sermon monologue by Carrie Eikler
Romans 13:1-8; Exodus 1:8-22
Whew. What a morning. I can’t wait to sit with my cup of tea and my magazine. I’ve just got back from Arthurdale. The work of a homebirth midwife takes you all over. There aren’t many of us around anymore. Women want the comfort of the big hospitals.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I can understand their reasons. Things do go wrong with births. Very wrong. For me and the women I work with, we know this. But we also know that there is nothing wrong with birth. It’s natural. Women’s bodies are made to do it, and for centuries, heck, for thousands and thousands of years women have been trained to help other women bring babies into the world.
But… there are scary moments…whew, really scary moments. Like this morning. What a doozy.
So yeah, I get this call at like, 5:20 this morning. I was having this really great dream about being on the beach in Florida, reading an Agatha Christie novel when out of the water comes this submarine filled with dark chocolate and is playing my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs and would you guess it, out of the submarine pops Antonio Ba--…well, you don’t want to hear about that.
Anyway, the phone rings and Brian is on the phone. Brian’s wife Clara is one of the women I’m working with. She’s not due for three weeks, and Brian sounds tired and a bit nervous. He tells me Clara thinks it’s time. She woke up a half hour ago with some uncomfortable contractions. I get this all the time. Since Clara has already had a child, I expect she knows what she’s feeling is really it, but I tell them to wait a half an hour and call me back. I lay back down, but try not to fall asleep because you know it’s always harder to get up once you fall back asleep than if you just stay up.
Well, I just thought about the dark chocolate Simon and Garfunkel submarine instead of dreaming about it, and about 5 minutes later I get a call. It’s Brian. “The head! I can see the head!” You bet I was bounding out of bed at that.
Well, Arthurdale is about 15 minutes away from my home here so you can imagine…I don't know if I will make it or not. I'm speeding down the curvy roads praying "Please God let her wait! Let her wait!" But when a baby's coming, there's no convincing a woman in labor to stop what she's doing, just so the midwife can get there!
I was only hoping that everything was fine with the delivery, that nothing was wrong with Clara and the baby, that Brian was holding it together. I pull up to their home, bound out of the car, burst inside and Clara is on the bed and sure enough…the baby's coming! And it's not all fine, because the baby's hand is pressed against her head…like she is trying to zoom into this world like superwoman! It can make for a pretty nasty delivery.
But, it's something I've dealt with many times before. I tell Clara to hold on for 30 more seconds. I get my hands washed, my gloves on, I do the move I've done dozens of times before--quite skillfully, if I do say so myself-- and pull the baby's hand free from the head, and she tumbles into my hands. All in about a minute.*
Well, mother and baby are fine. A little shook up. One hour-long labors are not common. I kind of laugh because, even if they tried to get in their car and get to MonGeneral, that baby would have come in the back of their Suburu Forrester. That Clara is amazing. Not many women could endure that…
(chuckle) the things you witness as a midwife. We sure have our stories. Amazing stories, and yes, some tragic stories. But LIFE stories. We witness over and over again the pain and the joy and the miracle of life!
(Sigh) But midwives still aren't so accepted in this society. Don't get me wrong, we're definitely gaining ground. But we've sort of lost our place, the respect that we used to have. It is definitely a calling…it's not for everyone.
(Drink tea and laugh) You know, what happened this morning with Clara and Brian and little Lucy--oh, that's what they called the baby, Lucy--it reminds me of a midwife story. You see, since the lives of midwives aren't documented as well as the lives of doctors and surgeons throughout time, you have to look hard to find the midwives in history. But they're there, alright.
Anyway, I'm reminded of this story in the Old Testament…in Exodus I think it is. You know, that book where Moses leads his people out of slavery into the promise land…at least, you've seen the movie, right? Anyway, BEFORE Moses was born there was a King of Egypt who was scared because the population of these foreigners, the Israelites, were growing.
