C-19 Reflection #39: Deep History

C-19 Reflection (#39)

Theme: Deep History

Scripture: Psalm 136

Reflection:

Today’s reflection is a bit of a departure from the previous ones because it is longer and because it wasn’t written in real time. Wanting to reflect on Psalm 136, I remembered this piece that I had written for a small group of friends 10 years ago. I thought maybe since we are moving into a long weekend that something longer might be okay. Also, the setting of the piece has a slight Victorian feel. Overall, I hope that you will find some good connection with the word of God in Psalm 136. 

The Deep History of Cavan Presbyterian Church (2010)

There was nothing much to anticipate about preaching yesterday at the 135th Anniversary Service of Cavan Presbyterian Church, located in the small town of Bolton, Ontario. I received the invitation to speak several weeks earlier from a pastor I had never heard of, who, in his original email invitation, explained that I had been highly recommended to him for this occasion by a mutual friend, who, as it turns out, I have heard of, but actually never met. The inviting pastor and I would chuckle about this later, he nervously, when I decided to let it slip just as the service was about to begin. 

While these kinds of things make life interesting, I didn't expect to write about this predictably uninteresting occasion until after it actually happened. In fact, as the day approached and as the weekend's rainy weather set in, I began to not so secretly regret accepting the opportunity in the first place. For this confession, I received a clear correction from my wife. "You are forgetting that you have been invited to Bolton because the Lord has something for those people to hear on their anniversary and you are the one he is sending to bring that word to them." The alternative reading goes, "Suck it up big boy and do your job." It is hard to toy with shirking your responsibility in the face of such tough theological love.

Driving to Bolton was dark and dreary. Throughout the gloomy hour, I tried every conceivable tactic to lift my flagging spirit - choral music , radio, silence, McDonald's drive thru. Nothing really worked and it didn't help that the application piece of my presentation consisted solely of the completely true and forgettable line, "On the occasion of your 135th anniversary, it is important to realize that God is still working." My internal excuse for this formal blandness was that I had no clue who these people were. The long list of historical developments and previous ministers on their website history failed to inspire me. As I drove, the fog was thick outside and inside and I was feeling resentful. Some days you would rather just stay in bed.

The scripture that came to me in preparation for Cavan's important worship was Psalm 136 and my sermon title was "Deep History." The connections seemed very solid, if lacking a convincing contemporary touch point. My approach was to remind the community that anniversaries can be difficult because we are constantly striving to make them relevant, yet often without much success; I being the perfect embodiment. A better approach, I wanted to suggest to them, was the opportunity to see their small, seemingly insignificant story in the light of the deeply layered story of God's faithful, never ending love, through the saga of creation and through Israel's salvation history. Finally, in an unexpected way right near the end, Psalm 136 turns dramatically to the present tense layer of reality when it simply claims that God gives bread to people. This is the reality that I really wanted to stress with the people of Cavan I told myself as I drove through 50 kilometers of urban sprawl before escaping down the steep hill into the idyllic 19th century like hamlet, but all I really had was a sermon without a message. My resume did say that I had previously taught theology in a college and so part of my worry was that my biblically correct presentation would only reinforce stereotypes about the impractical theology of the classroom on the very day my wife was insisting that this tiny community needed revelation. With all my heart, I didn't want this to happen, but a part of me began to believe that maybe Karen wasn't right after all. Why do I take these obscure invitations when the honorariums barely cover the travel, a tired, cynical voice within me queried as I turned left onto King St, the rain continuing to pour down.

Wait a minute! King Street? I've been here before. On a sunny day. I drove through here to play golf just a few years ago. I know exactly where this church is. Could have found it on my own. Without the pastor's directions. But I would have come another way. I would have travelled from the east. Through other little hamlets like Temperenceville, King City, Nobleton. 50 kilometers along the King Side Road right onto King St., Bolton. I would have driven right past the original location of my home church. The old building and the small community where I spent 22 of the first 26 years of my worshipping life. The people of my initial faith and early calling. 

