OUR UNFINISHED STORY
October 31, 2004
Texts – Habakkuk 1: 1-4, 2: 1-4
II Thessalonians 1: 1-4, 11-12
Next weekend promises to be a special time in our life. We’ve invited four gifted persons to come to Burlington – Jim Forbes, the Senior Minister of the Riverside Church in New York City . . . Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity . . . Ellen Ratner, an esteemed television news reporter and commentator . . . and Dale Bishop, the former head of global ministries for both our United Church of Christ and the Christian Church Disciples of Christ. All four will be presenting major addresses – Jim Forbes will be our preacher on Friday night; Millard Fuller and Ellen Ratner and Dale Bishop will each speak Saturday morning.
The prophet Micah’s question – “What does the Lord require of you?” – is the over-arching theme not just for next weekend’s gathering but for our entire Bicentennial Year. You know his answer –“do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” For twenty seven hundred years, people of faith have been trying to flesh out what that means in the context of their time and place. It is an “unfinished story,” one with which every generation must contend.
We’ve asked our speakers next week to help us grapple with this. What do they see as the premier challenges of our time? As we begin a third century of life together in this place, what should “doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God” look like? Another way to put that might be – If in fact ours is an unfinished story, what should the next chapter look like?
Two passages of scripture come to my mind when I think of such questions. The first is that enigmatic passage from the prophet Jeremiah we considered together several weeks ago. “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,” the prophet said to those languishing in Babylon; “pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” [Jeremiah 29: 7] As I said in my sermon that morning, I hear that to mean – embrace where you are, and acknowledge truthfully the challenges which that setting places before you. The same thing applies to us as a congregation.
We are an urban church (aren’t we?), located in the heart of the city. That is both our blessing and our challenge. The next chapter of our unfinished story must embrace both realities.
The blessings are easy to count, aren’t they? Because of our setting, women and men from all over our region easily identify with us and frequently come to share their faith journeys with us. Ours is a large and diverse congregation, enriched by the blending of many backgrounds and traditions. In music, in Christian Education, in Outreach, in youth ministry ... we are able to carry out programs of unparalleled excellence in large part precisely because we are located in the heart of this vibrant city.
So it is a blessing, our location in the heart of this city, but it is also our challenge – it means, doesn’t it, that poverty and homelessness are literally just outside our front door. We do not have the luxury so many in our society increasingly seem to crave – the luxury of “out of sight, out of mind.” The person seated next to you in worship here on any given Sunday morning could well be a person in search of a warm place on a cold day. And sometimes those who worship with us, to say nothing of those who come through our doors on a week day, are persons struggling for physical and mental wholeness. It is challenging.
“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you,” the prophet says; “pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” That’s so true for us as an urban church, but it is also true for as a church located within the United States of America.
This Tuesday you and I will vote. By Wednesday morning (God willing!), we will have helped to decide the course which our nation will follow for the next four years. This is our privilege and our responsibility. It is a duty for Christian people in every time and place to participate fully in the affairs of the nation within which they live. You and I live here, and that is a great blessing, but it is also a tremendous challenge. The next chapter of our unfinished story must embrace both.
We know ... or think we do ... the blessings which our citizenship entails. I will not try to recount them here. I wonder, however, if we fully appreciate the challenges which also go hand in hand with that citizenship. Ours is the world’s only superpower. The decisions we will make by our voting on Tuesday will reverberate around the globe. Increasingly we hear talk of empire. It makes almost all of us terribly uncomfortable. Call it what you will, however, there is no question but that God has placed us in a very special setting. What you and I consider a “middle class lifestyle” is in truth an extraordinarily privileged way of life. The capacity we have both as individuals and as a nation to do good ... to help others ... to shape a better world for all of God’s children – these are almost limitless, aren’t they? But the opposite is also true. The capacity we have to do ill ... to trample on the rights of others, to turn away from sisters and brothers in need, to exploit the world’s resources only for our own aggrandizement – these also are beyond measure.
“Seek the welfare of the city (of the place) where I have sent you; pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” That’s so true for us, both as an urban and as an American church; our unfinished story must embrace it.
Here’s a second passage of scripture which I think must stand alongside these words from Jeremiah. It comes from the gospel of John, the fourth chapter. Jesus is talking with a woman from Samaria. She is challenging him, accusing him of being close-minded and doctrinaire about religious issues. “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,” she says to him, “but you (Jews) say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus replies – “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem ... (For) The true worshipers will worship God in spirit and truth ... God is spirit, and those who worship ... must worship in spirit and truth.” [John 4: 20, 23-24] Isn’t that something still “unfinished” not just in our story but in the whole story of the people of God?
We call ourselves “First Church.” It is an unconscious, almost automatic self-naming that we cling to. It has its roots in history. Our forebears legally laid claim to that title in 1885. What many of us didn’t realize until John Nutting began his work on our Bicentennial History a few years ago is that they did so in part because our neighbors across the way (whom today we call Unitarians) were already in legal possession of the title “The First Congregational Church in Burlington.” Fortunately for us, they later abandoned that name so that we could re-claim it for ourselves!
“Who’s on first ... what’s on second.” John Nutting’s answer is – There were two firsts and no seconds! It’s childish, this name claiming, but it points to the same underlying issue our sister from Samaria tried to articulate. Jesus’ response to her is an even greater challenge to us – “God is spirit, and those who worship ... must worship in spirit and truth.”
What does that mean in a century when the followers of Jesus and the followers of Mohammed are waging fratricidal warfare? What does that mean in a time when the technology of almost instantaneous global communication places the claims of each major world religion right alongside the other? How do we live together as sisters and brothers from one and the same family if we cannot even talk to each other about what is dearest and closest to our hearts? I don’t know the answer, but I am absolutely convinced that the work of finding it must be a part of our unfinished story.
So, my points are two-fold. Number one – we are called to embrace the setting within which we find ourselves, and to acknowledge truthfully the challenges that location places before us. Number two – we must find new ways to express our devotion to and love for God . . . ways which do not give offense to the sisters and brothers with whom we share this world.
Finally, this – As you came in this morning, did you notice the “cribbing” that has been erected around the base of two of the columns in the front of our sanctuary? Not very attractive, are they? Several people said to me, “Couldn’t you have at least waited until our big weekend was over?” And at first I thought, “you know, they’re right.” But then . . . But then it occurred to me that this may in fact be the best symbol of all. Yes, we’re “under construction,” but that’s because we’re two hundred years old and our journey ... our story ... is still unfinished.
“Write the vision,” we Habakkuk says; “make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time ... If it seems to tarry, wait for it.” [Habakkuk 2: 2-3] Amen.