So he thought, "Well, that's not a good thing for me. First off, they won’t learn the language, they are using up all our social services…But secondly, what if they join my enemies and rise up against me?" So he took them all up and made them his slaves, they basically built Egypt on their backs. But they kept growing and this paranoid king was all "Oh, they could still do something to me Oh! Oh!" So he says that the moment any Israelite boy is born he should be killed. (chuckle) apparently girls weren't a threat. Girls make good slaves. Boys make good soldiers…or terrorists.
So who are the best people to kill new life? Well, those who are meant to bring new life, of course. He told all the midwives that when a woman gives birth to take the boys and kill them. But two midwives, Shiphrah and…and, Puah, that's it Puah, they decide not to do it. Of course, they don't tell the king that. They would probably be killed themselves. But they do their job. They do what they were meant to do…their obligation to help usher in life.
You can imagine what the king thought when he saw all these baby boys in swaddling clothes. He's like "What is this? I told you to kill them." And do you know, those midwives lie right to his face! They say, "Hey these Israelite women are so strong, those babies are already born by the time we get there!" Like Clara, and Lucy…almost.
I read somewhere, that this is the first act of civil disobedience in the Bible. The first time people say no to an oppressive force…to the state. And it was two midwives! Of course, it doesn't surprise me, but I bet it surprises most people.
Most people don't know that story. Or if they do, they know it because what these two women did made it possible for Moses to be born and live. And if Moses wasn't born… we'll I guess the Israelites would still be building up Egypt.
But you know, I think it's a good enough story on its own. I mean, OK, it was important for the whole religious thing that Moses was born, but I think what these women did was a religious act in and of itself. Sure they lied, but apparently God was happy with them--for what they did-- because I think the scriptures say God blessed them.
It's not often we think that God might bless us for doing something that is disobedient. Well, I guess it wasn't just civil disobedience…but divine obedience. (chuckle) Maybe that's why we don't hear this story much in church.
ANYway, some people might wonder what sort of chutzpah these ladies had to stand up to the most powerful man in the country. I remember the story says something about "they feared God." Now, I'm not so big on this fearing God thing. I don't necessarily see God as something to be scared of.
Maybe it's because I see the vulnerability of new life all the time…and that's one way God came to us! You know, Jesus coming as a baby--all slimy and bloody and cold and crying…and vulnerable. Wouldn’t make a very pretty Christmas card, I guess.
But in someway, I can understand this fear. There's lots of fear when new life comes into this world. Fear is something that grabs a hold of you. Maybe that's how they experienced fearing God, as God grabbing a hold of them…or maybe they grabbed hold of God. But not in some violent sort of grabbing. Like, what we do when a baby is born: we grab it, secure it, welcome it into the world
I mean, these midwives literally had to grab a hold of life so much--that was their purpose, they just knew that God wanted life in this world…even the life of these foreigners, these people the state thought would become terrorists. They were entrusted with life. That was their calling. To To listen to the king and to kill, they would have had to let go of God…let go of the thing that helped them bring in new life.
(Thoughtful) You know I think I do what I do--you know, being a midwife--because I'm holding onto God, that God led me in someway to do this, that somehow what I do is important, Kind of like Shiphrah and Puah. They didn’t know that just by doing what they were meant to do would somehow play into a larger birth—the birth of a people from slavery. But it sure did.
But even if I try, I don’t think I’ll totally understand what God wants in this world. Or even…if I am totally sure I know what God wants me to be doing. I mean, I think I get pieces at a time. But each little thing I do I think is important in and of themselves, but also maybe part of something bigger—helping women trust themselves, find strength through their birth, feel cared for and empowered.
Even during those births that are scary, the ones you don’t know how they’ll end up…I trust something will guide me—either my skill, or my intuition, maybe God! Maybe, just the baby that’s being born shows me what needs to happen. So maybe that’s what Shiphrah and Puah felt like--they knew these births needed to happen. They couldn’t stand in the way, and go against their purpose. Maybe they held God so closely to them, like they way we hold that baby when it’s born, they just could sense what needed to be done...just sense what God wanted them to do. (shaking head) But figuring out how they would get away with it, now, that was pretty impressive.
