Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Prreached by Winton Boyd on Sunday May 10th

In a new novel by David Rhodes, Driftless, there is a wonderful scene on a farm in the driftless area of southwest Wisconsin. Rusty Smith, a local farmer, has hired an Amish man to help fix up his house before the long anticipated visit of his wife’s mother and sister. Maxine, his wife, is deeply concerned that the old homestead looks spiffy for this once in a rare occasion visit. A variety of incidents come up in the life of the Yoders, the Amish family Rusty hired. What seemed an easy job to finish is now appearing to be not the case. While Eli Yoder kept telling Rusty the job would be done, Rusty remained skeptical and despondent that his wife’s one request wouldn’t be fulfilled. We read, (Driftless, p. 164ff)

“THE DAY BEFORE MAXINE’S MOTHER’S VISIT, ALL THREE Yoders were on the roof laying new shingles and pounding roof nails. Rusty had gone to the lumberyard. Maxine cleaned out kitchen cupboards, replacing the contact paper on the shelves. As she worked she reviewed the meals she had planned. The radio on top of the refrigerator was tuned to a classical music station, and every time she climbed up on the stool to gain access to high cupboards, she looked out the window. ..

On the highway a black buggy pulled by a team of bays turn the corner onto the blacktop and headed toward the Smith house. This was not an unusual sight, and Maxine paid no attention as she wrote “ginger” onto her shopping pad. The next time she climbed onto the stool and glanced outside she saw two more buggies in distance. These also turned onto the blacktop.

When Rusty returned in mid-morning from the lumberyard with the new tongue-and-groove flooring, there were ten buggies, four wagons standing behind twenty horses in his yard. In the wagons were assorted tools, boards, and ladders. A dozen Amish were the roof, hammering shingles. Two other Amish nailed flashing in place around the chimney. Others wielded paintbrushes from ladders at varying heights around the house. Still others handed sacks mortar and boards back and forth through the holes in the foundation as they worked to remove the jacks. Though Rusty did not actually count, more than thirty identically dressed men appeared to be attached to his house…

Inside, Maxine was frantically making coffee and sandwiches, which covered every inch of the kitchen table-lunch meat, egg, tuna fish, leftover meatloaf, and peanut butter.

“Russell, go down to the basement and bring up all the canned pickles you can find,” she barked. “Thank goodness I bought a month’s worth of bread. And look in the freezer for something else to put in the sandwiches. There’s ham somewhere.”

“Since we didn’t invite them, maybe we don’t have to feed them,” said Rusty.

“That’s all the more reason,” said Maxine.

…
It was well after dark before all the work was completed, including the floor in the guest bedroom. Eli himself had overseen the staining and finishing, making sure the new portion of flooring matched the old. Before leaving, the Amish picked up the rest of the trash in the yard and threw it on the burn pile in the field.

Driving the Yoders home, Rusty said to Eli, “Give me a fair figure for those men. Nobody is working for me for nothing.”
“Nobody expected to,” said Eli.
Rusty lit a cigarette and said, “Maxine appreciates it.”
“Yup,” said Eli.
“You people are all right,” said Rusty, “despite your religion.”
Jha,” Eli laughed, “but it’s because of our religion that we’re all alright.”

When Rusty returned home, the yard light illuminated Maxine, pushing the tin wheelbarrow from one horse dropping to another, loading it with a scoop shovel.
”I’ll do that,” said Rusty. “You go on inside. It’s been a long day; and you’ll probably need to be calling your mother and sister about the trip.”

Regardless what one thinks about the doctrines of the Amish faith, one thing most of us respect is that theirs is a “practical faith” rooted in community, hard work, mutual support, and actions that speak much louder than words. If we have ever been the recipient of this kind of spontaneous generosity, or a participant in it, we know such times to be among life’s most precious.

Our text from Nehemiah is an ancient version of a similar dynamic. The Jews were freed to return home to Jerusalem from their Babylonian exile in and around 537 BCE. Over the course of 2-3 generations, groups were led home until finally in 445 BCE, Nehemiah was sent to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. In addition to building the walls (in 52 days), Nehemiah helped to clean up corruption and to repopulate the city with Jews. Nehemiah, their leader, believed in the future of the city, but he knew his words would be empty if hope did not include bricks and mortar. “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us rebuild the wall…so that we may no longer suffer disgrace.”

In one of the original barn raisings, Nehemiah set out to build the city and gave out assignments. The text with all those amazing names listing all those gates that needed rebuilding, reads like a Amish work order. Each gate had a unique purpose and therefore a group was assigned to rebuild each one. The thought of rebuilding the whole city itself might have been overwhelming, but by giving out small assignments, Nehemiah allowed everyone to participate in the rebuilding of their ancient city of faith.

