Benediction
Well, it’s almost time for the benediction.
When I look back at our time together, and it seems that is just about all I’ve been doing lately, so many features of our shared life and ministry jump to the top; starting a mid-week fellowship meal and spiritual formation program for all ages, Koinonia (meaning fellowship and partnership), which is now an anchor within our community of faith is a personal highlight; celebrating with flair and conviction our 150th birthday as the oldest (and brightest) Baptist church in Kansas----learning to spell Sesquicentennial before the year was over----a highlight too. The “Blessed With a Vision” campaign that resulted in the expansion, doubling actually, of our facilities was not only fundraising but also fun-raising. And, of course, all the ministries of FBC, which serve Christ and the community, have made quite an impression on me. Even the word “ministries” is important; they were called “divisions” when I arrived! The ministries we prayed into being, the ones we nurtured and the ones we tweaked for more faithful service to God and the Kingdom of Christ.
The list, mine and yours, could go on and on…
But the one trademark of our time together that I’m drawn to over and over is this: how we’ve worshipped as a practicing people of faith.
We’re getting closer with each moment to the benediction.
The Isaiah text today is the epitome of worship: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up…and the seraphs called to one another, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
Worship. Our time to glorify God and honor all of God’s creation. Worship. Our gathering in community around a book, a baptistery, a banquet to receive grace for the living of our days. Worship. The regular rhythms of praise, prayer, petition, preaching and proclamation, and profession of faith, which done over time in community together shapes us for a way of life.
This week at Central Seminary we heard noted professor Don Saliers speak to the importance of worship that evokes the senses and is filled with awe, wonder, gratitude and truthfulness. Worship that delights in the knowledge of God’s timeless and sacrificial love which often goes missing in our entertainment driven culture should be done with reverence and bathed in the mystery of God. In our time we’ve recalled the ancient pattern of the Christian year and the liturgical calendar (which Salier’s reminded us isn’t an Anglican plot!) to form in us the story of Jesus and the actions of a beloved community. Church seasons from Advent to Pentecost; banners with symbols and/or scripture festooning the day; processionals and recessionals galore.
In looking over my files we had seven different series of worship services centered on…worship. We took apart the many elements of what makes worship what it is---lifting each component part up and seeing its place within the whole. And now we’re getting yet closer to the benediction.
Prelude is the time leading up to the beginning of something.
We had the prelude when Ralph Gage first contacted me in March 1997. The search committee, tired after a year plus look, was eager to settle for anyone who was breathing and could speak a complete sentence, and invited me to come and visit. Their warmth, charm, and Jayhawk-ness wooed me, to say nothing of the hopeful dream that our church could thrive. It has and I am pleased more than I can express. An extended prelude occurred when Sandy and I met covertly at the ABC Biennial in Indianapolis, at a Robert Webber workshop on…worship! and compared notes to see if this thing might be of God. Might the Lord make it possible for me to minister in a college town and assist collegiates in their faith, as I had in my own experience?
We had the invocation too. The word “invoke” means “to call upon” and invocation is defined as “a calling upon the Holy Spirit for help in doing what you know you can’t do by yourself.” Lord knows that I’ve invited and invoked God’s help and guidance in these nearly 11 years together. Our prayer is always, “Dear God, come alongside us and companion us in the doing of your will both in our individual lives and our life as a congregation.” Our triune God has been our faithful shepherd. We’ve voiced the invocation.
Of course we do a lot of praying in church, the invocation being one of many specific prayers, but there are others: confession of sin (telling the truth about ourselves, “A man of unclean lips, living among people of unclean lips”), the pastoral prayer in which we plead for those who need the Lord’s healing and grace; the announcement of pardon (“your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out”---is there anything more crucial than an assurance of good news?), the prayer of thanksgiving following the offering which always in essence says “every good and perfect gift comes from God.” And, of course, there’s the benediction. That will come later.
We’ve passed the peace of Christ. “The Lord be with you” is both greeting and extended grace. We say basically, “the spirit of God in me greets and recognizes the spirit of God in you.” This is a family affair of hospitable neighbors reaching out their hearts and hands to embrace one another. Amid smiles, hugs, and handshakes something of the holy is transferred in an enacted mini-drama of heaven on earth.