(Waving away) I don't know. All I know is that it is a darn good story. It gives me hope and strength, and maybe a little chutzpah too. It's a shame more people don't know this story.
Well, I've got to get to my midwives’ meeting. We get together once a week and share about the births we’ve attended recently (Chuckling and Standing Up) Just wait till they hear about this morning. I mean, really, I hardly did anything. I got there, did a few maneuvers, and out she came. Clara and Lucy did all the work. I was just there to hold on when she came. (Shake head) M-m-mm what a story.
(*this birth story is a true story of a friend of mine!)
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
From the Book Shelf
Is it Insensitive to Share Your Faith:
Hard questions about Christian mission in a plural world
~ James A. Kraybill
book review by Torin Eikler
(as published in the Wiles Hill Witness)
Recently, the Allegheny Conference pastors committed to read this book together as we seek to explore our own habits and tendencies around sharing our own faith with others. Yet, this is not a handbook for evangelism. It does not present a program that will help us reach out to the un-churched or to find the seekers in our community. Instead, Krabill explores the heart of issues of embarrassment, uncertainty, and a desire to respect others’ beliefs as we seek to follow the Great Commission: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
In a pluralistic world filled with moral, faithful people who follow any number of religious paths or shun religion all together, it is often difficult for modern and post-modern Christians to feel comfortable sharing their faith with family, friends, colleagues, and those we meet on the “street corners” of our lives. We fear that we may be insulting them or at least stepping on their toes since their beliefs, in some ways, stand in opposition to the claims of Christianity. We want to be sensitive to their worldviews and their traditions, and we are aware that our own tradition’s history and worldview admit of a certain intolerance and uncaring arrogance. At a deeper level, we often wonder why we should risk insulting or alienating those we work and live with when they often live lives just as moral as our own (or perhaps more so.)
Krabill draws on his extensive experience in the mission field on several continents and in both developed and developing countries to address these issues. The result is a fairly accessible book that proposes some helpful thoughts about how we can move from the historical models of crushing or coercing people of other faiths into clones of our own Christianity and the more recent model of respectful co-existence into a mode of confession to, conversation with, and commendation of Christ to others. What he provides in this book is not a program or an evangelical self-help tool (and that is good since every person and every situation is unique and requires a unique response). Rather, he builds a solid foundation from which we can engage with concepts and questions essential to Christians in a pluralistic world and encourages us to carry the conversation further.
Hard questions about Christian mission in a plural world
~ James A. Kraybill
book review by Torin Eikler
(as published in the Wiles Hill Witness)
Recently, the Allegheny Conference pastors committed to read this book together as we seek to explore our own habits and tendencies around sharing our own faith with others. Yet, this is not a handbook for evangelism. It does not present a program that will help us reach out to the un-churched or to find the seekers in our community. Instead, Krabill explores the heart of issues of embarrassment, uncertainty, and a desire to respect others’ beliefs as we seek to follow the Great Commission: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
In a pluralistic world filled with moral, faithful people who follow any number of religious paths or shun religion all together, it is often difficult for modern and post-modern Christians to feel comfortable sharing their faith with family, friends, colleagues, and those we meet on the “street corners” of our lives. We fear that we may be insulting them or at least stepping on their toes since their beliefs, in some ways, stand in opposition to the claims of Christianity. We want to be sensitive to their worldviews and their traditions, and we are aware that our own tradition’s history and worldview admit of a certain intolerance and uncaring arrogance. At a deeper level, we often wonder why we should risk insulting or alienating those we work and live with when they often live lives just as moral as our own (or perhaps more so.)