I continued on past Cavan's tiny historic building because I was a bit early, and as I noticed the red brick and imagined the simple sanctuary and modest gathering, my memory began to take me even deeper into my own past. Turning onto a side street in order to finish my cold coffee and sort myself out, the sermon began heating up just a little and the fog began to clear. But there was still work to be done, and so with the last gulp, I steered into the little parking lot hoping no one would notice, and still sitting in the car, began to fill out my brief notes. At this point, I should admit that my small, rural church heritage had not escaped me completely as I anticipated being at Cavan. But until I turned into that parking lot, met the host pastor in his small study for prayer, walked onto the platform and took my seat among the 60 or so congregants in the second row side pew, the connection between me and them had not been clear. Even then, the cultural insignificance of this artifact was palpable. 

What I began to realize slowly as we stood to sing the opening hymn, "O God Our Help in Ages Past" is that my past was their present, right down to the design of the tiny sanctuary, the dark wooden pews, the simple, uninspiring pulpit and the deep reddy, maroon carpet. Formal dress. No new Canadian faces. Faith of my fathers. While being so far away from my mostly urbanesque experience over many years, things from this far away country began to become more and more familiar.

The manna from Psalm 136 really dropped for me moments into the service when an elder stood up to read the announcements off the sheet, word for word, including the one about the food drive for hungry people in downtown Toronto. This was a small, outdated church with 135 years of history and God was working through them to feed others, here and now. Give thanks to the Lord, his faithful love keeps on going. I reached over and I put down a few more memories. 

 My sermon began nervously, as if I was still unconvinced that even the lessons and insights of the past half hour, scribbled hastily in car and pew, were enough to make their pastor's invitation worthwhile. But it also started happily because the spilled McDonald's on my white button down was covered by my tie when I stood up in this intimately enclosed setting. Also, the worship had helped me overcome my disappointment at watching the host pastor drink down my glass of water as he conducted the early part of the liturgy.

I started the sermon with three things. First, I told them how I had been invited and how I had not really felt like driving to be with them on such a miserable morning but that Karen told me I had to come. They laughed out loud as if they were old friends who were familiar with my cheekiness. Then I told them that I had been raised in a small town worshipping community exactly like theirs in so many ways, including a very similar little building located on the very same road. There were several loud murmurs and nods as if to signal to me that they were beginning to come to an implicit agreement among themselves that their guest have something to say to them on their anniversary after all. With their audible, visual support, my confidence began to swell in the stout space, allowing me to leave petty apprehensions behind. Presbyterians, by my recent experience, are usually careful but undemonstrative listeners and so this pleasant surprise was exactly what I needed.

I moved further into the message by telling the story about a somewhat disastrous anniversary service I had led many years before when an eccentric elderly Baptist gentleman whose secret desire to be a Scottish Presbyterian was often betrayed by his "special days" outfit, which included a tartan kilt, high socks, a tam and a dead squirrel and dagger leashed to his belt, which never ceased to frighten the children of the congregation and horrify their mothers, took so long to review the detailed history of the church that we had to interrupt halfway and ask him to finish up the following Sunday. 

From there, I introduced them to their true heritage narrated so powerfully by Psalm 136. I made the theological connections and the liturgical shaping of the Psalm obvious for them, even as I challenged them with how this could speak with truth to them on their anniversary. I reminded them that for Israel and the church, to forget is like committing spiritual suicide. Justifiably, in light of Psalm 136, I encouraged them to continue to learn the story of God by rehearsing salvation history in their weekly communal worship. I reminded them that gratefulness comes from remembering the never ending faithful love of God who has given them a deep creation - salvation history in which to place, understand and appreciate their modest 135 year ongoing history. I said things like, real history points us to the past so that we will recognize things in the present. I told them about Tim Larsen's historical project to show that the rumours of God's demise in the 19th century are greatly exaggerated and I encouraged them to overcome those rumours today amidst all the crisis of social and ecclesial change by looking for signs of God's presence and provision, even in their own little church. At this point, it felt like I was doing something very important in asking them to look and see God working in their lives now and by encouraging them not to be discouraged by their smallness.