Often following the peace we dedicate children in this place, oh the number of babies I’ve toted around this sanctuary, taking them for a spin and a stroll to see all you warm, wonderful grown up children of God. And not one spit up (me, not the babies!!). Some of you will remember when we dedicated the youngest child given to Mark and Kim Randell---the elder brother screamed bloody murder when I took his sibling out of his mother’s arms, the father Mark had to escort him out leaving Kim in tears here on the chancel, “with God’s help, and I mean God’s help, we will…” I have been thankful to have held those young ones in my arms and pronounced them all as created in the image of our loving God, each and every one a sign that God has not given up on us, each one with the gifts and graces to be realized in a community of faith. It takes a church to raise a Christian and your own involvement with the kiddos and their parents has proven vital---from Sunday school, to vbs, to Pioneer Club, to Padeduia, to King’s Kids. Thank you for giving our two boys such love and care here. We will always have a native Kansan in our midst; he born and dedicated to God right in this place among you. What a great gift.
We’ve sung the hymns and heard the anthems and in our music God has been glorified. The music we’ve had! Everything from Magnificats to madrigals, Bach to that Bluegrass group, Rutter to Reuter, newer composers to dead German guys. Handbells, flutes, dulcimers, harps, oboes, violins, clarinets, brass, and guitar. Organ concerts during Lent and Valentine banquet serenades (“Once in love with Amy, always in love with Amy…”). Cherub choir, sweet Melodies, Youth choir. Chancel choir. Solos, duets, ensembles. Chuck Belotte playing southern gospel on the piano. Thank you Sandy for the gorgeous music you’ve prompted from our people. Special guest musicians like Darrell Adams and Kyle Matthews and Brian Lewis added us to their dance cards. We’ve had anthems and hymns and special guests: we’ve had the pleasure of music.
We heard the sermon. I preached over 500 of them here by my count, each and every one I’m sure you recall verbatim. What? You don’t! Preaching is more congregational conversation than soliloquy and you’ve been wonderful conversation partners. You listen well and pay attention better than any church I know. Thank you for hearing me, especially when you haven’t agreed or had the same take on either a text or topic. We did try to “put out our nets” in deeper homiletical waters, didn’t we? Joey Jeter from TCU once remarked that preaching is not a blitzkrieg, but a siege, meaning that the work of God’s word in our lives doesn’t take place all at once in one 25-minute sermon but in the cumulative, over the long-haul process of spiritual formation. Hopefully, I’ve laid siege to your hearts, minds, and wills with messages from both Hebrew and Christian scriptures; many from Luke though sadly (?) none from Haggai or Nahum; a few with a mention of Fred Craddock; and all, I pray, honoring our Lord which sought to challenge, comfort and inspire us to follow Christ and live more fully by the Spirit who is capable of changing us into the congregations and people God created us to be. The careful attentiveness with which you have listened made me care deeply and prepare prayerfully for what I preached. Your listening has made me a better preacher. We had the sermon.
We’ve had communion. Month in and month out and at special services across the years, we have been at table together. Whether in the pews or coming forward for intinction we’ve been fed by the living Christ at his table and at his meal; he’s host and we the invited guests. From hereon in my ministry your faces will join those from my two Hoosier congregations when I look out over the table and lift bread and cup, recalling with great thanksgiving all the meals we’ve shared at this table. And know too that I will see the faces of those who have died and now live eternally with Christ, whose funerals I have done in my years here. Every single pew today is represented by a family who moved through the valley of the shadow of death---I see
Shirley Viebrock
Elfie Bailey
Mrs. Stringham
Agatha Krieger
The Doctors Price
Helen Dolbier
Grace Bowen
Dick Harp
Don Workman
Sisters Joie and Judith
Donna Beth
And Glenda
And so many more…
We had communion and we have still communion of the saints.
We’ve had baptism, holy splashing around in the water. Big ones and small ones, young un’s and not so young un’s, those who came to faith here and those who reaffirmed their faith here. Baptizing my son Mitchell here. Catching people with gospel nets who in return left and followed Jesus.
In my time with you we’ve remembered the ancient confession of the church of Jesus Christ, namely, “Jesus Christ is Lord, “ as Alex confessed in the water. When we worship we are testifying, again and again, that all allegiances are to Christ. Not Caesar, not Dubya, not Pope nor preacher. Christ and Christ alone. And because we need each other so desperately on this journey we say, “and together we will walk in the way of Jesus Christ.” We’ve had the holy bath.