Krabill draws on his extensive experience in the mission field on several continents and in both developed and developing countries to address these issues. The result is a fairly accessible book that proposes some helpful thoughts about how we can move from the historical models of crushing or coercing people of other faiths into clones of our own Christianity and the more recent model of respectful co-existence into a mode of confession to, conversation with, and commendation of Christ to others. What he provides in this book is not a program or an evangelical self-help tool (and that is good since every person and every situation is unique and requires a unique response). Rather, he builds a solid foundation from which we can engage with concepts and questions essential to Christians in a pluralistic world and encourages us to carry the conversation further.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
One Big Family
pastoral letter by Carrie Eikler
as published to the Wiles Hill Witness
Brethren and Mennonites love to talk about ourselves as a big “family.” I have certainly used that metaphor in worship, particularly when inviting the congregation to voice their joys and concerns. Maybe we like to see ourselves as sitting around a big table, rolling up our sleeves, saying a prayer, and digging into the food provided from God’s kitchen. It’s especially easy for Brethren and Mennonites to use this imagery because, let’s face it, we are pretty small. National gatherings feel like family reunions. We embrace, we catch up, we celebrate. Oh, yeah…and people know each other’s “dirt” as well. Squabbles can last years and grudges even longer. The late Presbyterian theologian Jack Stotts pointed out, upon hearing this family metaphor, that families in the Bible tend to be dysfunction—they would lie, cheat, steal, abandon one another, even kill one another. Stotts warns us—don’t be too sentimental about the church as a family.
We have just finished our 9-week heritage series where we explored the genesis of our Brethren and Mennonite traditions, and the practices that bind us together. “Heritage” can be a sentimental word like “family.” When given limited time to introduce a “heritage” to a congregation (given that we all are at varying degrees acquainting ourselves with this tradition), it is easy to spend time and energy speaking of the shiny, glowing moments. Like with family, we want to look nostalgically at the black-and-white family photos of happy Christmases or summer vacations, and gloss over any of the bruises or bumps that have come along the way. But the reality is that the Church has left a lot of bumps and bruises over the years. Even our denominations, who seek to live the word of Jesus, “peacefully, simply, together” have hurt and alienated its family members.
So no, we are not going to spend another nine weeks looking at the dark side of our denominations! Christ reminds us that we all have brokenness. He didn’t gloss over the imperfections and try to put everything in a rosy light. He invited people into healing so they could move into new life. The same goes for our tradition. If we spend too much time looking at the past, we miss how God may be nudging us to live now, and into new life. But the path to healing and justice involves confession of the brokenness and the acceptance of redemption. Most importantly, it involves looking at who we are with open eyes, and yearning hearts. In my Pentecost sermon I quoted the words of Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, and they are words that have been guiding me the past few months. They bear repeating, I think: “Remember that we are not only descendants of our traditions. We are also ancestors.”
May we find the wisdom of God as we begin a New Day in the life of Christ.
Pastor Carrie
as published to the Wiles Hill Witness
Brethren and Mennonites love to talk about ourselves as a big “family.” I have certainly used that metaphor in worship, particularly when inviting the congregation to voice their joys and concerns. Maybe we like to see ourselves as sitting around a big table, rolling up our sleeves, saying a prayer, and digging into the food provided from God’s kitchen. It’s especially easy for Brethren and Mennonites to use this imagery because, let’s face it, we are pretty small. National gatherings feel like family reunions. We embrace, we catch up, we celebrate. Oh, yeah…and people know each other’s “dirt” as well. Squabbles can last years and grudges even longer. The late Presbyterian theologian Jack Stotts pointed out, upon hearing this family metaphor, that families in the Bible tend to be dysfunction—they would lie, cheat, steal, abandon one another, even kill one another. Stotts warns us—don’t be too sentimental about the church as a family.
We have just finished our 9-week heritage series where we explored the genesis of our Brethren and Mennonite traditions, and the practices that bind us together. “Heritage” can be a sentimental word like “family.” When given limited time to introduce a “heritage” to a congregation (given that we all are at varying degrees acquainting ourselves with this tradition), it is easy to spend time and energy speaking of the shiny, glowing moments. Like with family, we want to look nostalgically at the black-and-white family photos of happy Christmases or summer vacations, and gloss over any of the bruises or bumps that have come along the way. But the reality is that the Church has left a lot of bumps and bruises over the years. Even our denominations, who seek to live the word of Jesus, “peacefully, simply, together” have hurt and alienated its family members.
