It’s the week of Thanksgiving.  Personally my favorite food holiday because I am ALL about my Great Aunt Alice’s sausage Stuffing!  And the memories of spending the whole weekend with my cousins and eating as much as we wanted are happy ones.

In my household we celebrate Sweats-giving – where everyone gets new sweatpants and we all cook our favorite holiday dishes together, while listening to Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.  Then that Sunday afternoon we get our Christmas tree.

But Thanksgiving is also a deeply problematic holiday.

I was taught as a child that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and Indians helped them survive the winter by teaching them about native foods, like corn and squash.  Sometimes we made construction paper pilgrim hats and feathered headdresses.  Sometimes we made a construction paper cornucopia and filled it with paper fruits and veggies, to celebrate the “First Thanksgiving” when the settlers held a big dinner with the Wampanoag tribe to celebrate having survived the first year.  And we’ve been celebrating Thanksgiving in America ever since!

The problem is, none of that actually happened like that.

The Mayflower did land in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  And they did hold a 3 day feast in 1621 that was attended by members of the Wampanoag tribe, however the tribal members only attended because the settlers were having such a wild party that they were shooting guns in celebration and since Ousamequin, leader of the Wampanoag Tribe had agreed to a mutual-defense pact, they showed up to help defend the settlers.  Once this misunderstanding was cleared up the tribal members did stay for the feast, but they were not actually invited.

There were also several other Thanksgivings celebrated by various colonies, however, since they were primarily dour Puritains, they celebrated with 1-3 days of prayer and fasting, not a good meal.

In 1789 President Washington did declare Oct 3 a day of Thanksgiving and prayer for “giving the American people the opportunity to create a Constitution to preserve their hard won freedoms.” (Thanksgiving: From Local Harvests to National Holiday, Smithsonian Institution ) 

Most of the credit for our annual Thanksgiving feast goes to Sarah Josepha Hale, Editor of Ladies Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book, who campaigned for an annual Thanksgiving holiday in her magazines by publishing articles and holiday recipes, and in letters to politicians as a way of combating the divisions in the country by coming together to celebrate a day of peace and unity. 

(https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2023/11/our-national-thanksgiving/ )

But is wasn’t until 1863, inspired by the Union victory at Gettysburg, that President Lincoln proclaimed that November 26th would be a national Thanksgiving Day, to be observed every year on the fourth Thursday of November.

So the Pilgrims didn’t invite the Wampanoag tribe, and the reason for the national holiday has a lot more to do with the United State’s ugly history of slavery and colonization than it does with gratitude. 

So for the rest of this sermon time, I want us to Center Native voices by engaging with the First Nations Version of Luke 1: 67 – 79.  

• Listen to how Native Americans name people.
• Listen to how Native Americans talk about God.
• Listen with ears that remember the genocide of Tribal children in Methodist run Indian Boarding schools.
• Listen with ears that remember broken treaties, missing women, and reservations that don’t have clean drinking water because our Federal Government is still breaking treaties.
• Listen, and read along if that helps you listen, for one word or phrase that stands out to you.  Just a word or a phrase, for now… we’ll move into some discussion later.

Luke 1:67-79 First Nations Version

67 Then, with a glad heart, Creator Will Remember (Zechariah) spoke these words the Holy Spirit was giving him to say.

68 “All blessings to the Great Spirit of the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel)! For he has come to rescue his people from a great captivity.  69-70 Just as the prophets foretold long ago in the land of our ancestor Much Loved One (David), he has lifted up his coup stick to show his great power to help us,  71 to rescue us from the arrows of our enemies and all who look down upon us with hate.” 

He lifted trembling hands to the sky and cried out.

72-73 “He has given to us the same pity he has shown our ancestors and remembered the promise he made in the great peace treaty with Father of Many Nations (Abraham). 74-75 He has come to free us from the fear of our enemies, so we can walk all our days in his sacred and right ways.” 

Then he turned to his newborn son, and from deep in his spirit he spoke these words of blessing to him.

76 “And you, my son, will be a prophet from the One Above Us All. You will make a clear path for the coming of the Great Chief, 77 to show his people that he will heal our broken ways by cleansing us from our bad hearts and releasing us from our wrongdoings.  78 Because Creator is kind and gentle, he will come to us as the sunrise from above, 79 to shine on the ones who sit in darkness and in the land of death’s shadow, to guide our feet on the good path of peace.”

The First Nations Version is available at many fine booksellers, including Powell’s Books, so you don’t need to break your Amazon boycott to get your own copy of this beautiful transliteration of the New Testament.

