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"Living Stones"
August 10, 2008, I Peter 2:4-10, Joel 2:23-29
The Reverend Thomas C. Willadsen
Monday morning I walked to church. It was a beautiful day. I did not expect to have to drive anywhere from church. And gas is 4 bucks a gallon. I love to walk because walking gives me time to think. Really, I find my five minute commute when I drive is too short for me to make productive use of that time. As I crossed Main Street I started singing, "Our women see visions, our men clear their eyes, with bold, new decisions, your people arise." When song lyrics pop into my head like that, I listen to them. I really believe that the Holy Spirit works with my subconscious to help me see things in new ways. This doesn't always work though. A few years ago a member of the church told me that she was waking up in the middle of the night with "alleluias" from an Easter hymn running through her head. She said, "God's trying to tell me something, but I don't know what it is!" That week, I told her, that "Mustang Sally" was going through my head!
The lyrics that came to me on Monday morning are from the hymn that we'll sing to close the service this morning, "Spirit." This is one of the most moving hymns in our book, and it covers a huge span of history. From Creation, to the Exodus, to the birth of Jesus, to the future. It's interesting that the last verse, which begins, "you call from tomorrow," quotes a passage from the book of the prophet Joel, which is this morning's Old Testament lesson. And later, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit blew into the disciples, it was Peter who preached the first sermon in Christian history, and he quoted those same words from Joel. So ancient words are telling us that the future is in God's hands. Ancient words are telling us that the future is unfolding. Do I need to say also that the future is unpredictable? Years ago someone told me, "If you wanna make God laugh, tell Him your plans."
It has been a remarkable eight months in the life of this congregation. On December 3 of last year, our neighbor to the west stopped in to my office and told me that he was planning to build a new facility on the other side of town. The funeral business is changing and they need to keep up. I had no idea. I remember congratulating him and wishing him well in this undertaking. [I'm really sorry about that one.] He wondered if the church would want to buy the land and building. Speaking personally, I said I was very interested, but it's not my decision. The congregation has to make that decision. I remember telling him that Presbyterians don't do anything fast.
I put a task force together to look at the building and grounds. They met several times. We had two special Session meetings in February to discuss the possibility of the purchase. Originally, the only thing we could agree on was that we would not use the building. To upgrade it for commercial use would be extremely expensive-and the church did not want to become a landlord. I remember everyone having an immediate idea about what we could do after the purchase. And no two ideas were the same!
In March the realty sign went up next door. "Tom, why don't you just buy that right now?" someone asked me. "We're Presbyterian!" I replied, "We don't do ‘right now'!"
It was also in March that I started to notice something that is extraordinary. I spend a few afternoons each month visiting shut-ins. These people are passionately interested in their church. They read the newsletter very attentively and cherish news about the church. I often tell them about special music or baptisms or special events we have had recently. Every single person I told about the possibility of buying the land was very, very excited. And, again, they all had ideas about how we could use it. And lots and lots of questions. As I visited them in the months ahead, their first question was always, "Have we bought the land yet?" I found their interest and enthusiasm were contagious.
This church is richly blessed, extraordinarily blessed. I have served here for nine and a half years. And I am still amazed at this congregation's investment fund. It is not only that I impressed by the amount of money in the fund, but also the approach we take to using it. Someone told me once, "If you want to throw a church into chaos, give it a million dollars." I have seen how that can be true. Some churches spend huge gifts for operating expenses. They rely on inheritance income to keep the doors open. Some churches spend their savings to keep from making painful cuts in staffing and programming. Other churches horde their investments. They fear that if they spend their savings that they will be vulnerable. They save and save and save for a rainy day that never comes. I can tell you about one church that closed, not for lack of money but for lack of people and energy. They were the richest dead church you ever saw.
