Sunday, March 5, 2023
Community Church of Durham
1.
Every spiritual journey—yours, mine, Abram’s, Sarai’s—every spiritual journey begins with a summons and a promise. “Go from your country. Go from your kindred. Go from your father’s house too. Go, go, go! And I will bless you.” This Genesis text is paradigmatic not only for Abram and Sarai, not only for the Ancient Israel and the early church—but for every community that opens its heart to the fresh winds of the Spirit, to the voice of the divine in our midst. Every journey begins with a summons and promise. “Go, and I will bless you.”
The promise, however, is not a particular destination, nor is it some kind of vindication or victory. The promise is simply and rather mysteriously blessing itself—shalom, abundance, mercy—and not just for us, but for all creation. “In you,” says God to Abram and Sarai. “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The known and the unknown. The friend and the foe. The spiritual journey isn’t the singular journey of a Hollywood hero, but the shared journey of a family, a community, maybe a church like ours. “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Abram and Sarai. A summons and a promise.
The text doesn’t get into specifics, does it? The nuances of psychology. The tossing and turning of Abram’s sleepless nights. But let’s be honest, it takes some chutzpah to leave. It takes some chutzpah to leave your country, and your kindred, and your father’s house too. We’ve got friends in the room today who’ve done this quite literally, quite recently. It takes chutzpah to trust sacred sounds that others can’t hear. It takes chutzpah to believe in futures others can’t see. So, you know, maybe that’s the word we want to consider this morning, the spiritual juice we want to drink to the dregs. Chutzpah. It takes some gumption, it takes some daring, it requires a heavy dose of chutzpah to go when God says go.
2.
In a certain way, these six weeks of Lent…beginning with Ash Wednesday and arriving at the cross on Good Friday…in a certain way, these six weeks represent that same spiritual journey. Recast in the language and symbols of the Gospel.
Arise, my soul, arise,
Shake off thy guilty fears:
The bleeding Sacrifice in my behalf appears:
Before the Throne, my surety stands.
My name is written on his hands.
Arise, my soul, arise!
(Charles Wesley)
So we leave the familiar behind. We set us aside certainties and fixed understandings. We fix our eyes instead on Jesus himself and his patterns of humility and service and devotion. Not because we know precisely where he’s going, but because we trust his heart and we recognize his voice and we have come to love this little band of followers and friends who trace his steps.
The Lenten journey is hardly confirmation of our own faith or brilliance: it is instead a summons and a promise. Those who risk not knowing will discover deep and holy mysteries. Those who release their grip on power and privilege will welcome the sweetest gifts of all. God’s mercy, God’s love! So take up your cross, Jesus says this Lent and every Lent, to you and me, and to us. “Arise, my soul, arise / Shake off thy guilty fears.” The God we meet in Jesus has no need of fear or shame. The God we meet in Jesus desires only partnership and peace. “Go, go, go!”
At the heart of our meeting this morning, my friends, shaping the purpose of our discussion and discernment, is this ancient summons, which is an ancient promise that God makes to Abram, to Sarai and to their beleaguered family. Which is also the very contemporary promise God makes to us. This Community Church, our Community Church of Durham! This little band of followers and friends! “Arise, my soul, arise…shake off thy guilty fears!” We are called together not to wallow in our powerlessness, not to slog through our regrets—but to rise together and to shake off our guilty fears. This is what it is to take up the cross: to love one another, to love God with all our minds and hearts, to follow Jesus wherever he goes. Even when we have no idea!
This God, our God points beyond the horizons of what we see and know, beyond the geography of all we take for granted, and says: “Go from your country. Go from your kindred. Go from your father’s house too. And I will bless you.” And we will depend on one another. Going. And we will feed one another. Going. And we will serve one another. Going. And we will shelter one another when the storms blow cold. And we will suffer in faith together. And we will rise and sing and dance in faith together. Going. Going. Going. And all the families of the earth, all the fields and families of the earth, all the communities and nations and creatures of the earth will be blessed!
