Ezekiel 37:1-14
Acts 2:1-21
May 20, 2018
To Our Sisters and Brothers in Christ at the Congregational United Church of Christ of Iowa City, 150 Later, in the Year of Our Lord 2168:
You don’t know us, even though we once gathered and worshipped and studied and planned and ate in this building where you now do the same.
You don’t know us, even though you might have heard some of our names. Some of our families have been in town for generations. Some of the buildings at the University are named for former church members—Seashore Hall, for example, which was being rebuilt as this letter was written. And the Law Building, named after a beloved University President and member of our congregation. One of our members was a novelist who was very well known in the early part of this century—and you are better off if she is still being read. I take some consolation that ministers tend to get remembered in local church histories, so perhaps you’ve come across my name occasionally—in the same way that I encounter the name of the Rev. George Hebard and all my predecessors.
But all that we did and all that we were happened many years ago now. “We fly, forgotten as a dream,” was how the hymn that we sang today put it. Those long intervening years are why I say that you don’t know us.
150 years is a long time—not, of course, to the God for whom a thousand years is as one day. But for us mortals, it is a long time. Some of us today can look back and remember those who were alive one hundred years ago in 1918—parents or grandparents. But who today remembers those alive in 1868? And who in your time remembers those of us living in 2018?
150 years ago as this building was under construction our nation was just out of a great Civil War. It ended, as you know, with the abolition of slavery—long a goal for Congregationalists. In what was their second attempt to gather and sustain a church, the Congregationalists of Iowa City showed that by the grace of God’s Spirit dry bones could live.
They built what was called at the time a “tasty building.’ (Isn’t quaint how people used to talk?) What was then one of the largest church buildings west of the Mississippi had no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no air conditioning, no wi-fi, or many of the other things that we consider essential today. Most people walked to the church, And while there were some hitching posts for horses, no one thought about putting in a parking lot for cars.
(And I might as well ask—did you in the 22nd Century ever get flying cars? In the twentieth century we were pretty sure we’d have them by now. Maybe you have them. And is it still hard to find a place to park?)
There were plenty of stairs both outside and inside the building that led to the second floor sanctuary—but no elevator. No one was thinking much about disability and access to this or any other building—just look across the street at the Pentecrest—although there were certainly those who couldn’t climb stairs and in Iowa City there must have been many who were disabled by the wounds of war.
That, I guess, is one thing that still links us to those of 150 years ago—war. The just-ended Civil War. The Spanish American War. World War I. World War II. Korea. Vietnam. Desert Storm. And what has become a seemingly endless and yet largely ignored “War on Terror.” My guess is that war might be what continues to connect us with you as well. I hope not, but I am enough of a Christian to know something of the human heart.
What I’m trying to say is that we are as far away from you—and as unfamiliar to you—as we are from those who built this much-cherished place at the corner of Jefferson and Clinton 150 years ago.
We gathered 150 years later, on Pentecost Sunday, May 20, 2018, to celebrate the anniversary of this building and to voice our gratitude for those who in vision built it and for those who in generosity sustained it. It was a somewhat arbitrary date.
In October of 1866 the congregation recognized that their interests demanded that they take immediate steps toward building a house of worship.
By January of 1867 they had purchased this lot at Jefferson and Clinton. The members voted that the lot should cost no more than eighteen hundred dollars—but it actually cost over two thousand.
The cornerstone was laid in June of 1868.
And on December 19, 1869, the church was dedicated.
Some of you might think it strange that we chose Pentecost as a day to celebrate, well, a building. After all, on Pentecost Christians remember God’s Spirit coming upon those early followers of Jesus fifty days after the Resurrection. We consider the many ways in which that same Spirit moves us to mission in the world. In our time the Spirit calls us to confront the racism that continues to plague our nation, the persecution of immigrants and refugees, the ongoing marginalization of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people, and the hunger and poverty of still present in our city. Just this past week we faced yet again a mass shooting in one of our nation’s high schools—something that is becoming almost expected in these days.
I am confident that God’s Spirit still has work for you as well, 150 years later.
But, again, what does a building have to do with all of this?
As it turns out, quite a lot.
It was popular in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to disparage church buildings. Upkeep of a building—the heat and electricity, the cleaning and repairs, the major renovations, especially those required by an old building—all take energy and funds away from mission in the world, it was said. A church could gather in a coffee house or a park, it was said. After Pentecost, the early Christians turned the world upside down—and they didn’t have a building, it was said.
There was some truth in all of this.
But only some truth and nothing that approached the whole truth.
We’ve come to see that a building gives us an identity that is beyond our current moment. A building says much about who we are over time.
Having a building means that we can offer our chapel as a place of rest and renewal to the exhausted student, the weary worker. People of different faiths and of no faith are frequent visitors to that part of building.
Having a building means that we can offer shelter for the homeless on cold nights—we did this for several years and who knows when the need will come again.
Having a building means that we can offer a place for the community where people are challenged with new ways of thinking, or refreshed by music, or engaged in planning new ways of serving the world.