Psalm 136 makes its most dramatic shift when the worshippers are given the words of verse 25. Suddenly, along with the original singers, we too realize that we are part of God's gracious history making, right here, right now, not history as abstraction. Proclaiming the faithful love of God to this little church made my faith soar for them, as I told them how our little church on the King Road had nurtured my early, adolescent and young adult faith in Jesus; how an elderly woman in that community had prophesied over me and my parents that I would become a pastor, at a time when I was a little boy who didn't even know what a pastor was because we didn't have a pastor (unbeknownst to me the secretary had put Joel 2 as the secondary reading for the service); how after many years of struggling to survive, God moved powerfully all of a sudden in a relatively short period of time to draw many people in the community to saving faith and to bring many others back home. I pleaded with them not to lose to faith but to celebrate their anniversary by seeing that there are many things, like the food drive, giving current credibility to the deep history of God's active love in their midst.

At the end of the "my church like your church" litany, I stepped away from the little pulpit and continued sharing about how deeply my family had been touched by the capacity of our little community to teach us how to be the church through caring for us so personally and practically during a particularly desperate time in our family history. Now I was gulping back my tears, trapped so shamelessly in front of strangers as friends, who I hadn't really wanted to be with earlier that morning. There I stood bearing my soul in way I couldn't have imagined just an hour before when driving through the rain, not so much because of the memory of my father's passing or because of the warm sentiment I felt in such a latently familiar context, but because as I spoke to them the word of God through the Psalm and through Karen, that became so real to me in a way that allowed me to re-imagine what I so often forget, that our story is deep history and that the history maker goes to great and sometimes obscure efforts to ensure that none of us forgets that his love keeps on going. Like you and like Presbyterians, I need the repeating confirmation of Psalm 136.

I finished the message with the image of the history of the back porches at our family home, four different porches in all, including the small original one, the one we called the Alamo with the slats through which we could shoot our enemies and the one built unexpectedly by my father's friend while my sister and me were on a two week camping trip with my mom. John Clarke, father of six, had taken vacation to construct this gift. I described a black and white photo of me standing with my lion on the foundation of the unfinished second porch, taken anciently and well beyond the reaches of my recall. Off to the side, my dad, whose hands I no longer remember was hammering in a nail.

Following the message I lead in a prayer: " Lord of creation, history and daily bread, help us to become good historians of your love, for the sake of the world that has no memory but its own. Please help the people of Cavan Presbyterian Church to recognize that you are working in their history today and that you will be working in the days and years ahead." The order of service called for Great is thy Faithfulness. Along with the joyful community I sang my praise out loud because of how my history and their history had been made clear. After the service, the congregation burst into clapping and many people came forward to thank me for coming. One lady came up and grabbing hold of her pastor around the neck, tearfully told me how he had encouraged their little church to rally around her family in a time of recent crisis. She didn't go into any detail and she didn't need to because the word of God was being released. Another priceless response was the guy with a very thick Scottish accent, who grabbed my hand and quipped, " I loved the story about the guy with the kilt. I don't even have a dead squirrel in my gear. That was class."

Following a great meal, I drove home by way of the King Road right through and past the church run by the guy I have never met, who had recommended me to the Cavan Church and right through King City and past my old home church. It has been a long time. Journeying through my own salvation history in 2010, I felt happy for the Presbyterians in Bolton who were heading into their 136th year of deep history with a word from Psalm 136. I felt happy that I had received a word about my own deep history.

Karen failed to join me on this occasion because she wanted to stay in bed. She had fulfilled her ministry on a rainy day.