Message Delivered at Christ Church
The Weekend of September 8 & 9, 2007
TEXT: Matthew 11:25-30
Delivered by Paul A. Johnson
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Happy Birthday, everybody!
If you are here for the first time—or close to the first time--you need to know that this is a special weekend in the life of Christ Church. It’s our birthday weekend. Fourteen years ago, on the second Sunday of September, at the Gayton Elementary School down on Church Road near Lauderdale Drive, Christ Church held its first public service of worship.
We met in the multi-purpose room of Gayton Elementary. That’s a fancy way of saying that we met in the gym. That meant that sometimes the basketball hoops were up, and sometimes they were down. Some of us sat at the low post, some of us at the top of the key, and a few of us sat out of bounds. The mascot of Gayton Elementary is the alligator, so it was that the first bit of ornamentation to ever accentuate our worship experience was an eight foot long paper mache green alligator hanging over the altar table. The altar table over which that alligator perched was one of the finest artificial pressed wood dinette tables Heilig-Myers had to offer. It wasn’t much, but it did what we needed it to do. Our communion vessels were some of the vessels we use today. They were handmade by a man named Charles LaFond. Charles was a fund-raiser for the YMCA by day, and a potter by night. He was an active member of St. Matthew’s Church, and his gift to us when we were born was these vessels we still use, except for the ones we given to churches in The Dominican Republic, and The Sudan, and Peru.
We had a truck…a good, sturdy, Mack truck with a twenty foot box. Everything we had was stored in that truck. So at some point that morning, we fired up the truck, drove it to the school, and unloaded it…unloaded everything for a nursery, and for worship. A couple weeks later, we also began unloading every Sunday all the material we needed for a Sunday School because three weeks into our common life we had a fully functioning Sunday School for kids through the fifth grade.
Along with letting us use some rooms, the kind people at Gayton let us use their chairs, so every Sunday about an hour before worship began, we set up chairs. Over the years, we learned a lot about how to set up chairs. And over the years, we set up a lot of them. But the first ones we set up were on that first Sunday morning.
We set up the chairs, and the sound system, and the table.
And then what we did was wait.
The people who helped this church to get started…we had done everything we could. We’d planned the best way we knew how to plan; we’d put things in order the best way we knew how to put things in order. We’d worked things out, got some things right, made some mistakes, agreed on a bunch of stuff, and occasionally had to work through some disagreements. Just kind of life in the Church… But I can say on behalf of those who helped this church to get started…some of whom are here today…we brought our best efforts and our best hearts; and we said our prayers.
But if this church was going to be, it was going to be because God wanted it to be. So a half hour before that first service began, we were brought to that place where we had done everything we could, and now the only thing to do was to wait…and see what God would do.
And what God did is what God loves to do. God brought people to the table. “Come to me,” is what Jesus says. People listened to him, and they came.
There’s a prayer in the Episcopal Prayer Book where we pray in the King’s English for all sorts and conditions of men and women. And that first day, that’s what we were…all sorts and conditions of women and men, boys and girls. All coming from different places, with at least one thing in common…that we’d all received an invitation, and all said “yes.”
And now, on our fourteenth birthday, that’s still what we are…all sorts and conditions of boys, and girls, and men, and women. Some of us newborn, some of us in our eighties and beyond. Some of us working outside the home, some working inside the home. Some from Glen Allen, some from south of Broad, some from closer into town, some from Mechanicsville and elsewhere. Some of us joyous, some of us grieving. Some at the top of our game, some facing hard times. Some confident in their faith, others seeking, and a fair hunk of us both of these things at the same time. Some of us founders who were at that first service, and some of us here for the first time who don’t even know where the Gayton Elementary School is.
We’re all sorts and conditions. We are all the called. And we are all the invited…please know that. “Come unto me,” Jesus says. And here we are.