Having a building means that we can offer a place where troubled souls and sit and talk in privacy.
Having a building means that we can proclaim the Gospel as we understand it without fear of being silenced or pushed aside.
A building—this building—lets us be the church in ways a coffee house or park or street corner never will.
It is our building in that we have willingly accepted its stewardship and its challenges in our time. And because it is our building, it in a sense belongs to everyone.
And it is certainly a place where God’s Spirit is known. Many people have entered this sanctuary and felt a special presence here—a sense that in this place authentic worship and genuine prayers have been lifted up over decades—when you read this, over centuries.
In short, we would not be the church God has called and equipped us to be if we were not those occupying this building—this church on this corner in this community.
This building has changed much over the years. It’s not that they got it wrong originally—or that we finally got it right. It’s just that, as the old hymn says, “New occasions teach new duties.” (And you know, that was a “new hymn” when our congregation was originally gathered.) A building, like the congregation that fills it, is a living thing. It needs to change as the world around it and the people within it change.
So those who came before us—and we ourselves in our time—added to the original building, took down the outside stairs and one of those small towers, remodeled the sanctuary a few times, brought in new organs every now and then, added and then finally remodeled the kitchen, installed an elevator and right now we’re getting ready to replace it with a new one.
A few years ago the generosity of the current congregation allowed us to do some major renovations and repairs around here. We were told that the building was generally sound and should last at least another 150 years if we—and those after us—continue to keep it in good repair. I expect that those between us and you have continued in the faithful stewardship of this building.
As I said, we’re getting ready to put in a new elevator—but maybe by the time you get this letter you’ll have other ways of getting to this second floor sanctuary—a transporter, perhaps. “Beam me up,” we used to say. (Do people still understand Star Trek references? Perhaps you know that just sixty years from now—in 2228—James T. Kirk will be born in nearby Riverside. You can Google all of this—if people still Google.)
I’m joking. And maybe you don’t get the joke, but the congregation today loved it.
What I’m getting at is this. We keep looking toward the future—just as those who founded this congregation did. They didn’t look back with nostalgia. Those who built this church put a time capsule in the building’s cornerstone, looking toward the day when unknown but faithful members would open it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t sealed well and when the time capsule was opened during the 100th anniversary celebrations in 1968, most of the contents were dust, as we are now when you read this and you, too, will be some day.
Even so, we look to the future, whether that future is 2018 or 2168 or 2228. It’s the Congregational Way. We have a past, but we don’t live in it. God has yet more truth and light to break forth from the Word.
If you will bear with me for a personal note, just for the record, I want to tell you what I always say when a visitor walks into our sanctuary, looks around, and says, “What a beautiful building.” I reply: “It is. And it’s a beautiful congregation.” I hope that the members of this congregation 150 years later are as delightful and beautiful and thoughtful and loving as those here in these days. I think they will be—this place just seems to attract people like that. It has been the joy of my life as an ordained minister of the Gospel to serve as their pastor for these years and to celebrate with them today.
So as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of this building, we are handing it on to you—or at least handing in on toward you. Many will come whom we don’t know and who don’t know us between 2018 and 2168. We’ve tried to be good stewards of this marvelous and beautiful gift that we have received. I think that most of the time we have been good stewards. From this day, we hand the building on to others, known and unknown.
We don’t expect them to keep this place looking the same as it does today. We don’t expect them to like or sing the same songs that we like to sing. We don’t expect them to worry about the same things that we worry about. We don’t even, really, expect them—or you in 2168—to have flying cars.
What we do expect—or better, I should say: what we do hope is that the God whose Spirit empowered fearful, faithful followers of Jesus at Pentecost, the God whose Spirit empowered a small group of women and men in a small western outpost called with expectation “Iowa City,” and the God whose Spirit empowers us in these days will continue to be the same God whose Spirit is at work in you in your time—as unknown to us as you and your time are.
And the people here know I don’t say this lightly: May God’s blessing be upon you.
Peace,
The Rev. William Lovin, pastor
For the Congregational United Church of Christ, Iowa City
P.S.:
While time separates us from you in many ways, our church covenant connects us both with you and with those women and men who built this church 150—or, as you will say, 300—years ago. As you know, in the Congregational tradition, each church has its own covenant—not a statement of faith, but a statement of how we will live with one another before God. As with everything else, the covenant usually changes over time—although, as you might also know, the congregation in Salem, Massachusetts, has been owning the same covenant since 1629. I don’t know what the first covenant of our congregation was and I certainly don’t know what yours is.
But as we worshipped on this Pentecost, with thanksgiving for the past and in hope for the future, I asked the congregation to rise and together once more own the covenant that we have with one another:
We covenant with one another to seek and respond to the Word and will of God. We purpose to walk together in the ways of Jesus Christ, made known and to be made known to us. We hold it to be the mission of the Church to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in all the world, while worshipping God, and striving for truth, justice, and peace. As did our forebears, we depend on the Holy Spirit to lead and empower us. We pray for the coming of the reign of God, and we look with faith toward the triumph of righteousness and eternal life.