James Benedict: Something Better – Robins Church of the Brethren Closing Ceremony

Sermon for Saturday, September 10, 2016
Ecclesiastes 3:1-5
Hebrews 11:8-16; 32-40Something Better

I must start by thanking the Robins congregation and the Northern Plains District for the honor of being asked to preach on this special occasion.  Forty-two years ago, I stood nervously behind this same pulpit and preached my very first sermon at the age of fifteen.  Three years after that, I was licensed to the ministry here, and I have since spent over thirty years in the full-time ministry in other congregations.  So I am deeply grateful for the privilege of being here to help celebrate the life and ministry of this congregation that has meant so much to me, and to many others also.

I am honored, but I am trying not to “get the big head.”  That was always my grandmother’s warning to me, whenever I would share with her any special accomplishment or honors I received – good grades, getting into college, having an article published.  She would say, “That’s nice, but Jimmie, don’t get the big head.”

She and my grandfather sat back there, a row or two in front of where I sat with my mom and dad, brothers and sister.  Our family sat in the back row, I suspect so that just in case one of us would misbehave, mom or dad wouldn’t have far to go to take us out of the sanctuary for appropriate discipline – not that it was necessary very often.

I can remember sitting back there, elbow to elbow with one or more of my brothers, trying to behave and trying not to drop the quarter that I had been given for the offering because – as you can see – the floor slopes down, and chances were good that if I dropped it, it would roll all the way to the front, and then my dad might take me outside for some of that appropriate discipline.

On a September day like today, it would usually be hot, because we didn’t have air conditioning in the church back then.  In fact, we didn’t even have a bathroom indoors – you had to go out back to the outhouse.  But because it was so hot, we would have the windows open and we would fan ourselves with the fans provided by the local funeral director, pieces of cardboard stapled to an oversized tongue depressor.  Even so, we would sweat, and many times our backs would stick to the back of the pew.

And on a September day like today, chances are that my nose would be running and I would be trying not to sneeze anymore than I absolutely had to.  I had terrible hay fever as a kid, and this was a bad time of year with ragweed and goldenrod at their peak.  It didn’t help that I spent a lot of time outdoors with my brothers, exploring in the woods and the pasture, wading and fishing in the creek, or even just walking the quarter mile from the bus stop to my home, past ditches filled with ragweed and goldenrod.

Ragweed doesn’t have much to commend it, but goldenrod is at least attractive, with its yellow blooms.  Poet Mary Oliver, has honored it in one of her better-known poems:

On roadsides,
in fall fields,
in rumpy bunches,
saffron and orange and pale gold,

in little towers,
soft as mash,
sneeze-bringers and seed-bearers,
full of bees, sand, yellow beads and perfect flowerlets

and orange butterflies.
I don’t suppose
much notice comes of it, except for honey,
and how it heartens the heart with its

blank blaze.
I don’t suppose anything loves it, except, perhaps,
the rocky voids
filled by its dumb dazzle.

For myself,
I was just passing by, when the wind flared
and the blossoms rustled,
and the glittering pandemonium

leaned on me.
I was just minding my own business
when I found myself on their straw hillsides,
citron and butter-colored,

and was happy, and why not?
Are not the difficult labors of our lives
full of dark hours?
And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far,

that is better than these light-filled bodies?

All day
on their airy backbones
they toss in the wind,

they bend as though it was natural and godly to bend,
they rise in a stiff sweetness,
in the pure peace of giving
one’s gold away.

That poem helped me learn to love goldenrod, in spite of its effects on me, much as I suppose God loves us in spite of our sins.  Goldenrod is for me a reminder that, for those of us with eyes to see and a heart willing to let ourselves see, there is beauty to be found in that which brings us trouble or even sorrow – like the closing of a beloved congregation.

Of course, another thing goldenrod has in its favor, as far as I am concerned, is that it doesn’t last forever.  In a few weeks, a killing frost will put an end to it, at least for another year or so.  As the prophet Isaiah informs us, “The grass withers and the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it.”   The prophet makes the same point as the Preacher, who reminds us in the passage we read from the book of Ecclesiastes, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven; a time to be born and a time to die.”

For everything there is a season.  That includes congregations.  They are born, grow, flourish, grow old and die.  Some outlast the normal human lifespan (no one is here today who was present when the Robins church was organized in 1856), but sooner or later, they prove to be mortal.  On average in the United States, approximately ten congregations close every day.  They are human institutions.  Why would we expect it to be otherwise?

