When we celebrate an
anniversary in a Church, whether it is marking the dates of forming the first
stirrings of community, setting cornerstone, opening the building, adding an
addition – whatever it is – when we pause to remember and celebrate the achievements
and accomplishments of the past, it is a good time to ALSO remember what it is
we are about in community – the reason for our being in the first place.
There is a reflective
poem I encountered many years ago, and have often found myself returning to. It
comes from the Hindu tradition, and is a reminder that faith is more than
religion – it is spiritual awareness and connectedness.
The poem reads:
To talk with God, no breath is lost – Talk on
To walk with God, no strength is lost – Walk on
To wait on God, no time is lost – Wait on.
How often do we find
ourselves distracted by mundane and minor issues that when we step back from
them become relatively silly?
We speak of God, and
feeling God’s presence in our lives, then we bicker over the colour of the
carpet, or the type of pain we want to use in the fellowship hall.
We sing our hymns of
praise and joy, but then fight over whether or not to buy a new coffee maker,
or make do with the old one.
We gather to worship,
but get our backs up over the style of communion, or the choice of hymns, or
the version of the Bible the preacher is preaching from.
We have a beautiful
building in which to gather and worship, and we get caught up in debates about
buying pillows for the pews, or toughing it out the way our forefathers did.
The list can go on
and on and on – and in many corners of the Church, it does. Communities fight
over the most remarkable and at times SILLY things, while we overlook the
simple call we have been sent into the world to live: the call to be and form
and encourage and build community.
Community gathered
together in faith
A community gathered
together by a common and shared yearning for something more – that’s what
formed this in the first place – that’s what keeps drawing people to this – that’s
what we are ultimately about – a common yearning for more.
Like the kids hymn we
sing periodically – “the church is not building, the church is not the steeple,
the church is not the meeting place – the CHURCH is the people.”
We’ve lost sight of
that in our modern era. We’ve gotten so hung up on rules and procedures and
regulations and dogma, that we’ve lost sight of what Church is.
Ultimately, Church is
the gathering of the spiritually hungry to find a place of belonging, and
acceptance where we can tell and share our stories. Where we can build
community. Where we experience the Holy.
And where we
celebrate being the very children of God.
The Church is not
about the building – as beautiful and comfortable as it is – the church is
about the yearnings for the holy that draw us together and inspire us to do and
be the Body of Christ sharing the Gospel with the world.
But what is this
‘Holy’ that we yearn for?
It is experienced –
it is tangible – it is real.
The Holy is that
moment in time when we find ourselves standing in awe and catching our breath
knowing that God is truly with us.
We often speak of
Holy Spaces – towering majestic cathedrals, or quiet reflective shrines – but
the space is not itself holy. It may be sacred and special – the history,
heritage and use of the space imbibes it with a air of sacredness that says
clearly – this is special – but holiness is not about the space or the
structure or even the use. Holiness is something more.
Often in Church
settings, we mistake this sense of sacredness as The Holy – we want to protect
it and keep it safe and clean. But in the process we engage in what researchers
have dubbed “the pastoral idyll”.
The pastoral idyll is
simply the process by which we see a quaint pretty country church and say –
“ah, it’s that lovely” and want to preserve the image in a Thomas Kinkaide like
moment …
The ultimate extreme
of this process has been found in Japan where a rural English stone church has
been meticulously recreated in an atrium on the 21st floor of an
urban skyscraper as a wedding chapel for Japanese couple who want a quaint
English country wedding but can’t travel to England to have it. Instead they
rent the replica church – in the 21st floor of a skyscraper – and
have their wedding there over the city.
There is nothing holy
in that place – it is a pastoral idyll – a vignette of something quaint and
pretty – but it is NOT sacred space – it has no community maintaining it with
love and devotion . It has no history, no heritage, nor connectedness to the
people and stories in a village around it. It is simply a gathering of wood and
stone …
The Holy comes from
the flesh and blood who gather together and create this thing we call Church.
Along the way, they
do amazing and notable things – but at the end of the day – the Church is not
what has been in the past, it is what we are in the present and where we’re
going and what we’re doing to help and benefit our community and our world into
the future.
Today, we do
acknowledge that the first worship service connected to this community of
faith, happened in 1876, when the Presbyterians held services in the local
Orange Lodge Hall. Then in 1891, the first Kirk – or session, was founded and
the Presbyterian Congregation formally worshipped with communion and its own
minister. As they gathered, they committed to building their own worship space,
which they did in 1897 when this building was formally dedicated.
For the first 21
years though, the Church existed and offered its care and ministry to the community
growing around Eugenia WITHOUT a building. When the time came to create a space
in which to worship, the creativity and devotion to the undertaking was
impressive.
I like the
description of the call for foundation stones – people were encouraged to bring
‘nice sparkly stones’ from their farmsteads to form the foundation – the lumber
was milled from logs fallen in the surrounding forests, and the bricks were
brought by horse drawn carts from Markdale.
Together, the people
of the community created this space to gather in – and in the years that
followed, they hosted fowl suppers, Sunday School classes, and countless
community events as they supported, maintained and cared for the building and
most importantly, for one another.
The holiness of this
place, has never been about the building – it has ALWAYS been about the people.
The building is our
clubhouse – the place where we gather to worship, to play, to hang out. The
meaning – the holiness – comes when we go and engage the world in the work we
are called to do, and make room for God in our lives.
This past week I had
a conversation in which we talked about caring for people who are struggling
and who need an oasis for their mind, body and soul – the comment was shared
that they need to slow down and make room for God.
As I prepared for
this service, I kept coming back to that idea of slowing down and making room
for God. And I couldn’t help but think, that this simple phrase should be at
the very heart of what we do and who we are as Church.
In everything we do
together as Church – from our Sunday morning worship, through to men’s coffee
on Wednesday morning, or the Womens’ group meeting once a month, or the
knitting circle – ALL of it is about making room for God in our lives, our
community and our world.
Pausing to remember
that we are part of a community. Part of a bigger whole than our little circle.
Is the first step.
When the first stones
were laid for the foundation of this building back in 1895 – the esteemed
Presbyterians understood that, and took their job of sharing the Good News of
faith seriously. They weren’t building the building just for themselves – they
were building it for us – and for ALL of the generations that followed, so
together we would have a place to come, share meals, swap stories, offer
support, find encouragement, and most of all a place to belong.
They built this
building KNOWING that making room for God was vital and central to what ALL of
us are about.
The readings this
morning celebrate this truth – and as we gather and look about this heritage
building and give thanks for the gift that it remains to us today, over a
century after it was first opened, let us courageously go into the world
proclaiming, embodying, celebrating AND sharing the understanding that united
us in community – the understanding that we belong here, and that as children
of God we know there is room in our lives for God!!
May it be so – thanks
be to God … Let us pray …
