Memory and Hope

Scriptures:       Jeremiah 32:1-3, 6-15,  Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

                        I Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31          

Happy 155^th anniversary, Emanuel United Church of Christ!  Another September rolls around, and we give thanks to God for bringing Emanuel Church through another year.   This past year has been eventful – building challenges, a number of worship services shared with Bridesburg Presbyterian Church, some members and friends with us now who weren’t here a year ago; some members and friends with us a year ago who for a variety of reasons no longer gather with us now – but here we are - In the words of John Lennon, “Another year over; a new one just begun.”  And we’re grateful to God for bringing us this far by faith.

An anniversary is always a time to take stock.  Where have we been?  Where are we now?  Where is God leading us?  I can say a few things about the first and second questions.  To the third, I can only respond with speculation.  But still, I think there’s value in pausing and taking stock.

Those who have been with us a while know the story of our formative years – founded by German and Swiss immigrants who gathered in the late 1850’s, served initially by Lutheran and Methodist missioners, but steadfast in a desire to worship in the Reformed tradition; a desire that was fulfilled by the Rev. J. G. Neuber, our founding pastor, and his successors.  Those who know our founding story remember that our first members were few in number – 34 in all - and low on funds – we started with all of $9 in the bank – but long on faith, hope, and love – and long on determination.  By the grace of God and the hard work of our founding members the congregation acquired the land and constructed the building in which we worship to this day.  Our story also connects with that of Bethany Children’s Home, because Bethany was started by our former pastor the Rev. Emanuel Boehringer, who was grieved by the number of children orphaned by the Civil War and in response founded in 1863 what he called the Orphans Home of the Shepherd of the Lambs, which was located first in South Philly, then for a few years in Bridesburg, before moving in 1870 to its current location in Womelsdorf, PA.  After those eventful early years, our congregation settled into its role as a neighborhood church serving Bridesburg’s German population – historically, Bridesburg was almost entirely Irish, Polish, and German, and that demographic mix hasn’t changed all that much to this day.  In some ways, we’ve adapted over the years to changing circumstances, introducing services in English in the early 1920’s and phasing out German worship in the 1940’s.  But, language aside, our worship style is largely unchanged from that of the early 1940’s.

In some ways we’ve come full circle.  We began with 34 members, and right now we have roughly 40 members on the rolls, of whom roughly half attend on any given Sunday – which actually is a good percentage compared to a lot of congregations.  Of that roughly 40 people, close to half have joined in the past ten years, which is encouraging.  We’ve been able to widen our welcome well beyond the German population our church served for most of our history.  And by the grace of God, we’ve had many more baptisms than funerals.  In fact, by far, most of the funerals I’ve done as pastor here have been on request of Rose Funeral Home and other area funeral homes for folks in the community.  In a year or so, I hope we can have a confirmation class, our first in many years.  We can hardly call ourselves a wealthy church, but we have far more in the bank than the $9 we started with.

And yet it’s a stressful time for churches.  Many are closing – and we know that here in Bridesburg, the Archdiocese closed All Saints a couple years back, and Bridesburg Baptist closed last year – and our Presbyterian sisters and brothers are hoping to avoid a similar fate. Many pastors are throwing up their hands and in their discouragement are walking away from the ministry.  Many churches, even if they stay open, are having to work with fewer resources, going to part-time pastors - and of course that includes Emanuel Church.   I’m a bivocational pastor, working a full-time day job in order to minimize my financial burden on the church, so that the great majority of our remaining expenses are related in some way to the operation and maintenance of the building and cemetery.  And indeed the maintenance of an aging building and the upkeep of our cemetery is a constant challenge. Both are blessings, but both come with burdens as well.

What does the future hold?  I think our Scriptures this morning offer us guidance that is both challenging and hopeful.  We hear first from the prophet Jeremiah.  Our reading from Jeremiah comes roughly 2/3 of the way through the book.  Chapter after chapter, Jeremiah has been warning the king and religious leadership of Judah that for their unfaithfulness, God would allow Judah to be invaded, the city of Jerusalem and its Temple destroyed, and the people driven into exile.  And yet – with Jeremiah knowing that the threat of exile was just around the corner and even though he himself was in prison, Jeremiah does a remarkable thing:  he buys a field that had belonged to his uncle Shallum.  Our reading includes the details of the purchase price and the paperwork involved, and apparently Jeremiah intentionally draws attention to himself as he goes through the process.  Because for Jeremiah, the purchase of this field is no ordinary real estate transaction, but a testimony of faith that beyond the immediate threat of exile was the hope that “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land”.  That is to say, that while the threat of exile was very real, there was also very real hope of a return from exile.   The corrupt society and institutions against which Jeremiah prophesied had to die – but Jeremiah also spoke of hope of a return from exile, a rebuilding of Jerusalem and its Temple - a kind of resurrection. 