When Jesus spoke of the church, against which the gates of hell could not prevail, he did not have in mind some specific local congregation.  Instead, it was the church as God’s people, throughout the world and throughout time, persisting in spite of setbacks, moving, thriving first here and then there.  Remember those 10 churches a day that are closing in the United States?  At the same time, 11 are opening, and that is just here.  Elsewhere in the world, in Africa and Asia, there is even greater growth.  Our hope is not in the ability of any specific congregation to survive.  Our hope is in God, Creator, Redeemer and Holy Spirit, at work in congregations and individuals near and far.

Our hope is in what God is doing, because we believe that God is at work reclaiming, redeeming and reforming the whole creation.  Each Christian and each congregation is called to participate in that work, with the resources at their disposal, in the place and time afforded to them.  

That is what the folks who made up this congregation did – they did their part, with the resources at their disposal, in the time and place afforded to them.  They came from Pennsylvania, Ohio and other points east, and settled here when Iowa had been a state for less than a single decade.  They began to meet in 1854, and organized in 1856, calling themselves the First Dry Creek Church of the German Baptists.  You have to admire the optimism in that name – you call yourself the first only if you expect there to someday be a second, and maybe a third.  

They built their first meeting house in 1858 and by 1881 had 125 members and 5 ministers.  The congregation, like others among the Brethren, survived a devastating split that year, with half the congregation and four fifths of the ministers breaking away to be part of the Old Order.  That led to the building of another new meeting house in 1883, and growth back to 100 members a few years after that.  In 1915, this current building was built and for a time the church flourished with large families.  Then things changed, families got smaller, and children who grew up here more often moved away than stuck around to raise families of their own.

Yet for a season – a long season – this was a vital congregation.  It was a congregation that inspired, comforted, challenged and served.  It was a congregation that called forth leaders, sent people to work with Brethren Disaster Ministries, and provided a place for people to come to know God through Jesus Christ.  For a season, a long season, this congregation carried out the work God gave it to do and sought to follow where God led.

The season is now over, and for those who have loved this congregation (and especially those of us whose faith was formed here), it hurts.  We grieve, and rightfully so.  As another of my favorite poets, Robert Frost has written:

Out through the fields and the woods

   And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

   And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

   And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

   Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

   And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

   When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

   No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

   The flowers of the witch hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

   But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man

   Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

   To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

   Of a love or a season?

Yes, we grieve, but as Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, we do not grieve as do others who have no hope.  For we have hope, hope in God, hope in the work God is doing, and hope that our part of that work matters and has made a difference.  For now, we can accept that this congregation’s season has come to an end, and yet we understand that God’s work is not done.  So we are like those mentioned in the Letter to the Hebrews, who “though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.”

The vision of the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, and the vision of the New Testament in general, is that God’s work is larger than any one congregation, or any one generation.  Each congregation, each generation, spends its season doing what it can, and then becomes part of that “great cloud of witnesses,” to inspire those who follow after, until that day when the work is done, and all together will be made perfect.

Seasons come and seasons go, but scripture teaches us that it is not all just an endless cycle.  Scripture teaches us that history is headed somewhere, that God has elected to work through history – through human beings and human institutions that live and die, that rise and fall – to bring us all to glory.   

That glory is described in many different ways in different places in the New Testament, but one description especially worth noticing on this occasion is the description offered in the book of Revelation, where we hear of a new “Jerusalem,” the heavenly city in which there is no more death, mourning, crying or pain.  It is a beautiful city, and a city in which the people who dwell there have everything they need.  But one thing is noticeably missing – the Temple, the visible symbol of institutional religion.  The new Jerusalem needs no Temple because “its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb,” just as it “has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”

That is our destination, and God will see that we get there, but we aren’t there yet.  For now, we need our temples and churches, our congregations and meeting houses – places where we can meet, encourage one another, learn and grow.  And when such a place and such a community is lost, we do grieve, just as the people of God have always grieved when patriarchs, matriarchs and saints of various kinds have died “without receiving what was promised.”  Still, we believe that they, and we, and others will someday come together and experience a joy and completeness that is so much better than even the very best day in the life of any single individual or congregation.

Yes, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Robins Church of the Brethren bloomed where it was planted and brightened the world for a season.  And someday it will be part of the most spectacular bouquet, the fragrance of which will reach to every corner of the promised holy city, where God will wipe away every tear.  Amen.