That first table was from Heilig-Myers. This table is a nicer one. It was made by John Kendall, a member of this congregation. In our dining rooms at home, it would seat about eight. But really, it’s a lot bigger than it looks. Because the way God works, there is always space at this table. That’s something we’ve bet our life on. The other night, when Hillary was doing the preparation for the baptismal candidates and their families, she said something to the kids that’s really simple, but eternally true…She told the children that this is Jesus’ table, and there’s always room.
It’s always that way. It’s that way today; it was that way fourteen years ago; it was that way before the beginning, when the only place we existed was in the mind of Christ. It is a fundamental truth of God’s kingdom that there is space at the table; and it is a fundamental truth of life that deep down, we want to take our place there. Because nobody wants to be left out.
Think about our kids or grandkids who started school this week. We’ve gotten them ready, and they’ve taken their first steps. There is much for them to learn, and when it is we ask them “what did you do today?” it’s usually what they’ve studied that we’re asking them about.
But here’s what’s most likely on their minds: Whether they are dressed the right way; and who is in their classes; and whether they have the same friends in September that they had in June; and where it is they’ll be able to sit in the lunch room. Will they still have a seat at the table, or for some mysterious reason will they be cast out… If they have a concern right now, it probably isn’t that they’ll fail reading. It’s that somehow, they’ll be left out.
That fear can still be there well after we’re finished with high school.
It remains true that what we really want to hear, for all our lives, is that we are welcome; that we are invited; that there is space at the table. And from the beginning, that has been the Gospel message. “Come unto me,” Jesus says. And from our beginning, that has been the vision we have sought to live into. “Christ Church, Richmond exists to invite people into a relationship with Jesus Christ and one another…” That’s how we start our mission statement, because that’s where it starts.
We invite because we were invited. We welcome because we were welcomed. This table is open to others because it is open to us. It’s God’s house; and it’s God’s table; and we are God’s people…some here from the beginning, and some here for the first time.
We are the people that remembers; that knows what God has done for us. We weren’t, and now we are. And it’s not because of anything we might have done. It’s because of what God does. Our lives are better because God has created this people. And we don’t hold on to this blessing by holding on to it. We hold on to it by giving it away.
It’s not a coincidence that we baptize on our birthday. We baptized last night, too. Four last night, and four this morning. Eight new souls welcomed into the kingdom; eight newest members of the body of Christ; eight new saints in the Church. Eight new brothers and sisters to whom we make a commitment; eight more persons to love, and nurture, and encourage, and challenge; and who will do the same for us; eight more hungry souls marked as Christ’s own forever, who take their rightful place at this table, even if they’re in baby carriers.
Their ministry begins in just a few minutes when they us that God loves us first. God’s love and grace and mercy are not because of our accomplishments. They are because we are, and that’s the way God is. And always, as Hillary told them and their parents on Thursday night, there is room at Jesus’ table. Always. That’s the blessing we have received, that’s the blessing we pass on, from generation to generation. Today, they receive this blessing, and for the rest of their lives they’ll give it away, just like we do.
So on a birthday, it is good for us to remember whence we come. It’s a good God who gave us birth, and who formed, and forms, us. Our life to this point is a witness.
But on a birthday, it’s also a blessing to look towards a good future. Because at fourteen, there is more ahead of us than behind us. The kingdom of God keeps rolling down the tracks. A good future is before us…one of adventure, and challenge, and work, and joy, and fulfillment, and that asks the best of us. I’ll talk a little more about what this future might look like next week.
There is more in store. The stakes are higher than just us. Our work is an eternal work; our mission is one that promises life. It comes not from us, but from the God who created us in the first place. Because God is good; because Jesus keeps revealing himself to us; because Jesus keeps saying “come,” we were born. And for all those reasons, we continue to be alive…not just yesterday, but today and tomorrow, and forever.
It’s good to be fourteen, everybody. The same as always, a good Lord continues to take pleasure in giving us the kingdom. Birthday blessings to each of us. |