So no, we are not going to spend another nine weeks looking at the dark side of our denominations! Christ reminds us that we all have brokenness. He didn’t gloss over the imperfections and try to put everything in a rosy light. He invited people into healing so they could move into new life. The same goes for our tradition. If we spend too much time looking at the past, we miss how God may be nudging us to live now, and into new life. But the path to healing and justice involves confession of the brokenness and the acceptance of redemption. Most importantly, it involves looking at who we are with open eyes, and yearning hearts. In my Pentecost sermon I quoted the words of Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, and they are words that have been guiding me the past few months. They bear repeating, I think: “Remember that we are not only descendants of our traditions. We are also ancestors.”
May we find the wisdom of God as we begin a New Day in the life of Christ.
Pastor Carrie
Sunday, August 3, 2008
United in Faith
sermon by Torin Eikler
I Corinthians 1:10-18, Hebrews 11:1-9, 20-24, 29-34, 39
Heritage Series 8: Our Congregation
There is quite a list there in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews…: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, and how many others. The story we have in scripture is the story of the faith of God’s people. They were a people who believed in the promises of their covenant even when it seemed impossible that they would come to pass. They trusted in the presence and the power of God even when, facing impossible odds and certain death, hope seemed to be an unrealistic luxury. And through their faith, as we have been told, wonderful and terrible and miraculous events took place, affirming their faith and preserving them in hope.
As Christians, we claim all these people as our spiritual ancestors (and I suppose Noah as an actual ancestor). And, we add to their number the faithful followers of Christ in the early church and down through the ages: disciples and apostles, elders and deacons, saints and martyrs. As Brethren and Mennonites, we name still others as a part of our heritage: Dirk Willems, Menno Simons, Ernest Hochmann, Alexander and Anna Mack, Johanna and John Kipping, John Kline, Anna Mow, and Ted Studebaker.
And as part of this congregation, we can claim many others – some who have gone before us and others who are still among us: Walter Hamilton (who founded the mission to Morgantown), Miles and Francis Hamilton (who bought land for the mission on Virginia Avenue), Thomas Miller and Sylvanius Annon (two of the first ministers), Dennis Overman, John and Helen Shope, Ruby Stone (the longest continual member of this congregation), Paul Shay (who, at 100 years old, still looks for every opportunity to serve others in love), Margaret Prince, Lee and Deanne Beckman, and the many other members of this faith community.
These are the people whose lives and ministry as followers of the one triune God have brought us to the place we are today. Their willingness to yield all that they had and all that they were to the will of the God they served sustained and nurtured our faith as it flowed down through the years – one continuous river carrying many different names along the way. They witnessed, joined, and encouraged the birth of Christianity. They set in motion and strengthened the Anabaptists’ return to a faith marked by a shared search for truth among equals and displayed through lives of loving service to all. They had the vision and the courage to found a ministry here and to stick with it from the promise of growth and new buildings through the challenges of new cultural patterns and changing religious paradigms to make the most of opportunities for new life.
All of us are familiar with many of these people through stories and scripture. Some of us may even have known a few of those who helped to found this congregation. All of these examples speak of the power of faith to change history, lives, and even the world in which we live. It is through their efforts, their love for God and the church, and their faithful service that we find ourselves here today – serving God and our neighbors together in this time and in this place.
And that we find ourselves together is no small thing. We live in a culture that esteems the individual above community (and maybe even family) and admires self-sufficiency, interpreting any attempt to reach out for help as weakness and failure. The highest goal sometimes seems to be self-aggrandizement. For some of us, amassing wealth or accolades for ourselves – all by ourselves – is the highest goal we have. Not only is this at the heart of the “American Dream,” it illustrates the way that we have been taught to define our identity according to the way we are different from one another.
