Remember Who You Are, First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY Oct 3,2010

Remember Who You Are!
By Rev. Steven R. Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 10/03/2010
Based on 2 Timothy 1:1-14 Psalm 137


“I am grateful to God – whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did…” What a powerful statement the Apostle Paul is making to us in this morning’s letter to Timothy! This morning’s lectionary readings are focused on remembering. In the Psalms, we read a lament of those who are finding themselves in captivity, amongst the tormenting of their captives, of remembering what life was like back in Jerusalem, not only home to the Israelites, but the spiritual center where their religious practices could be conducted without restrictions or interference of those who were none believers.
The United States is relatively a very young country and if we think in terms of the traditional first landing of Europeans at Plymouth Rock, European’s have been in the North America’s for just under four hundred years. Some of us can trace our heritage back to those earliest of immigrants, like my children can on their mother’s side of the family tree. I however can only go back to 1767, when my family’s patriarch came over from Germany as an indentured servant. That is on my mother’s father’s side of the family. On my mother’s, mother’s side of the family, we can trace their entering the United States in the early 1850’s coming from a small village in Southern England.
There is less known about my grandmothers people than that of my grandfather’s. For all of the information of my grandmother’s family history is oral and with each passing generation knowledge of this history shrinks. This is not the case on my grandfather’s side, as we have a very detailed record of the family tree. I have some very intriguing diaries from some of my ancestors who help in the settling of the Iowa frontier, specifically around Pella, Iowa.
I know from these records that I come from people who were willing to take chances to change their circumstances in life. I know that I come from people who didn’t believe in war. My ancestors are known as Frontier people. Meaning, when a new territory was opened for settlement, they would pick up and move into these new areas. I know that some of my ancestors were good friends and hunting buddies with Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, and if you know anything about the Earp family, it tells me that these ancestors of mine were probably a pretty rowdy bunch of guys. I also know that my ancestors were very interested in higher education as they helped set up a college in the Iowa territory. I come from a long line of artisans. There were members of my family involved in the Great Oklahoma Land grab. I come from people who were not afraid to push boundaries. As an example, my grandfather during Prohibition was a runner for bootleggers, as a way of providing a living for his family during the depression and as an activity protests against a law his saw as unreasonable.
What does all this personal family history, as well as the film clips on “Why I love My Church” have to do with 2 Timothy and Psalm 137? The sharing of some of my family history is an example of knowing who I am. It is a part of what helps give me balance in my life. A part of this balance is due to knowing my roots, of knowing the type of people I come from. Paul was giving encouragement to Timothy by helping him remember who he was and where he came from. Through the film clips, we gain a sense of history of who we are as a denomination. Paul found solace during those times that he found life totally unbearable, and the ability to look forward with hope, in part, because of his sense of his history. He was telling Timothy, “to remember what he had received from his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois”, as a way to continue his walk forward, a faith in Christ, which would help guide his life and ability to share God’s love with others, and be able to strengthen the local church.
I’m about to make a broad statement, but one that has a basic truth to it: When an individual has a good understanding of their “history”, they tend to be, as an individual, more comfortable with themselves, possessing a more confident attitude, giving them the ability to move forward in life’s challenges with a sense of purpose.
A church operates collectively very much like an individual. In order for it to move forward with vision and mission, it first has to hold a strong sense of its past. The United Church of Christ as a denomination is actually young as denominations go, being born in 1957, yet we are the grandchildren of four denominations with very rich and diverse history. We come from German Reformed traditions, as well as one being a uniquely American denomination, and also, as the oldest religious tradition in this country, stemming back to the Puritans who were looking for a land where religious freedom could be practice, which developed into Congregationalist’s. Of course, freedom to practice your religious beliefs meant being a part of the congregational roles, as there was no toleration for other faiths in those very early years.
Paul tells Timothy, “…to rekindle the gift of God that is within you…for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” There was a study done many years ago that studied the active faith of Christian families. What this study found is that the first generation Christian tends to be very strong in both faith and activity in their church involvement; the second generation from that family still has a viable, personal faith, but not as strong as their first generation family; by the third generation, there is generally little personal faith and if there is any church attendance it tends to come from a sense of history rather than that of personal faith experience as did the first generation; if the fourth generation continues to go to church, it only survives because of a renewed personal experience.
A congregation goes through a similar cycle in its faith life. The original group of believers that start a church have a sense of purpose and conviction to achieve its mission; the second generation tends to possess less of this sense of purpose and conviction but is able to maintain a reasonable level of congregational health; by the third generation, the sense of purpose no longer is driven by personal faith but rather by history of the church and membership begins to dwindle dramatically; by the fourth generation the church finds itself struggling for life and ultimately will be closing its doors due to lack of vitality and interest or it will find as St Paul puts it, “a re-kindled” spirit, thereby gaining a new vision of purpose.
The ability of a church to “re-kindle” its faith, in part is to understand its history and understand our history through documents, with the basic document being scripture. It is through the reading of scripture, through the contemplation of what scripture says, that we as Christians find renewal. We as a church need to take to heart what the Apostle Paul is saying to Timothy – to rekindle the gift of God that is within us! It is my assessment that currently we as a body of faith are in the fourth generation, metaphorically speaking. I do not sense as a congregation, there is a clear purpose of what the ministry is for this church. I see in the low percentage of member activity, in the lack of programming in missions, and in the disparity of younger members. You can rationalize all day long as to why this doesn’t happen or why that stopped, but the real reason boils down to the degree of our personal spiritual health and lack of vision and hunger for the ministry of Christ.
We come to Christ’s table this morning, not alone, but as part of a long history of Christians before us. There is the history of almost a hundred and twenty-five years of this congregation, there is the history of those that we call the UCC and of its grandparents, there is the history of those that believed in Jesus in the first century. Today we celebrate World Communion Sunday as a way of acknowledging our unity in Christ throughout the world.
World Communion Sunday (originally called World Wide Communion Sunday) originated in the Presbyterian Church (USA). In 1936, for the first time, the first Sunday in October was celebrated in Presbyterian churches in the United States and overseas. From the beginning, it was planned so that other denominations could make use of it and, after a few years, the idea spread beyond the Presbyterian Church.
The Department of Evangelism of the Federal Council of Churches (a predecessor body of the National Council of Churches) was first associated with World Wide Communion Sunday in 1940 when the department’s executive secretary, Jesse Bader, led in its extension to a number of churches throughout the world. Wikipedia
Let us come to Christ’s table with a hunger to re-kindle the spirit of Christ. A spirit of that gives us courage to face daily trials, of power to over come adversity, of love that helps us reach out to others unselfishly, and of self-discipline to move into the future God has waiting for us! Amen