And in our walk with God, the cycle of death and resurrection is always with us – not only our own ultimate death and resurrection, but smaller deaths and resurrections all along the way.  We know from science that in the human body, cells are created, live for a time, and then die, making space for new cells to be created.   The grey hair I have now is surely not the same peach fuzz I was born with.  Similarly, all throughout our journey in faith, we experience the death of habits and traditions and even cherished beliefs that have run their course, the death of false hopes and dreams, but with the knowledge that on the other side of these deaths would be resurrection – new traditions more suited to the times, new beliefs deeply grounded in Scripture and tradition, but also in tune with changing life experience, new hopes and dreams more faithful to the God who calls us to serve.  And our church has experienced some of these.  I’m sure it was threatening to many in the 1920’s when English worship was phased in, and heartbreaking to many in the 1940’s when German worship was phased out, but worship in English brought new life and vitality to the church.   Had we continued to worship only in German, we’d likely have closed long ago.  It was heartbreaking to me personally when the “To Live Again” bereavement group disbanded several years back – it meant a lot to me that they chose our church as their meeting place – but the Second Chance Kinship Network is using our space to bring hope to children and families in crisis.  And there’s the constant slow cycle of new people joining while occasionally others who had been members decide to walk apart from us and worship elsewhere, or perhaps worship nowhere.  And so our individual lives, and the life of our church, are a constant cycle of death and resurrection, letting go of what has run its course and embracing the new thing to which God calls us.  And the process will continue – as we have in the past, we will have to set aside things that we once loved but are no longer life-giving, so that our hands are open to receive what God has for us in this day.  Even if we grieve the loss of the past, our future as a congregation depends on our being hopeful and alert and attuned to discern where God is leading in the future.  Our future as a congregation depends on our living in faith rather than fear.

In our reading from I Timothy, we’re given a picture of Paul near the end of his life mentoring his young protégé, Timothy.  Paul is preparing Timothy to take over Paul’s duties, warning him of pitfalls, instructing him on how to organize and administer, encouraging him to perform his duties with love and with diligence.  Paul knows that his own time of active ministry – in fact, his life itself - will soon be coming to a close, and so he prepares to prepare Timothy to carry on in his place, to fight the good fight of faith that Paul had fought for so long.  Paul doesn’t want his deep knowledge of the Lord Jesus to die with him.  And this will be so important for the future of Emanuel Church.  Our longtime members have so much deep knowledge of God and of this church – deep knowledge that our newer members desperately need.  Some of our newer members come from other denominations, or may have bounced around between churches of all kinds of denominations over the course of their lives.  And we draw some people with very little church background, who with all the good intentions in the world have hardly a clue what churches do and how they do them.   They won’t magically learn what they need to know just by walking through the door.  They need to be taught, nurtured, mentored – not only by the pastor, but by those of us who have sustained this church and kept it going over many years. 

Finally, in our reading from Luke’s gospel, we have Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar covered with sores who was laid at the rich man’s doorstep.  Likely whoever laid Lazarus at the rich man’s doorstep did so hoping that the rich man would use his resources to help Lazarus – but that didn’t happen.  And so the rich man is condemned – not because he stuck his tongue out at Lazarus or called Lazarus names or kicked Lazarus on his way out of the house, but because he did nothing when he had the resources to do something.  Even in hell, the rich man tries to treat Lazarus as his personal errand boy, asking Abraham to send Lazarus to him with a drop of cool water, or to warn his brothers to change their ways.  The rich man’s life was all about himself – as far as he was concerned, it was his world, and everybody else just happened to be in it.  And this is a challenge to us – as church, we do not exist only for our own benefit.  We do not exist only to serve our ourselves.  William Temple, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said that “The church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.” It has also been said that “The church exists by mission as fire exists by burning.”  And that mission is not only for ourselves – not even primarily about ourselves -  but for our neighbors.

So – again – happy birthday Emanuel Church!  Happy 155^th birthday!  May God grant us another year, and many years to come, of loving and serving our neighbors, of training up our children and mentoring our new members in the faith, and of being alert and welcoming to the new possibilities to which God calls us.  Where Jesus leads, may we follow.  Amen.