And our religion has not remained free of this divisiveness. Since the time of the Reformation when Martin Luther inadvertently provided the wedge that allowed others to split the Catholic Church into three branches, Western Christianity has continued to split and divide into a multitude of denominations as well as non-denominational churches on the basis of beliefs that are often blown out of proportion.
Thus, the Church of the Brethren split three ways in the 1890s, each branch defining itself around its disagreement with the others on issues like the importance of higher education or the spiritual danger posed by the radio. Other denominations have divided over the question of whether or not women should be allowed in the ministry or even to speak during worship.
Just this year, the Anglican Communion – which includes the denomination we know as the Episcopal Church – has found itself on the verge of a schism as some provinces threaten to disown the rest of the family because of the appointment of an openly gay Episcopal bishop. Even the Disciples of Christ – a church that claims the reunification of Christianity as a central goal – has split into two denominations. Sad really since Paul often encourages unity among the believers, saying in pastoral letter “I beg you to live a life worthy of the calling… bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit [and] speaking the truth in love [so that] we [grow] up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”
Our congregation, I know, has had its own divisive moments. Even in the past eight years we have faced this issue because of our position on the war in Iraq. Many of you know more about this than I do. But, as I understand it, several of our brothers and sisters felt alienated and angry about the way in which our congregation proclaimed the belief that war is counter-productive and sinful. And feeling that there was no space for constructive conversation among people of faith that held different views on the issue, they left the congregation to find other faith homes.
Everyone I have talked to about that experience has expressed sadness and pain at the way it ended up. Even a couple of those who left have told me that they wish things had gone differently. Yet, with everyone caught up in the heightened climate of fear that gripped the country in those days and its polarizing effect, perhaps there was little hope of a different outcome.
Yes, this congregation – like all communities of faith – bears with a healthy dose of divisiveness growing out of the fear and pain we experience as we live and worship together. But we also embody a spirit of unity that is more powerful than the spirit of individualism and division. And that can be seen in the way we bring together people from a variety of different backgrounds – Baptist, Pentecostal, Jewish, Brethren, Mennonite, and others – in one community of faith seeking to know God. In fact, that Spirit of Unity – perhaps we could even call it the Spirit of Truth – was fixed as a public part of our identity twenty-three years ago.
As I have heard the story told – and again, many of you know more of this than I, several Mennonite families had tried to start a Mennonite fellowship in the Morgantown area. When that did not work out well, some of the members began to attend the Morgantown Church of the Brethren. Some time later, around 1980, one sister approached Pastor Lester Boleyn about the possibility of affiliating with the Mennonite Church. When the question came to the Church body, the Brethren members, acting out of love and care for their Mennonite sisters and brothers, quickly agreed with the idea and began to work at join the Allegheny Conference.
During that process, the issue of the congregation’s name came up. Should a jointly affiliated congregation maintain the name of only one denomination? Should both denominations be represented in the name? Should neither be specifically mentioned? In the end, the congregation decided to keep the name of Church of the Brethren (adding “affiliated with the Mennonite Church). There were several reasons for this decision, but the most significant was the sentiment among some of the Mennonites attending the church. Responding to the love and acceptance they had experienced from the Brethren in kind, they proposed that the name stay the same so that the heritage of the congregation would be maintained.
A powerful story - sisters and brothers in Christ laying aside pride in former names to embrace each other. Saying not, “we belong to the Church of the Brethren” or “We belong to the Mennonite Church,” but claiming unity in the faith.
I find that to be inspiring. And I’m not the only one. This congregation was the first to bring together the Mennonite and Brethren traditions. Its example led several other congregations spread across the country to welcome brothers and sisters from one denomination or the other into one family of faith – a truer vision of the body of Christ.
