Celebrating the
Faithful
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 10/6/2013
God
is good! God is great! As I think about our gathering this morning,
those are the two most promenade phrases in my mind. As I was preparing for this morning’s
worship/celebration I put out a panic call to Caryn Henson, Mary Royston, Red
and Betty Couts, and Carol Braughtigan, as well as a general e-mail for help
that would allow us all to enjoy our 40th birthday of God’s work
through Mountain View United Church.
While Caryn was helping me review a ton of photographs, I shared with
her how once again I was totally amazed at how the scheduled lectionary text
spoke so specifically to this morning’s celebration. This happens all the time, and one would think
that the “awe” factor would just become old hat, yet each week, it is a “Wow”
to me. I contribute this to the reality
that God is still speaking!
I
just want to comment on a few verses this morning, not with deep wisdom that
can be mined from this text, but rather as thoughts about how this text, this
letter to a young minister, is an encouragement for us here at Mountain View,
both as a congregation and on a personal level.
Paul states, “I am grateful to God – whom I worship with a
clear conscience, as my ancestors did – when I remember you constantly in my
prayers night and day. I am reminded of
your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your
mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” Timothy was a student of Paul’s, and was
appointed by Paul to lead the congregation that he had planted. What strikes me in this segment is the
connection Paul makes about “ancestors” and then re-emphasizes it with Timothy’s
experience.
Paul has no shame
in worshiping the God of his ancestors, and Timothy is a third generation
product of faithfulness. The way of
worshiping God for Paul was not in the same manor that he was taught. Paul has taken the faith of his youth and
remolded it to fit the call that he had received from Jesus. I say Jesus, because Paul really never seems
to point to God directly as giving him “the message”, but always refers to
Jesus as the one who gave him his commission.
From the very first encounter Paul had with Jesus on the road to
Damascus, Paul stays true to the understanding that his job was to spread the
word of Jesus. Paul develops a new
vision of Jesus’ ministry as he expands his mission to share this “good news”
to the gentiles, making it no longer just something for the Hebrews.
The text continues,
“For
this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through
the laying on of my hands, for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but
rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-disciple.” One of the ways of rekindling ones spirit is
by remembering and celebration. We do
this each year with holidays such as, Christmas (advent) and Easter (lent), and
through anniversaries (wedding/birthdays/deaths and so on). Celebrations provide the space needed so we
can recall not just our past, but through that past who we are currently, and
sometimes gives us the opportunity to envision what we wish to become in the
future.
Mountain View was conceived
as a vision where people of all faiths could come and worship together. This was accomplished through the
co-operation of three parent denominations, the Presbyterian USA, The United
Methodist, and the United Church of Christ.
This vision was shared by a young UCC pastor, Jim Sherman, who was the
founding pastor of this faith community.
By knocking on doors within our community, Rev Sherman gathered a core
group of people meeting first in homes, then moving to Village East Elementary
School. With donated land located on
Havana by the Methodist, the founders decided to trade it for our current
location. Then on October 3, 1973,
ground was broken and construction started on the building that we currently
worship in. This was only possible
because of a spirit of power, and of love, and of self-discipline.
As a side note,
many a church has started in a home, and then grown into stand alone dwellings,
but very few churches start out in a cozy home atmosphere and then build a
space for worship that retains that inviting living room environment.
Paul states of the
establishment of the church in Ephesus in verse 9: “relying on the power of God, not
according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace.” A Methodist minister by the name of Rev John
Lee, while pasturing a church in Montana had a dream “of a wooden church, a place he wanted to go to, a place he would
belong, a place that’s calling him. It’s
a small place, but the wood is warm and the people are warm. They’ve carved their own cross and carved
their own special mission. The image of
this place is strong.” Five years
later, he was called as our second pastor.
God speaks in many forms, sometimes through people, sometimes through
dreams, sometimes through…, well you fill in the blank.
This is how we
began, through the dreams of people who believed that God see’s us all equal,
that we have unique gifts and that denominations need not compete, but work
together toward a common good. We come
from people who were not afraid to say, “Hey, I belong to this church and I think
you might be able to find a home and new family there.” We come from a people who held to the value that
strength and support can be found in diversity.
Paul closes this
morning’s text with these words, “Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with
the help of the Holy Spirit living in us!” When the handmade cross that hangs on the
South wall was hung on the first Sunday that Mountain View worshiped in their
new home, which was on Easter of 1974, it was flanked by two banners. The one banner I think speaks to the
commission given to us by not just our founding family of faith, but by Jesus
himself, “Then Jesus said, Go out into the world and…” As Paul broke away from traditional ways of
understanding God’s love, so the founders of Mountain View broke away from
traditional concepts of who can worship with whom. Let us with the help of the Holy Spirit
continue to guard the good treasure entrusted to us. The open space on the original banner of “go
into the world and…” is for us to fill in as we continue to live out the call
of God with power, and love, and self-disciple!
Amen
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