Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Do you know how difficult it is for a kindergartner to appreciate what it means to be 70 years old?

Two by two, holding hands, the 30 five year olds walked down the sidewalk and across the street from Powers Ginsburg Elementary school in central Fresno, CA. It was autumn and I was one of the adult chaperones as we headed for the home of the regionally famous artist, Margaret Hudson. Margaret was widely known and loved in Fresno for her clay earth art – which included animals, St Francis, and the lion lying down with the lamb. Margaret was also beloved for her generosity to the community, for her outgoing and engaging personality and for her deep commitment to the earth, sustainability and living a wholistic life. Because of her fame, Margaret had time for only one school class to come to her home for a highly sought after tour.

This yard included a clay studio and a wonderfully chaotic water color studio, a self made pond, an outdoor amphitheater, vegetable and flower gardens, and piles of compost from around the 2 acre property. However, her pride and joy, there in the front yard, was an evergreen tree that was at least 50 feet tall. With a sparkle in her eye, she told us that her father planted that tree on Christmas Day (you can do that in Fresno) when she was the same age as these little children and that it was now over 70 years old. It was a delightful tree – dominating the whole block. But it was also charming to see her recount the story of her forward looking and forward thinking father. In that tree, she cherished the spirit of earth care, of aging, of forethought and a father’s love for the next generations.

A love for the next generations. For the last couple of years here at ORUCC, we have been talking about this idea for our congregation in a variety of ways – dreaming about present and future ministries, dreaming about strengthening our sense of community, our commitment to outreach, and our work with people of all ages. We have had discussion groups, a visioning process, hard working committees and Explorer teams, and we’ve begun living into those dreams. For the last year, a facility improvement team has been considering how our building and grounds might better serve our ministry and faith witness. This past fall, that team presented some conceptual ideas for remodeling, which has led to the plan for a congregational capital appeal campaign to raise money for these improvements. The theme of this campaign, which is just now getting organized is Seeds For The Next Generation: Honor Our Past, Plant Our Future.

Already, I’m grateful for key leaders who are stepping up to help with this effort. Over the course of the next few months, we’ll all be asked to participate in it in some way.
This seems like a good juncture – as I have done on a couple of other occasions – to offer a brief “state of our faith at ORUCC” sermon. As we begin to undertake one of the most significant campaigns in our history, I’d like to offer a bit of perspective – as one who loves this church, prays for this church, and has served this church for 11 years.
I’d like to explore celebration, anxiety, risk and faith.

I see much to celebrate. Where do we start? As the song in our hymnal goes, “There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place…”
• A VEGETABLE VILLAGE that has sprung up out of the hearts and hard work of so many – giving us deeper connections with the earth, with others who care about the earth, and with each other. This is coupled with an active ‘green team’, a farmer’s market, and even the composting of coffee grounds!

• We have a bustling Education wing on Sunday morning teeming with children and adults in Sunday school, Java and Jesus, Heart and Soul, or drumming and making music with Julie Mazer. This doesn’t include the large number of adults finding a cup of coffee while getting acquainted or using the meditation room . The energy from our 9 a.m. hour spills into this service, but it emanates from down that hall.

• We have an ever evolving and enjoyable music program – with the choir, the handbells and Tru Function experimenting with new music, new musicians and new ways of leading worship.

• We’ve called two new associate pastors in the last three years – each with a passion and a focus for building our ministries, extending our welcome, deepening our connection to and care for one another and to God. Our UCC Wisconsin Conference Minister praised us this week for the wisdom of staffing for growth – something too few churches are willing to do.

• We have mission and outreach work that never stop – building homes here and abroad, housing homeless and supporting disaster relief, advocating and working intergenerationally and ecumenically on so many fronts.

• It’s energizing and its encouraging. Worship attendance is up, finances are strong, leadership is stable and diverse, and our roof hasn’t leaked for over a month! (editor’s note. Two days later the roof leaked in the women’s bathroom)
Like the list of the faithful in Hebrews 11, our list is both long and diverse. Just as each person in that Hebrews roll call experienced and lived faith in a different way; if you asked 10 people here where they see God in our midst, you’d get 10 different answers.
But of course that Hebrews list has an underside – anxiety and uncertainty. So too, here in our midst, I see and feel anxiety.

With good things come challenges and opportunities. As we have accessed the state of our building, its more and more apparent that to keep our momentum going into the next generation, to help nurture the seeds of faith being planted here, to build on these great ministries; we need to raise more money than we ever have before. Eventually, we will be asking for between 800,000 and 1.6 million. Not a lot by NFL standards, but a stretch for a congregation like ours. In the months since we have explored the conceptual designs and talked a bit about the monetary goals, I have sensed that alongside the excitement there is also anxiety.

Anxiety about how large the price tag is, about what I will be asked to do, about offending one another or talking too much about money, about holding a campaign in these economic times, and anxiety that we will seek something bold and fall on our face. I know most of our leaders feel it. I know I feel it. I know many of you who love this church and this congregation feel it at some level.