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

6 Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother or sister living irresponsibly and not according to the tradition that they received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not irresponsible when we were with you, 8 and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it,w but with toil and labor we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you. 9 This was not because we do not have that right but in order to give you an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 11 For we hear that some of you are living irresponsibly, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13 Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 

This verse has been misused to justify doing the very opposite of what Jesus taught for centuries.

Jesus taught us to feed the hungry and care for the least of these, so where did the author of 2 Thessalonians come up with “anyone unwilling to work should not eat”?

First Thessalonians, that is, the authentic Paul’s first letter to the Christ Community in Thessalonica in northern Greece is one of the oldest documents in the New Testament.  

2 Thessalonians is fan fiction, written about 30 or 40 years after Paul was executed by Rome in the 60’s.

But it’s good fan fiction.  Somebody who really studied Paul’s style of writing, Paul’s word use, Paul’s typical letter format.

But the issues discussed in 2 Thessalonians are the issues of the second generation of Christians, not the first generation.

There’s 2 main topics in 2 Thessalonians:

1. Why hasn’t Jesus come back yet?  The original disciples really thought Jesus would return during their lifetime, so it was kind of a big deal when all the Apostles were dead and Jesus hadn’t returned.
2. If Jesus isn’t coming right back, then how do we find a sustainable way to Be The Church?  

The early church practiced a share economy.  If you were a member of the Way and your fellow member needed a loan you were required to lend them money.  If your fellow member was hungry you were expected to share your food.  The authentic Paul advised people to not get married or have children, because Jesus was coming really soon and he didn’t think it would be fun to have kids during the apocalypse. 

The early church wasn’t worried about tomorrow, because tomorrow, Jesus could come!

But here they were, the Church in Thessalonica around 90 or 100 AD and Jesus hadn’t come yet. 

So maybe there was a letter written to the early church leaders by the folks in Thessalonica, asking something along the lines of:  Jesus hasn’t come yet and the working folks are getting upset with the folks just sitting around and waiting for Jesus to come.  Please advise?

So maybe this Pauline fan fiction was written to respond to a letter from the Christ Community in Thessalonica.   

Or maybe 2 Thessalonians is a sermon written by the leader of the Church in Thessalonica in the form of a letter from Paul?

We don’t know.

A fairly common 19th and 20th century interpretation of this passage is based on the idea that since Jesus hadn’t come back yet, the share economy of the Church wasn’t working very well.   Even progressive Christians like Marcus Borg describes the situation as, freeloaders within the Church who were taking advantage of the share economy of the Church, but not contributing. (Borg, Evolution of the Word)  The idea being that some folks were just sitting around waiting for Jesus to come, while others did all the work and provided all the food.

And that interpretation got twisted into the popular phrase:

“he that will not work shall not eat.” 

2 Thessalonians verse 10 does not read:  “he that will not work shall not eat.”  

That’s not anywhere in the Bible, that’s part of the rules of the James Town Colony delivered to the colonists by Captain John Smith in 1609.  Here’s the full quote:

You must obey this now for a law, that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled). For the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers.

The problem in James Town was that there were some folks who felt that manual labor was beneath them, but the colony would literally not survive without everyone pitching in!

There are those who try to use Captain Smith’s version of verse 10 to justify a compassionless world where only those who are gainfully employed deserve to eat.

But not even Captain Smith advocated for that!  

At least Captain Smith made an exception for those who are disabled!

Another interpretation is grounded in the writings of other early church apostles.

This interpretation proposes that the rich church members were the busybodies mentioned in verse 11 of our reading, telling everyone else what to do, but not doing anything themselves.  The rich were unwilling to work and expected the poor to serve them in the Church, just as the poor served them in everyday life.

 1 Corinthians chapter 11, an authentic letter of Paul, recounts a story where the rich people were coming early to the church potluck and eating all the good food they brought before the poor people were able to get off work.  Paul gives them a talking to about sharing the Lord’s Table by waiting for everyone to arrive before anyone eats.

James, chapter 2 also addresses this kind of dishonoring of the poor (James 2:6) by expecting those who are poor to do all the work of serving at Church because the rich donated the food.  James reminds the people that the Kingdom of God is not the Roman Empire and that the poor of the church do not need to show extra honor to the rich, because, after all, the rich treat them badly during everyday life!

Jesus also speaks to the reversal of privilege in the Kingdom of Heaven in the parable of Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31.  A story that Jesus made up on the spot to challenge some rich religious leaders who were mocking Jesus for his economic views.