Faith and unity… those are at the heart of this congregation’s identity. In the past couple of months, we have addressed several issues that are particularly important to the Anabaptist branch of Christianity: believers’ baptism, discipleship, simplicity, peace, and community. Our history – as Brethren, as Mennonites, and as part of the larger Christian church – is full of examples of those who lived out these beliefs faithfully. And, our desire to hold on to those values as our particular piece of the gospel message to the world and the rest of Christianity sets us apart from others in some ways. Yet, in this congregation, we do not seek to exclude others through these particular beliefs. Our heritage is one of inviting any and all who seek to know God in Christ more fully to join us on that journey of faith in the hope that we can discover more of God’s truth together.
I, for one, am excited about our future together and curious to see what we will become as we live and worship and seek God together – “bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit [and] speaking the truth in love [so that] we [grow] up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”
I Corinthians 1:10-18, Hebrews 11:1-9, 20-24, 29-34, 39
Heritage Series 8: Our Congregation
There is quite a list there in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews…: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, and how many others. The story we have in scripture is the story of the faith of God’s people. They were a people who believed in the promises of their covenant even when it seemed impossible that they would come to pass. They trusted in the presence and the power of God even when, facing impossible odds and certain death, hope seemed to be an unrealistic luxury. And through their faith, as we have been told, wonderful and terrible and miraculous events took place, affirming their faith and preserving them in hope.
As Christians, we claim all these people as our spiritual ancestors (and I suppose Noah as an actual ancestor). And, we add to their number the faithful followers of Christ in the early church and down through the ages: disciples and apostles, elders and deacons, saints and martyrs. As Brethren and Mennonites, we name still others as a part of our heritage: Dirk Willems, Menno Simons, Ernest Hochmann, Alexander and Anna Mack, Johanna and John Kipping, John Kline, Anna Mow, and Ted Studebaker.
And as part of this congregation, we can claim many others – some who have gone before us and others who are still among us: Walter Hamilton (who founded the mission to Morgantown), Miles and Francis Hamilton (who bought land for the mission on Virginia Avenue), Thomas Miller and Sylvanius Annon (two of the first ministers), Dennis Overman, John and Helen Shope, Ruby Stone (the longest continual member of this congregation), Paul Shay (who, at 100 years old, still looks for every opportunity to serve others in love), Margaret Prince, Lee and Deanne Beckman, and the many other members of this faith community.
These are the people whose lives and ministry as followers of the one triune God have brought us to the place we are today. Their willingness to yield all that they had and all that they were to the will of the God they served sustained and nurtured our faith as it flowed down through the years – one continuous river carrying many different names along the way. They witnessed, joined, and encouraged the birth of Christianity. They set in motion and strengthened the Anabaptists’ return to a faith marked by a shared search for truth among equals and displayed through lives of loving service to all. They had the vision and the courage to found a ministry here and to stick with it from the promise of growth and new buildings through the challenges of new cultural patterns and changing religious paradigms to make the most of opportunities for new life.
All of us are familiar with many of these people through stories and scripture. Some of us may even have known a few of those who helped to found this congregation. All of these examples speak of the power of faith to change history, lives, and even the world in which we live. It is through their efforts, their love for God and the church, and their faithful service that we find ourselves here today – serving God and our neighbors together in this time and in this place.
And that we find ourselves together is no small thing. We live in a culture that esteems the individual above community (and maybe even family) and admires self-sufficiency, interpreting any attempt to reach out for help as weakness and failure. The highest goal sometimes seems to be self-aggrandizement. For some of us, amassing wealth or accolades for ourselves – all by ourselves – is the highest goal we have. Not only is this at the heart of the “American Dream,” it illustrates the way that we have been taught to define our identity according to the way we are different from one another.
And our religion has not remained free of this divisiveness. Since the time of the Reformation when Martin Luther inadvertently provided the wedge that allowed others to split the Catholic Church into three branches, Western Christianity has continued to split and divide into a multitude of denominations as well as non-denominational churches on the basis of beliefs that are often blown out of proportion.
Thus, the Church of the Brethren split three ways in the 1890s, each branch defining itself around its disagreement with the others on issues like the importance of higher education or the spiritual danger posed by the radio. Other denominations have divided over the question of whether or not women should be allowed in the ministry or even to speak during worship.