Several years ago this church adopted a policy to manage our investment and to spend them. A formula was put in place that permits the Session to decide annually how to spend a portion from the Investment Fund each year. The policy forbids using this money for operating expenses. We cannot dip into the Investment Fund to pay the electric bill. We can spend it on mission efforts, capital expenses and new programming. Depending on how the market has done the Session gets to spend between 50 and 70,000 every year, much of it on causes beyond our walls. Your Session also knows that we are committed to staying downtown, and our 115 year old building requires maintenance. There are costs involved in staying where we are, and have been for more than a century.
There's another thing about this policy governing the Investment Fund. And it involves the uncertainty of the future. The policy permits the Session to spend a larger portion than the policy sets for an annual allocation. The Session has to vote to exceed that total at consecutive meetings, and a super majority is required, so it is only in extraordinary circumstances that we are permitted to spend a large portion of the fund. When I thought about the possibility of taking this action, I imagined someday we might need to replace our boiler suddenly, and that our insurance would not cover the expense. It felt safe to me, to know that we effectively had money in the bank to respond to the worst disaster I could imagine. I never, ever thought we would take this exceptional action, still I was glad to have a safety net.
Martin Luther said, "Security is the ultimate idol." I believed the church was secure in having the investment fund and using it wisely. I never imagined that we would spend $400,000 at one time. I never imagined that our land-locked little corner in downtown Oshkosh could somehow expand. After all, the funeral home which we now own has been there since 1915, almost as long as we've been here.
Through this whole process here's what I find most amazing: this congregation and this congregation's Session decided unanimously to purchase .93 acre in downtown Oshkosh, without a definite plan for the land's use. We have lots of good ideas, lots of possibilities are before us, but we made a strong, expensive commitment to...something!
Karl Barth said hope comes "in the act of taking the next step." The next step in the history of this congregation is this hopeful, hope-filled step. We have invested here. We are committed here. And we are not only investing in today; we're investing in the church's next generation, and generations to come after that.
There is only one church building described in the Bible. And the description is in our New Testament lesson this morning. The church is built on the living stone of Jesus Christ, and Peter invites Christians, urges Christians to make themselves into a spiritual house of living stones. You know that a church is the people, not the building. But we get lazy when we talk about church and when we imagine going to church we picture this building. But try to get your head around this image of living stones. It's a contradiction. It's impossible. Living stones are like the dead coming back to life. Wait, living stones are exactly like what Christians are supposed to be. Strong, sturdy, the foundation of a building. But also alive, able to move and respond and sing and praise and dance and give thanks.
And here's another surprising thing about this land purchase. It is people who went before us who believed in the work of the church so much, that they left money to this congregation in their wills, trusting that the life and mission of this congregation, the life and mission that nourished and comforted them while they were alive, should go on after they had died, that made it possible for us to take the next step in faith. It is people who have been dead for years, who have made it possible for us today, and those who will come after us in the future to know and praise the Risen Christ.
When we were discussing the investment policy a few years back at Session, someone pointed out that she had no interest in giving to the church if we weren't going to use the money. She believed in the church's mission so deeply that she did not want the church to merely horde our investments. People, she said, need to see that their gifts are being used. The investment, the vitality have to be visible and tangible. "Hide it under a bushel, no! We've got to let it shine." And not just shine for the next generation of Presbyterians. We've got to shine for all the people of our community who need the shelter and nurture of Christian fellowship. We've got to build our life together here on the foundation of Christ, the living stone. And when I get discouraged or weary in the days ahead as we seek a vision for our new identity here I will recall the faces and enthusiasm of our oldest members, our shut-ins who were so excited about purchasing land. What will we use it for? We don't know right now. I'll close by telling you two things I do know. First, next year, the Corn Roast will be next door, and it will not be a fellowship event just for Presbyterians. I'm thinking it'll be more like a block party. Second, I have to tell you, there was one, tiny hitch in the deal. When a task force member took the papers next door to be signed, ready to hand over the earnest money, there was this tiny, almost not worth mentioning hitch. He had to agree...that the church would not ever use the land to offer funeral or cremation services.
He knew we're all about being living stones. He agreed to that without a second thought!