|
Dedication
Service Prayer for Illumination: Make your presence known, O God, we pray this day. In the midst of our celebration, let your words speak to us guiding us toward tomorrow. Amen.
It has been about 3 weeks since the final piece of scaffolding was
finished and the yard was put back together.
Since that time, I have been spending a fair amount of time
speculating and wondering how it must have felt in 1888 to have come into
this building for the first time. I
know the neighborhood was different then and that the church would have
stood out. No other buildings
would have been big enough to cast a shadow on it and the view from the
front porch might have, indeed reached to the lake.
The first pastor and elders and deacons had to have been excited.
Take a look around Chicago and her neighborhoods.
Go on the historical tours. Get
out the coffee table books. No other historic neighborhood or historic
church I’ve seen in Chicago looks quite like ours.
A fine house it is. Distinctive.
Unique. One of a kind.
And what about our John Wellborn Root.
Did he know someone here? Why
would he have agreed, with all the work he had to do, why would he have
agreed to work on a little church that was so far away from Chicago at the
time to not even be considered a part of it?
What could he have hoped to gain by designing this little church, a
church that had no money or famous elders or connections with the mayor or
was even located in a strategic place to showcase his work? He
didn’t know then that it would one day be down the street from Wrigley
Field or smack dab in the high rent district of Chicago.
He didn’t know…. We’ve
heard stories that Root played the organ once for the First Presbyterian
Church, located in today’s Woodlawn community.
Could he have been religious? Hmmm…..we
don’t know. We just know that
he drew the plans for this distinctive little building ….The members who
had chartered in 1884 and waited 4 long years to have a church home must
have been ecstatic to see their building plans come to fruition.
A fine house.
It is common knowledge that a building can be no better than it’s
foundation. And while some people might say that the foundation is the least
distinctive piece of our building, it is the one piece that required almost
no work. Tuckpointing was done
on the limestone several years ago, but basically all the restoration work
in the last year was done on top of the original 117 year old foundation. So, is that a testament to Root’s design or is it a
testament to the members of this community who in 1884 gathered to ponder
the start of a new church, a neighborhood church…a church they could walk
to….a church that stood for something in the community….a church where
they could raise their family. ….and gather for potlucks….and worship
their God.
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he talks about laying a
foundation and relying on others to build on it.
Each builder, he writes, must choose with care how to build on it. The foundation is Jesus Christ, and the builders are his
followers who are entrusted with the continual building of the church.
Our psalmist expresses beautifully the wonder at being in a place
considered the very dwelling place of God.
My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living
God. Is it presumptuous to
believe that mere mortals could build with their own hands a place where God
might actually choose to spend time? The
psalmist doesn’t think so, but the psalmist spends more time talking about
what happens there then the temple’s physical appearance.
It is the place where beautiful singing can be expected.
It is the place where praises are given.
It is the place where strength is restored and prayers are made. It
is a place where goodness is named and celebrated.
It is the place where people gather to acknowledge together their
trust in God and the happiness that comes from that proclamation.
So apart from a distinctive building, the place where God dwells is
the place where God’s people are doing all those things:
singing, giving praise, praying, trusting. It is presumptuous yes, to think that a building made with
mortal hands might lure God into its midst….but it is not presumptuous at
all to think that a community of believers, who gather for prayer and praise
and gratitude ought not to expect God’s company on a regular basis. And if we expect God to show up then we better have a place
that reflects that expectation. And
if we do that, a “place” built on a solid foundation will still be there
117 years or 234 years or 468 years later.
So yes, Root’s design helped create just such a place.
But it was the people who gathered for prayer and praise and
gratitude who sustained the building during good and bad times, during
periods of great growth and moments of decline.
It was the people who gathered for prayer and praise and gratitude
who faithfully expected God to show, who
understood that the future might reach far beyond the limits of wood and
weather. Each
generation must choose how to build on it.
Our generation was given the charge to restore a historic building,
but also to restore a church community.
We’ve been called for double duty, to preserve and solidify this
physical space so that future generations will still have a solid foundation
on which to build….and to grow and strengthen the worshipping community
who come for prayer and praise and gratitude…..so that future generations
will still have a solid foundation on which to build. And
so we celebrate this day, a milestone in our church history, the day when
building and community converge. We
celebrate that we can experience with our ancestors in the faith some of
their first excitement….we have strengthened our physical house….we have
a place to walk to, a place to come and raise our families, a place to take
a bold stand about inclusivity and welcome, a place to work for justice and
peace in our world, a place to
worship together the God who made and claimed us……did you hear what I
just did? I started talking
about a strengthened physical house…and rambled right into what we do
here….it’s almost impossible to talk about the building apart from the
community…..the place is physical…but what happens here is….am I too
bold to say? miracle???
maybe….maybe it is enough to say that what happens here is
….faithful….
Each generation must choose how to build on it.
Our generation has been called….and we’ve responded….and we
have more responding to do….
But for today? It is enough to just….sigh…and wonder…and be amazed at
the gifts present in this room today. God
brought to us so many gifts….. Gifts
of hands that could bring this old building back to life. Hands that drew up plans, and built amazing scaffolding, and
tore things down safely, and negotiated with the city about codes, hands
that were creative problem solvers, hands that could make old wood shine
again and new wood blend in like it was 117 years old, hands that could make
our windows visible again, and then there’s the hands that raised the
money to make it all possible, all hands that with love and dedication have
absolutely transformed our building and given us cause for more than
celebration this day. We’ll
have a party, and we should, but when I think of where we’ve come from and
what this means to our future, it’s a sobering thought as well.
It may have been Burnham who said make no small plans…..but it was
hardly an original thought….people who have built churches have worked
under that assumption since Jesus laid the first foundation.
Each generation must choose how to build on it.
And in this time 2005, we have been privileged to build on the
foundations of many, many people who have come before us.
And it must give us reason to pause when we consider what a great
cloud of witnesses might follow behind us.
To have maintained our portion of the path should bring us to our
knees. It is God who makes no
small plans. God who stirs the
spirit and moves people to action and blessedly?
has taught us about both the possibility and the promise of
resurrection. So celebrate we
will. We celebrate because our
hands link us to past and future and are the instrument of God’s big
plans….for this fine house and the people who call her home. Amen.
|