Just this year, the Anglican Communion – which includes the denomination we know as the Episcopal Church – has found itself on the verge of a schism as some provinces threaten to disown the rest of the family because of the appointment of an openly gay Episcopal bishop. Even the Disciples of Christ – a church that claims the reunification of Christianity as a central goal – has split into two denominations. Sad really since Paul often encourages unity among the believers, saying in pastoral letter “I beg you to live a life worthy of the calling… bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit [and] speaking the truth in love [so that] we [grow] up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”
Our congregation, I know, has had its own divisive moments. Even in the past eight years we have faced this issue because of our position on the war in Iraq. Many of you know more about this than I do. But, as I understand it, several of our brothers and sisters felt alienated and angry about the way in which our congregation proclaimed the belief that war is counter-productive and sinful. And feeling that there was no space for constructive conversation among people of faith that held different views on the issue, they left the congregation to find other faith homes.
Everyone I have talked to about that experience has expressed sadness and pain at the way it ended up. Even a couple of those who left have told me that they wish things had gone differently. Yet, with everyone caught up in the heightened climate of fear that gripped the country in those days and its polarizing effect, perhaps there was little hope of a different outcome.
Yes, this congregation – like all communities of faith – bears with a healthy dose of divisiveness growing out of the fear and pain we experience as we live and worship together. But we also embody a spirit of unity that is more powerful than the spirit of individualism and division. And that can be seen in the way we bring together people from a variety of different backgrounds – Baptist, Pentecostal, Jewish, Brethren, Mennonite, and others – in one community of faith seeking to know God. In fact, that Spirit of Unity – perhaps we could even call it the Spirit of Truth – was fixed as a public part of our identity twenty-three years ago.
As I have heard the story told – and again, many of you know more of this than I, several Mennonite families had tried to start a Mennonite fellowship in the Morgantown area. When that did not work out well, some of the members began to attend the Morgantown Church of the Brethren. Some time later, around 1980, one sister approached Pastor Lester Boleyn about the possibility of affiliating with the Mennonite Church. When the question came to the Church body, the Brethren members, acting out of love and care for their Mennonite sisters and brothers, quickly agreed with the idea and began to work at join the Allegheny Conference.
During that process, the issue of the congregation’s name came up. Should a jointly affiliated congregation maintain the name of only one denomination? Should both denominations be represented in the name? Should neither be specifically mentioned? In the end, the congregation decided to keep the name of Church of the Brethren (adding “affiliated with the Mennonite Church). There were several reasons for this decision, but the most significant was the sentiment among some of the Mennonites attending the church. Responding to the love and acceptance they had experienced from the Brethren in kind, they proposed that the name stay the same so that the heritage of the congregation would be maintained.
A powerful story - sisters and brothers in Christ laying aside pride in former names to embrace each other. Saying not, “we belong to the Church of the Brethren” or “We belong to the Mennonite Church,” but claiming unity in the faith.
I find that to be inspiring. And I’m not the only one. This congregation was the first to bring together the Mennonite and Brethren traditions. Its example led several other congregations spread across the country to welcome brothers and sisters from one denomination or the other into one family of faith – a truer vision of the body of Christ.
Faith and unity… those are at the heart of this congregation’s identity. In the past couple of months, we have addressed several issues that are particularly important to the Anabaptist branch of Christianity: believers’ baptism, discipleship, simplicity, peace, and community. Our history – as Brethren, as Mennonites, and as part of the larger Christian church – is full of examples of those who lived out these beliefs faithfully. And, our desire to hold on to those values as our particular piece of the gospel message to the world and the rest of Christianity sets us apart from others in some ways. Yet, in this congregation, we do not seek to exclude others through these particular beliefs. Our heritage is one of inviting any and all who seek to know God in Christ more fully to join us on that journey of faith in the hope that we can discover more of God’s truth together.
I, for one, am excited about our future together and curious to see what we will become as we live and worship and seek God together – “bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit [and] speaking the truth in love [so that] we [grow] up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”
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