Jesus tells this story:

There was a poor man named Lazarus, who lay outside the gate of a very rich man’s mansion.  Lazarus was so hungry he couldn’t even get up and the rich man’s dogs would lick the sores on Lazarus’ body.  (I know, eww Jesus, that’s gross)

So Lazarus dies and is carried away by angels to be with Abraham.

The rich man also dies and is tortured with flames in Hades because… he didn’t get rich by being nice!

So the rich man looks up and sees Lazarus sitting beside Abraham in the good place, and the rich man calls out to Abraham and says,

Hey Abe – send Lazarus down here to drip water into my mouth with his fingers, because I’m kinda tied up.

And Abraham says,  “Child….”

And when I read this I hear it in the tone of voice of a Black Preacher where that one word “Child,” just drips with, “you have got some nerve to be asking me to tell Lazarus, whom you didn’t lift a finger to help, to be commuting to hell and using his literal fingers to help you, now that you are experiencing the consequences of your actions!”

But in Jesus’ story Abraham says in Luke 16:25, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.” 

Which brings us back to this second interpretation that the writer of 2 Thessalonians was not telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or starve.

Perhaps the writer of 2 Thessalonians was telling those busybodies who were unwilling to lift a finger to help those in need by at least doing their share of the work of the church, were not worthy of a seat at the Lord’s Table?

I kinda think that maybe it was a little bit of both.

Both folks who needed to stop just waiting around for Jesus to come.

And folks who needed to stop being irresponsible busybodies thinking the poor should be waiting on them inside the church, just like it was out in the Roman Empire.

But I lean more towards the second one because Jesus and the Hebrew Prophets talked a lot about how it is unjust for the rich and the powerful to store up more treasures on earth than they could ever use, while they fail to pay a living wage to the workers who are the source of their wealth.

Which brings us to today.

Because we’re going to share in the Lord’s Table – communion – in just a moment.

The early church was really strict about who got to receive communion – only baptized members in good standing were allowed — because communion was not just a sacrament, or a reenactment of the last supper to them.  

Communion was a pre-enactment of the Kingdom of Heaven.

They believed that when Jesus’ reign would come and God’s will would be done on earth as it is in Heaven, that everyone would eat.

That ideas like wealth and status would no longer matter in the Reign of Jesus.

When Jesus’s Reign comes it won’t matter if you’re Jewish or Greek, man or woman, young or old, gay or straight, Cis gender or Trans, dog or cat lover.

Everybody belongs in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So the Communion Table – the community potluck that the Baptized would share together was a Table where Christians would recommit themselves to working towards cooperating with God to bring God’s reign to earth.

A table where divisions like Wealth, Race, and Gender did not belong.

But what we have learned in the centuries since then, is that we are not better than the Pharisees, who mocked Jesus’ radical economic ideas.

Systems of hierarchy, economic injustice and bigotry are how the world works.

And it’s hard to take seriously what Jesus said about helping the stranger, when we live in a world that teaches us to fear one another.

But Jesus welcomed Judas to the Table, knowing that Judas was going to get Jesus brutally executed.

So this table is a Table where everybody eats.

Because we change hearts and minds not by excluding them, 

but by actively inviting people to the table where everybody eats.

Actively inviting people to be a part of a sharing and caring community.

Actively teaching people who serve too much to learn holy boundaries and do less.

And actively teaching those who do too little to care for their neighbors to experience the joy that comes from helping others.

In our Methodist Tradition, all are welcome at this table…

Haggai 2:1-2:9

1In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying:

2″Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say: 3Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?

4Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts, 5according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.

6For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, 7and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts. 8The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts. 9The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts, and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.”

Today’s sermon is the stories of 3 faith communities.  

Two United Methodist Churches and the faith community in Jerusalem in 520 BC.

The first Community closed because they had to do it their way.

The second community got stuck for a while because they got distracted by life.

The third Community said yes to God and God did things they did not expect!

The First Community is North Mason United Methodist Church.  North Mason was the first United Methodist Church that I served in, and they are the reason that I am a Methodist today.  I served there as Music Director when my daughter was 3 years old, so that was 22 years ago.  I will never forget the day that I made an announcement at the end of worship asking for volunteers to support a Kazoo Marching Band program at the Boys and Girls Club.  Yes, I thought that up all by myself.  Yes.  I’m still that crazy.  Anyway, I asked for folks to come talk to me up front after worship if they were interested in helping, and this little church, who worshiped 50 on a good Sunday, surrounded me with support!  I literally could not see the walls because nearly every member of that little church crowded around me to support my wild idea to direct a Kazoo Marching Band.  

