to this day has been a symbol of mulberry tree moving – we ripped the pews out and completely transformed the floors of this church. The floors which had grown very, very old – with holes and chips in the wood, with cracks in the tiles – was made new. And we transformed as well the choir room – steeped in days gone by – and made it new again too. And on top of that, we removed all the old, dirty, plexiglass from the stained glass, and let the light of Christ shine through.
Christ Church was proclaiming to the world that we are a church alive, and like our predecessors, we were taking what had been cast down through the ages and making it new again – a sign of faith born out in ordinary acts of sanding floors and painting walls. And since that time, these floors have borne witness to 9 baptisms, and today, we will welcome into the household of God, 4 more: Jennifer, Alexa, Kaylin, and Grayson – Grand and great-grandchildren of Dorothy and David Johnson. Our congregation has grown by over 30% since 2014, and the feeling of new life seems to be everywhere – in our worship, in our formation, and in our ministry far beyond these walls.
But we were not yet done, were we. A group of us gathered around that same time in February of 2014 – people from both the church and the nursery school – to talk about the space challenges each faced. The church needed space for adult formation and the offices to be more accessible. The school had waiting lists in each class and needed to expand. And with faith in what might be, we looked at the opportunities that we had – seeing in spaces used only on Sundays, new possibilities. Imagining from neglected corners a new purpose. A new vision was developed, and our leadership had the faith to take that vision and make it happen – faith larger than a mustard seed, because more than mulberry bushes were moved to complete it.
And this week, on October 4th, exactly 158 years from the founding of this church, the mayor of Bloomfield will cut the ribbons to the newly renovated spaces, and our bishop will bless them.
With faith the size of a mustard seed, “things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new.” We have a vision of the future ahead, a vision shaped not by our own desires, but by listening hearts – open to the workings of the Holy Spirit. And from this place we will, with God’s help and guidance, plant mustard seeds everywhere.
See the thing about seeds is, they are a lot like churches. They are planted with hope – hope of roots taking hold, hope of breaking the ground and growing year after year, hope that what was planted will be something that will last, and may provide seed for others to grow too. That is what a church community is – a place where seeds are nurtured to grow – rooted in Christ – growing in faith. It is something we do together – in community – and with God’s help. It’s a partnership with God and one another.
I am reminded of a story about a young farmer and his first little farm.
Albert took over an old, run-down, abandoned little farm. The land was overgrown with weeds, the barn was falling down, and the shed was just a frame with broken glass.
During his first day of work, the priest stopped by to bless Albert’s work, saying, “May you and God work together to make this the farm of your dreams!”
A few months later, the priest stopped by again. Lo and behold, it was completely transformed. The barn had been expertly rebuilt, crops were growing in neat rows all over, the shed had been made into a green house, with re-glazed windows, and was full of plump, ripe tomatoes.
“Amazing!” exclaimed the priest. “Look what God and you have accomplished together!”
“Yes, Father,” said Albert, “but remember what the place was like when God was working it alone!”
This faith thing – it isn’t something we need to measure, but it is something we do together, and in partnership with God. It is relational, we need God and God needs us. And the outcome of this relationship isn’t always something that we get to fully enjoy in our lives. But if we step forward in faith, we can, with God’s help, be a part of creating new life. Life that we may not fully get to bear witness to, but life that will continue the cycle long after we are gone from this earth.
The theologian Reinhold Neihbur once said, “Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; Therefore we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.”
The people who founded this church planted something that would not be completed in their lifetime, something that is not completed even now, because the church is not these walls, but all of you, and we change from year to year, and new people change us as a community, and the loss of people over time change us as well. But as Neihbur suggests, because of this, we are saved by hope in the possibility, by faith in the uncertainty, and by love in our relationship with God.
Each of us are a people of faith, and Jesus is telling us that faith, no matter how big or how small, can do wonderous things – can take that which is cast down, and make it new – even when that it is we who are the ones who in need of new life – because faith is not a journey we are on alone, but with God and with each other. And with God, the most ordinary things, the smallest of daily living, becomes miraculous.
You see, through all the years of this church, our ups and downs, if we have learned anything it is that sometimes, most times really, faith isn’t about shouting from the rooftops, but about the small whispers of our deepest heart. It is about taking it one day at a time, and “putting one foot in front of the other and walking toward a future we do not yet see but trust God is fashioning. Faith is heading out the door each day looking for opportunities to be God’s partner and co-worker in the world. Faith is imagining that the various challenges put in front of us — whether solving a problem at work, […] forgiving someone who wronged us, [or renovating the church to create new spaces] — are actually opportunities that invite us to grow as disciples and witness to God’s presence and goodness in the world.”[1]
So “let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new” because, we, the people of Christ Church, are stepping boldly forward in faith – faith no bigger than mustard seeds – and with God’s help, we will continue to do the ordinary and the extraordinary to move the mulberry bushes of injustice, of oppression, of hate, out into the seas, and planting in their place seeds of hope, peace, and love that will grow for generations to come.
We may not live long enough to see the full fruits of our labor, but generations from now will grow nourished by the ordinary work we do today.
Amen.
For the audio from the 10:30am service, click here:
[1] David Lose. http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2773″
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
October 2, 2016
Pentecost 20 – Year C
1st Reading – Lamentations 1:1-6
Psalm 137
2nd Reading – 2 Timothy 1:1-14
Gospel – Luke 17:5-10