That’s why we go.
3.
Strange thing, though. We’re meeting this morning—prayerfully, bravely, together—to consider a capital campaign that would raise over a million dollars so that we might stay. Not go, not wander free, but stay. We’re looking at a package of improvements, a carefully crafted program of renewal and support that would equip us not for a journey into the unknown, but for ministry and mission and life together here. Right here. On Main Street. In Durham. In this place we love.
Surely, you can appreciate the preacher's paradox. Celebrating Abram’s adventuresome spirit, God’s call to the unknown, even as we dig deep and intensify our commitment to this very place, to this particular terrain, to a campus we cherish and love. In part, because it’s familiar. In part, because we treasure its traditions. We don’t want to go.
So there’s a strange and significant challenge for us today, posed in this ancient text, made fresh and new by the Spirit in our midst. And this, by the way, is the genius of the biblical tradition. It both orients and disorients the church. If we’re honest. And discernment is so urgent among us. Prayerful, brave, relational discernment. So there’s this challenge for us today—as we consider a 1 million dollar campaign to repair, sustain and perpetuate this stable, sacred, singular place. A place from which we hope never, ever, ever to leave.
And the challenge is this: How can we stay and solidify our sense of place and sustainability here, by the Oyster River, upstream from the Great Bay, and yet be available to new initiatives in a beloved community of faith and spirit? How can we commit to the revitalization of this campus, and yet embrace the radically disruptive Gospel of Jesus the Christ? And how can we celebrate this very specific and precious place, and yet boldly follow the One who says: Leave it all behind / Let it all go / Take up your cross and follow me? You see what I mean? God, in her wisdom, both orients and disorients the church!
Thankfully, we don’t do any of it in isolation. That’s not our way. We do it collaboratively. We make sense of the challenge together. We respond to the call in community.
So, at this point, I want to celebrate the leaders who have guided this process and done so much of the work that brings us to this morning’s meeting and the vote downstairs. We are blessed with extraordinary, generous and devoted partners in imagining the future and discerning our priorities. I’m talking about a Core Team of Doug Bencks, Gretchen Smith, Lisa Taylor and John Moore, and an extended team of friends who’ve carefully and bravely considered the possibilities, the opportunities and the contradictions of Christian witness in our time. Indeed, this team welcomed the contradictions inherent in congregational life, embraced them, and dared us to dream of renewal, impact and transformation. Yes, they insist this morning. We are committed to this place, to this campus, to this unique community of needs and opportunities. And yes, they insist. We will meet new challenges with grace and courage. We will offer the weary world love and refreshment. We will offer everything we are and everything we have to inspire and heal and bless our neighbors and friends.
With this team, and because of them, I’ve come to see that our mission is collaborative and compelling. For example. We are called by God to build, nurture and broaden this Open & Affirming community—a church where every life is honored, where every gift is blessed, where every voice is cherished and heard. For example. We are called by God to create a Sanctuary here—a Sanctuary Church—where vulnerable friends find protection, and refugees find friends, and teens find mentors and teachers and space to grow. For example. We are called by God to marshal our resources and energies to offer hope and courage to the whole Seacoast community. This is who we are. This is how we roll. And we are called by God to rejoice in the wonder of it all, to delight together in friendship and partnership. We are called by God to sing together and dance together and feast together in thanksgiving and gladness.
But all of that, that robust mission, that compelling mission, requires a commitment to ministries that challenge and transform and inspire believers of all ages. The Open & Affirming Church. The Sanctuary Church. The Rejoicing, Delighting, Singing and Dancing Church. All of it requires a commitment to ministries that inspire and transform believers of all ages—so that those same believers can transform the world with God’s love and mercy. In a world of bewildering complexity and unnerving possibilities, only a transformed and transforming people can meet brokenness with love, and despair with hope, and fundamentalism with faith. We see this even now in the church, among us. With the lively ministry and energetic grace of not one, but two, immigrant solidarity teams. With the development this winter of not one, but two jail ministry initiatives. With the emergence of two lively, spirited, innovative Sunday services—each of which is touching spirits and inspiring activism in the wider community. And with the delightful evolution of a vibrant community of families and children, all of whom are growing in faith and devotion to one another. It is through transformed lives that the church transforms the world.