North Mason UMC taught me the meaning of Sanctifying Grace.  

We have 3 types of Grace in Methodist theology.

• Prevenient Grace – pre, meaning before.  We believe that God loves us before we love God.
• Justifying Grace – Which refers to the knowledge that we are saved, or justified – which is to say:  now we know that God loves us.
• Sanctifying Grace – which means that now that we know we are loved, we start to live like we are loved.  So we practice neighbor-love.

North Mason was a plucky little church who didn’t just talk about love, they practiced love in their community.

Which is why I was so surprised to find out that North Mason UMC closed a few years ago.  But also, not surprised.

I remember a memorial that I was a part of, as the music director.  The memorial was for one of the founding members of the church.  A “self-made”  man, who had defied the odds and taught himself how to walk after surviving polio as a child.  A man who made a lot of money in his business ventures.  A man who donated a lot to the church, and expected to influence the choices of the Church in return for his money.  

His family insisted that we play a recording of Sinatra singing My Way, at his memorial and it seemed apt.  Everything had to be his way.

That was the other side of this grace-filled little church.  

They wanted to serve.  

They wanted to be involved.  

They wanted to welcome new people.

But they wanted to do it on their terms.

It’s just that their way – which was to recreate a nostalgic version of the past – 

 was not God’s way, in that time and that place.

So now.  North Mason UMC is no more.

Our second Faith Community is Jerusalem sometime between mid-August and mid-December of the year 520 BCE, which is when the book of Haggai was written.  Forgive me for Geeking out a little bit over how precise the dating of this book is!  The date is important because it gives us the context that isn’t in the book!

Here’s the back story!

The nation of Judea was conquered by the Babylonians and the first Temple was destroyed in 997 BCE.  Then the Persians conquered the Babylonians, King Cyrus told the Jews they could go home and rebuild their city and their Temple in 538 BCE.  

During the Reign of Cyrus the people had begun reconstruction of the Temple, but for some reason they stopped.  Maybe they got distracted. There was a lot to rebuild, homes and markets and streets and bakeries… all the necessary stuff of life.  And as happens, life went on and the next thing you know it’s been about 10 years since construction halted and the Temple is still an unfinished construction site in 520 BCE.

So in chapter 1, the prophet Haggai feels called to ask for a meeting with Governor Zerubbabel Ben Shealtiel and High Priest Joshua Ben Jehozadak at the Temple construction site, to tell them that God has noticed that while they are living in fine houses, God’s house – the Temple is lying in ruins.  Haggai feels called to tell them nothing is working well because the Temple is in ruins. 

This is why your harvests are failing. 

This is why no matter how much you have, nothing feels like it’s ever enough.  

Nothing will be right until you finish the Temple!

It seems like what Haggai is saying is that your lives feel empty because you are spiritually empty without the Temple.  But the Temple was more than a place of worship.  

The Temple was a soup kitchen.

The Temple, like most Temples that practiced animal sacrifice, was an all day, every day, BBQ and soup kitchen.

Except when people sacrificed to Athena or Baal, only the rich person who made the sacrifice and the priests ate.  

When people sacrificed at the Temple, everybody ate.

The Prophet Ezekiel, who was present for the destruction of the Temple, wrote a description of a new plan for the second Temple in Ezekiel chapters 40 and following, where Ezekiel just like our foremothers in the faith, imagined a new Temple kitchen that was 3 times the size with big ovens to bake bread and multiple stew pots, so that all the small offerings could go into the soup.  Like the 2 birds that Mary and Joseph sacrificed to celebrate the birth of Jesus, because they couldn’t afford a lamb, all those small offerings would go into the stew pots, so that there was always soup and bread available to anyone who was hungry, at the back of the Temple.

So by not finishing the Temple, the people had not only forgotten God’s House. They had forgotten the People’s Table.

Without the bread and soup and BBQ, the widows and orphans, the poor and the disabled, were going hungry.

In our reading for today,  Haggai calls Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua to meet in the abandoned construction zone of the Temple and remind them that when God wants to do something, God provides.  God is going to shake down the nations for the money to get the construction project going again.  It’s time for them to release their fear, to be courageous and trust that God.

It’s not about doing it “my way,” because if we’re doing it my way, I don’t know how to build a new church any more than Haggai knew how to build a Temple.  But if we’re doing it God’s way, then God will provide.