We’ve taken up the offering, or as our Mennonite friend Ken Rodgers would say, “lifted an offering.” Boy howdy, did we lift---lifted a roof line when we built and paid for a brand new building. We lifted ministry to new horizons by giving to God’s adventurous mission in the world. Our budget almost doubled and we are debt free. In 1997 our deacon fund total for benevolent giving was $1800.00; in 2007 the total came to $7100.00. The food pantry is well stocked most months because you bring cans and care the first Sunday of the month, when you are also fed at a table. The folk down at L.I.N.K. think we are the happiest bunch of Christians in town because of our big-spiritedness and Christ-like graces when we serve a hot meal, also on that first Sunday of the month, after having been fed at a table. You give to God as a spiritual act of worship so beautifully. When a young girl in our church said, “how about birthday parties for the homeless in town,” well…there you were. And thanks to Steve our college group took the Habitat for Humanity spring break collegiate challenge and became a mainstay in Wichita Falls, Texas and as we heard last year from those closely associated with it there, they’ve done us and more importantly the Lord, proud.
We’ve taken the offering. We’ve given our gifts.
We’re getting closer to the benediction. It will come in time.
But we’ve also the Invitation to Christian Discipleship. At my first meeting with the Search Committee, Carl Guggisberg asked me if I extended an opportunity for folk to follow Christ and join the church, to enter the community and grow as disciples of our crucified and risen Savior, Jesus Christ. And many of you have responded. In my time with you we have added 312 persons to the church, almost a third by baptism. And in so acting upon the stirrings of your hearts and heads and hands, you’ve added your voice and found a place. Based on the notes, cards, emails and letters, many of you have written and sent the last three weeks you’ve entered more deeply into the life of discipleship and your growth, too, was in response to the invitation. It should be noted that many of the folk we added were here for a time only to leave and apply their learning and leadership in other congregations in cities all across the country; such is the weigh-station (in for a time only to leave) that is Lawrence. “Whom shall we send?” We sent out a busload from here who said, “Here am I, send me.”
There’s so much more but time and your patience won’t allow for it all. As John’s gospel states, “there are other signs of the Kingdom not written” in this sermon. Where would we place all the Bible studies, over 200 of you are Kerygma graduates! Or Steve’s ordination? Carolyn Predmore’s ordination? Weddings here and a wedding just remembered ten years ago on Friday in Columbus, Indiana where a caravan of 25 Lawrencians celebrated with their Pastor and his bride. Two years ago this May you celebrated with me as I completed more than an academic degree but a long deferred dream. Without you, it would not have happened, you have my thanks more than you’ll ever fully appreciate.
I need to be very careful here that this doesn’t slip into hagiography, holy history unrecognizable from fact and experience. As novelist John Irving said, “Nostalgia is a longing to get back to a time that never was.” Do all of us a favor and not hold the next minister here captive to anything other than his or her commissioning to do the gospel in their unique and God-gifted way.
We are nearing the time for the benediction. Oh but I think we’ve had it spoken all along, don’t you? Now one form of benediction is the imparting of God’s blessing upon God’s people at the close of a public worship service; pronouncement of a blessing. Another is the delightful gratitude and recognition that God has blessed a time of service between a Pastor and people, and we stand back and give God the praise for blessing us so mightily.
Benediction not so much as the last word spoken but the word of blessing spoken all along the way. What a blessing it has been to be able say, for a wonderful decade plus I was privileged to be the Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church in Lawrence, Kansas, one of God’s great churches.
Its nearing time for the benediction; until the one we voice in a bit, hear the one St. Paul wrote to the Philippians:
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,
Always in every prayer of mine for you all making
My prayer with joy, thankful for your partnership
In the gospel from the first day until now. And I am
Sure that he who began a good work in you will
Bring it to completion at the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It is right for me to feel thus about you all,
Because I hold you in my heart, for you are all
Partakers with me of grace…For God is my witness
How I yearn for you with all the affection of Christ
Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound
More and more, with knowledge and all discernment
…filled with the fruits of righteousness which come
Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Thanks be to God. And may the blessing of God Almighty, the Creator, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, be upon you and remain with you forever. Amen and amen.
"My thanks to David Shirey for his framing of pastoral ministry as an act of worship in community and partnership".