Well, let’s take a deep breath together. Anxiety is “the response of an organism to a real or imagined threat.” And the #1 item on the list of the Top Ten sources of congregational anxiety is money. In many cases anxiety shows up as uncertainty, doubt, mixed emotions, concern, and bewilderment.

One of the most helpful things to do when we are anxious is to find some way of getting a bit of separation from ourselves. We don’t have a balcony here (and we aren’t proposing one), but if we could sit up in the metaphorical balcony of our lives and look down upon them, we see that almost every important act or decision in our life has been accompanied by anxiety. Starting school, going on our first date, starting a new job, getting married or divorced, having a children and letting a child leave, taking on a physical challenge, encountering a deep and significant personal issue in our prayer life or meditation practice or even with our therapist. While these large transitions may have turned out well, we were often anxious. The more often they don’t turn out well, the more likely we are to be anxious in the future.

However, anxiety is not bad in itself – but an integral part of the human condition. “Since anxiety is a powerful teacher, it is doubtful that anyone would want to live a totally anxiety free life.” (Gilbert)

Honest and good communications are vital in a congregation when there is anxiety. This campaign, more than anything we have done recently, will provide opportunities for that – dozens of volunteers will be asked to make house calls on the whole congregation. It’s our hope that this process will serve to help us know one another even better, and to appreciate the wonderful diversity of this congregation.
At the same time, to live without any anxiety, without any uncertainty is to live a safe, risk averse and often unchallenging life. After 11 years as one of your leaders, I’m more and more convinced that the biggest threat we face – in life and in faith and in the program life of the church – is our experience and expectation of comfort. Thousands of church communities around our country have folded in the last generation because people played it safe – resisted change, hoarded their endowments, got possessive over their buildings and even their way of faith and worship. To be a vital, grounded, and vibrant congregation, we evolve, we change, we confront challenges with wisdom, new ideas, respect for our tradition and a strong belief in the evolution of our faith and practices. If our comfort level is never challenged, neither are our deeply held values. Therefore, I think we are called to take some risks.

If our vision of ministry never involves risk, never involves stepping out in faith, it will increasingly become taken for granted, lukewarm and ultimately dispensable and disposable.

Some of the grace we feel today, in fact, is the result of people in this church taking faith based risks.
• When the congregation split over the untimely leaving of a previous pastor, leaders took the risk of talking openly and honestly in a guided mediation process. Trusting in the Prince of Peace and power community, we forged ahead with new ways of interacting and being church.

• When a beloved high school choir could no longer be held, a group of young teenagers and John Pray and Deborah Dean took the risk of starting a rock band. It was not always easy, and the way was not clear, but a new generation of teenagers has made music in their own way.

• With a declining enrollment and multiple challenges in our Sunday School program, Tammy Martens and a small group of leaders took the risk of moving Sunday School to 9 a.m. We were not sure people would come, and we lost a few families. However, a new vision for youth faith formation has taken hold, community is being built and hearts are being warmed by the embrace of the Holy One in our midst. We have a long way to go, but it was a risky decision that helped us renew these ministries.

Risk shrouded in hope however. Those words of Hebrews remind us that then and now, we walk by faith.

In a time of risk and adventure, we are invited to remember that ultimately, this church is not ours, but belongs to God and that God is our final source of strength.

Living in community and by faith, hard economic times serve not as a barrier but as a spur to be even more generous.

Living in community and by faith, we have a deeper recognition of what matters in our lives – spiritually, financially, and relationally.

In fact, if we have learned nothing in the past 18 months it may be that walking with trust in these uncertain times is actually an ancient way of faith, an ancient act of hope. As Christina Baldwin writes in her poem,

It has always been scary
to step into the circle of firelight,
to show up in the company of strangers,
to ask entrance or to offer it. Our hearts race –
Will we have the courage to see each other?
Will we have the courage to see the world?

The risks we take in the (twenty first) century
are based on risks human beings took
thousands of years ago.
We are not different from our ancestors,
They are still here, coded inside us.
They are, I believe,
Cheering us on.

So great a cloud of witnesses, the bible says. Such wonderful seeds they planted. Just as Margaret Hudson relished the foresight and faith of her father; so we honor our past and our church mothers and fathers. Just as she composted yard waste in respect for the future, we plant seeds of faith and relationship in our young people; relishing the opportunity and challenge to help those seeds grow.

People of God – we celebrate and give thanks
We notice and honor feelings of anxiety
We ponder the possibilities inherent in risking something valuable for our faith.
We walk in trust. When you are called to help, when you are called to participate – I hope you will prayerfully consider all of these realities in order that by your time and energy, with your creativity and commitment – so that with God, with our brothers and sisters, we too can plants seeds for the next generation.  Amen.

Today’s text:

After a short description of ‘faith,” Hebrews 11 recounts the long history of faithful people in the Bible. Chapter 12 then reminds us we are surrounded by this “cloud of witnesses.”
Hebrews 11
1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2This is what the ancients were commended for. 3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not.
Hebrews 12
1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.ade out of what was visible.