So the people got unstuck, and after a 10 year pause Temple construction began again, and the Temple that Jesus walked in was built.

The Third Community is a little United Methodist church in the Desert Southwest Conference, that I learned about at the conference I went to in Vegas.

This is the story of how they went from a little congregation of 5 faithful saints, with a little building that was falling apart around their ears, who were struggling to pay ¼ time clergy salary, to being fully funded and having a full time appointment!

It began with the Cabinet telling them that since they were struggling to even pay ¼ time salary for a clergy person, that their church would have to become a part of a Ministry Cooperative.  A Ministry Cooperative is where several churches share one or more clergy together, like Open Door Ministries in Salem.

Some churches get defensive when the Cabinet tells them they have to share their Pastor and jump to the conclusions that maybe somebody doesn’t like them, or “the Conference” is trying to shut them down.  But these faithful folks, all 5 of them, knew what their reality was.  

So they approached collaborative ministry with an attitude of prayer.  They met with their Pastor and had conversations about their reality and tried to dream about the future, but they just didn’t know what to do.

But God was already at work in their community, through the Mayor of their small town.  You see, there had been an influx of immigrants seeking asylum from Venezuela, so the Mayor asked all the churches in town to help with sheltering the asylum seekers.  These 5 faithful Saints had been in prayer for a few months when the Mayor’s call came, so they said yes.

And they were the ONLY CHURCH in town who said yes.

So they sheltered about 20 asylum seekers in their building, and the people from the city and the other nonprofit organizations who worked with these 5 faithful saints, began to dream of more permanent housing.

That led to a connection with an affordable housing developer, who proposed a land swap where the affordable housing build got the back lot of the church to build 9 units of housing in exchange for building the congregation a new, energy efficient church building.

This faithful congregation of 5 saints, also stewarded a parsonage that they had rented out for 20 years without any maintenance, and it was an absolute mess, so through all the friends they were making in the community, they managed to sell their dump of a parsonage that happened to be in a desirable neighborhood for $1.2 mil!

So this little church of 5 faithful saints, because they said yes to God, when every other church said no, is getting a brand new building and is having a full time church planting clergy couple appointed to start new vibrant ministries in a brand new ministry space that is flexible, with a big kitchen, no pews, showers, and a rule that all furniture must be movable by one person, so that it’s easy to reconfigure the space for whatever ministry God surprises them with next!

All because they said yes to doing it God’s way.

So I sat there in classroom 8 of the education wing of Henderson United Methodist, in a suburb of Los Vegas, thinking.  I need to share this story with my church!

I need to tell them that we are not the only ones with whom God is doing a new thing!

Church, I want to honor the fact that it’s not easy letting go of something we love.

These walls are soaked with the prayers of the faithful Saints who have come before us!

All the non-church folks who visit this sanctuary comment on what a good “feel” this sanctuary has.

But God is doing something here.

Something similar to restoring the soup kitchen at the back of the Temple.

Something very similar to giving up a beloved old building so that people can be housed in Arizona and new space can be made for ministry.

Something that I did not plan or imagine.

Something that I don’t even know how to lead you in, but God does.

God does!

And today, after worship, you get to vote on it.

So lets be in an attitude of prayer.

God, may your will be done, not my way, God, but your way be done.  Amen.

1 Thessalonians 1:1-4;11-12

1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

2 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.

11 To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today we celebrate All Saints Day.

As Protestants, we don’t canonize Saints as people with a special level of holiness.

We believe that everyone trying to follow God, however imperfectly, is a Saint.

Those who have gone before us…

All of us gathered here…

Those who are yet to come…

We’re all Saints.

We are the ones whom the author of First Thessalonians prayed for.  

Because Paul, Silvanus and Timothy didn’t write 1 Thessalonians, it’s another Pauline Fan Fiction letter, but it’s a good one.

But I bet that the real Paul, Silvanus and Timothy did pray for us and all the Saints to come.

Wild huh.

But it also makes sense.

I think back to all the people, living and dead, who have influenced me, and they all had flaws, and things they weren’t so good about, and yet, they made a difference in my life and my faith.

I also think about our forebearers in the Faith who contributed both wonderful and terrible things to Christianity.

Like, Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church.  Luther wrote beautiful and important theology about the expansiveness of God’s Grace… and Luther was also deeply antisemetic. 

Or our own founder, John Wesley, whose “Method,” was to actually practice neighbor-love towards the poor, the prisoner, the child laborers, the factory workers, instead of just talking about loving our neighbors…and Wesley was a terrible boyfriend and husband.  He excommunicated his ex-fiance for marrying somebody else, and he and his wife separated shortly after their marriage because there was just no living with that man! 