For Nehemiah, courage, strength, and faith involved everyone; and this story has lasted throughout the centuries because it touches on the powerful reality of practical, hands on faith.

This morning a group of middle school students and teachers celebrated the end of Our Whole Lives. More than almost anything else we do, this program generates words of appreciation and thanks from students and parents. They appreciate the openness and nuts and bolts nature of the program. To be an Open and Affirming congregation, to be a progressive community of faith, does not mean we give up talking about real life issues with our kids. Through information, relationships, and respect, we embody relevance and reality, demonstrating that the church cares about the whole life of a young person in practical ways.

Even before it has started, our willingness to host a neighborhood Farmer’s Market this summer is generating a buzz on email listservs. Neighbors that many of us through school and the pool and other activities are seeing once again that we express our faith in corporate ways that will benefit others – farmers, neighbors of all income levels, community activists. Faith, they see, is not a Sunday morning exercise – but a living, engaged, daily reality. Neighbors who are members of other churches, as well as those who are practicing Buddhists are giving thanks for this community of faith. They see us as a hands on, practical, congregation – concerned more about building community and relationships in this neighborhood than trying to get everyone to believe as we do; or conversely pretending that we are better and more righteous than others who have different world views than ours.

The thing about Nehemiah, and the Amish – there isn’t just talk about welcome, talk about community – hands get dirty creating it. The reason we read the story of Nehemiah again is they remind us that renewal, hope, justice, courage, joy – all of these come not because someone wishes for them, but because a group of people say “let’s make it happen.”
One of the realities of Rusty Smith in that novel is he had a negative personal stereotype about Amish before he hired them. They were strange, he couldn’t trust them, he didn’t understand their primitive ways. His personal “baggage” about the Amish – something more in his mind than that which he had actually experienced – limited his ability to trust Eli Yoder, and likewise it limited his ability to see the power of this whole community and the good it was able to do.

Rusty is not alone. Last week I had a conversation with someone whose church as a child severely discouraged questions, doubts, or challenges to orthodox teaching. As an adult, she has long lived with doubt and uncertainty about theology, which she is often afraid to bring here to ORUCC, even though we tell her in no uncertain terms that doubt is welcomed. It’s part of her “baggage.”

She is not alone in carrying religious baggage. Most of us have it. Some of us are reforming or recovering Catholics, or Lutherans. Some of us have struggled with the hypocrisy of other churches and can’t open ourselves to trust another church. Some of us had overbearing religious parents, and some of us had no guidance at all. Some of us felt let down by God. Some of us can’t let go of the church of our past – our youth or our hometown – and judge all other churches by unrealistic standards.

Just a week ago, we had a garage sale, held jointly with the elementary school. By definition, we invited members and families from ORE to unload their unwanted, no longer needed, stuff. Bring it here, we’ll take it off your hands. The funny thing about being a church pastor is that weekly you get requests or inquiries from people asking if we can use their “stuff” (this week included three ring binders someone didn’t want to throw away and a piano/weber grill/firepit). Because our storage is limited, we have to be discerning about what we accept – but it is common for us to think that we can unload things at church. It is a way to clean out our own spaces while possibly helping others at the same time.
This morning, I think a companion question is can the church, can worship, be a place to unload all the internal stuff that limits and hinders our engagement in faith? Could this table serve as an altar where we bring not the stuff cluttering our basements, but the burdens weighing down our lives? Could this be a morning we prayerfully ask God to help us let go of those attitudes, experiences, and situations that limit our ability to engage faith in practical, concrete ways?

What is it that holds you back, and are you willing, able or desirous of a chance to unload, to let go, to give back to God (Whoever that is) this limitation in order that you might fully engage in living a faith of hope and welcome and possibility?

In your bulletin is a simple sheet of scratch paper. I invite you to write on that sheet one or two things that get in your way when it comes to living an engaged, practical faith. One or two things that consume your time in ways you don’t think necessary; one or two attitudes that limit your ability to engage with others; one or two pieces of emotional or spiritual baggage.

Rusty Smith could write – “The stereotype that the Amish are strange and therefore I won’t work with them.
My friend could write – “The attitude that doubt doesn’t belong in church”
Others might write “my need to be in control” “my insistence on not letting others see me as uncertain, or in need.” Still others might write, “my anger at the religious upbringing of my youth.”

What is it you want to write? What would you like to unload. Don’t sign it. Offer it to God by bringing it up to the table and placing it in the basket.

Before Nehemiah set out from exile with other refugees to return to Jerusalem, they surely had to decide what they most needed to take with them – for both the journey and the rebuilding project. Most certainly they had to leave some belongings behind, sell some at market, give some to family and friends – so that they had that which was most essential and helpful and useful for the amazing task of rebuilding the City of Zion, the City of God, into a city of Hope once again.

May we too see the possibility for great freedom and hope as we let go of that which weighs us down.