The question we face, then, in this precious place, this privileged place, is this. In what kinds of spaces will we continue to transform and touch and inspire the lives of our members and friends? Does this make sense? In what kinds of spaces will we continue to transform and touch and inspire the lives of our youngest friends, our UNH friends, the seekers around the Seacoast who haven’t found us yet? This core question has led us to others. What kinds of technologies will facilitate such programming? What kinds of technologies will our youngest friends look for and depend on as they come to us with their 21st century questions and their 21st century hopes and habits? What kinds of technologies will allow us to cast a vision of a global movement for peace, a global conversation around healing and respect and justice for all?
We’re talking about a campus that warmly welcomes seekers of all ages and inspires them to make new connections and seize new initiatives and ask big questions. We’re talking about ministries that inspire and transform.
How will we welcome the curious and the brave into the widening circle of this Open & Affirming congregation? All of them, the young and the old, the religiously affiliated and others dipping just a toe in the water? Our mission isn’t just out there: it’s right here in this room. As we continue to build an Open & Affirming congregation…as we welcome friends whose brilliance makes them a threat in other settings, as we celebrate all kinds of families with all kinds of gifts and all kinds of visions and all kinds of joy in their hearts. How will we communicate to all of them our deepest respect and delight in their unique perspectives and passions, their contemporary and artistic sensibilities? The church itself—this very church, this Durham church—is the heart of our mission, the beating heart of God’s passion for a world healed and blessed. To offer that world an Open & Affirming vision is perhaps the most faithful thing, the most Christ-like thing, the most generous thing we can do.
And how do we prepare ourselves for all that? How do we program for transformation? Because, as I said, and of this I’m more and more certain: It is through transformed lives that the church transforms the world. The question is: What will we do, what can we do to make sure this campus is that kind of place? Where vision takes root? Where lives are impacted? Where teams and ministries evolve? Where the church dreams of a world transformed?
4.
I am truly excited about our future in Durham, about our ministry together here. And what’s even better is that I can feel—each Sunday and each time we gather—your excitement too. What excites me most is your appetite for witness and service, innovation and spiritual growth. Every week you welcome new friends into this circle. Every week you extend your hearts and come up with some new idea for blessing the world. This is painfully difficult season in the life of many of our mainline congregations; but God has plans for us. God is showering us with blessing and creativity. Not because of our genius, not because of our resume—but because God needs us. Because God really, really needs us.
Like Abram and Sarai, you sense—deeply and bravely—that God is still speaking. God’s message is finding new expression and awakening within us new hope. Like Abram and Sarai, you recognize that God’s summons challenges the church to leave behind our many privileges and settled habits and to set out for new landscapes that invite creativity and curiosity and inspire blessing for all the families of the earth.
And all of this, all of this is in no way a repudiation of the past and the thoughtful, courageous service of our members through other seasons of profound uncertainty and moral crisis. Just the opposite. In fact, all of this is to say that the Community Church of Durham has so often stepped up to the challenge of the Gospel. The Community Church of Durham has so often stepped up to the needs of the moment, to the aspirations of a changing community.
And because you’ve done that so faithfully, because you’ve offered yourselves in service so freely, because you’ve cultivated such chutzpah for ministries of grace and blessing—I have no doubt that you will again rise to the challenge. You will imagine faithful ways of building beloved community. You will continue to transform lives and in the process of doing that, to transform the world. You will not hang back. You will not tarry. You will go when God says go.
Amen and Ashe.