The Saints that came before us were deeply flawed and also deeply holy.

And so are we.

We are all in need of God’s grace, and we all have a calling to offer the world.

So I’m going to ask you to think about some of the Saints, famous or not, who have influenced you.  

I’m going to give you a minute to think.

Now turn to a neighbor or 2 and share what you remember about the Saints who formed your faith?

I’m going to ask you to share something about what your neighbor said, so listen well!

Let’s bring up our online friends, so they can share too.

What do your neighbors remember about the Saints who formed their faith?

It’s interesting what we remember and what we hear, isn’t it!

As most of you know by now, we are in the process of trying to build affordable housing — we’ll be having a congregational vote on that next week, but more on that later…

I have loved asking our older members what it was like the last time this Church decided to tear down their building and build something that better met their ministry needs?

I ask them,

What do you remember about that time?

Spill the tea!  Tell me about the drama!

Who said what?

Who did what?

Who do you remember about that time?

The story is that in the mid- 1950’s the congregation’s faith was growing so abundantly that they no longer fit in the old white church.

It was too small and didn’t have enough space for all their Sunday School classes. The old white Church just didn’t meet their needs anymore, and this is a small lot, so they had to tear something down to make room for anything new.  

So they raised the money, they tore it down, and they built… this!

A big sanctuary, and lots of Sunday School rooms downstairs for all the kids – with those cool little slidy windows for delivering snacks.

And storage rooms and bathrooms, although why aren’t there any bathrooms on the same level as the Sanctuary?

And a full on bank-style vault to store old papers in… I mean, it’s really cool… but why a bank-style vault?

They dreamed it, they funded it and they built it!

It’s interesting to me that nobody seems to remember any drama!

I haven’t heard any stories of people who left the congregation because they wanted to keep the old white church.

Or stories about arguments over the carpet or the kitchen.

Or stories about paint color drama.

I was beginning to think that generation were truly the greatest generation!

I just kept hearing how so many of them donated their time to work on the building.

How they put in a time capsule under the plaque on the front of the building.

How much they loved one another and how their families were all friends.

The stories of who taught Sunday School and who served in the nursery.

And then I heard about the car.

Apparently a certain Saint owned an auto-body shop?

Please correct me if I’m wrong!

And this certain Saint may have decided to help the Congregation save on cement costs for the foundation by “contributing” a car frame to the foundation.

And then I started to hear about the people who did not feel welcome.

The people whose differences were just not considered acceptable by mid-twentieth-century standards.

And then as time went on, I heard about people who weren’t happy about what that one Pastor said that one time…

Or people who wanted things to stay the way they were in 1956, despite the fact that it’s not 1956 outside anymore.

The truth is that the Saints who built this building were not any more or less Saintly than those who came before them or we who come after them.  They were simply faithful to their calling in their time.

They were willing to support their Pastor in meeting new people in the community, rather than only taking care of members.

They were willing to give up what was no longer working – a building that was too small and had the wrong spaces for the ministry they were being called to do.

They were faithful with what they had – their time, their expertise (or not so expertise! – have you seen the wiring down there!), their prayers, and their witness.

They were faithful in responding to all the changes and challenges of the post- WWII world they were living in.

Their faithfulness was their gift to God.

And now, about 50 years later, God is calling us to be faithful to respond to the changes and challenges of this post-pandemic world.

And honestly, I thank God for you, siblings in Christ.

I see your faith growing abundantly!

I see the love that every one of you has for one another expanding like a group hug to include people that the 1956 youth group never would have imagined would ever go to this church!

Not only do I boast about you, but our District Superintendent holds you up as an example of Congregational Development because of Haven Dinner and She is so delighted with our collaborative involvement in our small church coalition:  East Portland In Connexion – known as EPIC!

Saints — I see you faithfully stepping up every week.

Working hard to hold this old building together just one more year until we can tear it down and build something that fits the ministry we are being called to do now!

Creating new groups like the Sewists, and adapting old groups like the group formerly known as United Methodist Women to respond to the real issues of our lives today.

I see you glorifying the name of Jesus by practicing what he taught us – to love our neighbors as ourselves, especially the neighbors who might be considered the Least of these.

I see you supporting your Pastor, me, in being out in the community in different ways than what worked in 1956, because you know that it’s 2025 outside the  church, so it needs to be 2025 inside the church!

I believe that future generations will remember you as faithful.