Running on Faith

Preached at Prescott American Baptist Church

August 18, 2013

Hebrews 11: 29-12:2

I have been thinking about and praying for Prescott this week. It is on my mind: this plan for you to engage in discernment and prayer, seeking God’s guidance for some decisions and possible future joint relationship with Shady Grove Presbyterian Church. 

Discernment involves honesty about your needs, challenges and fears. Congregational discernment includes feeling secure enough as a community to create safe space for all voices to be lifted and all concerns to be respectfully received. Discernment allows for silence, even God’s silent response. Discernment demands time and patience. 

I must say, from my point of view, this is a very exciting time for Prescott. I don’t think any one of you pretends to know where Prescott is going or what needs to be done. I suspect that each Prescott member has a heart for one direction or another, one decision over others. Yet you seem to be willing to come together, to pray, to open your hearts, to listen and accept that, in not really knowing the answer or the best way, you might discover a new way to be Prescott, a new way to live out your faith, a new way to be closer to the heart of God. 

In last week's sermon I focused on the reality of the Spirit alive and at work within and among us. I urged all of us to be less afraid and more courageous. This week I want to mention other realities like: paying a preacher, decreasing attendance at Sunday worship, constant struggle to meet the congregation’s budgetary requirements. Along with fear of being swallowed up by another (larger) congregation, fear of losing your identity as a people, fear of making a mistake and living with regret.

While we all acknowledge that the Spirit of God is within and among us--These  other realities also live in a very real way in the life of Prescott and it faith, its ministries, its history and its inheritance. 

One day this week I had reason to drive east on Walnut Grove, beyond the Germantown Parkway exit. I don’t remember ever doing that before, ever going that far east on Walnut Grove.  I was stunned by the number of huge churches I saw along the way. Covenant United Methodist Church is mammoth. Then there’s a gargantuan First Assembly of God that appears to include a school. Although I have heard about Hope Presbyterian for many years, my jaw dropped when I actually saw it for the first time! Life Church is huge and pristine. Then there’s a Christian school, Briarcrest Academy, which amazes me with its size. 

These big churches make smaller churches, like Prescott and so many others, wonder: Are we CHURCH in the same way that those huge faith communities are CHURCH? Have we failed the community in some way that we have not grown and grown over the years? Or have we somehow been so faithful to God’s call that we are small and surviving by divine design? 

Hebrews, the epistle where today’s lectionary text was found, is a challenge to interpret. Scholars cannot be sure who the author is. It is written to a community that the author saw as being in a perilous situation. He urges them to remain faithful, warning them against drifting away from regular worship and prayers or losing confidence in God’s promises. The letter of Hebrews is directed to a community of Christians who still identify with their Jewish heritage. They know the Old Testament or Torah. They are only becoming familiar with the Christian story.

There may be people here at Prescott who are only now becoming familiar with Prescott’s story of courage and faith:

In the 1950’s, Prescott’s membership peaked at 1700. Then in 1967, Prescott opened the doors of the church to people of all races, and although this was an example of Prescott’s pioneering faith in action, that act of inclusion diminished the size of the congregation substantially. When Dr. King came to Memphis in 1968 and was assassinated, Prescott was proud to be represented by its pastor, Rev. Bob Troutman, in the march through Memphis streets. In 1970, Prescott elected two women, Annette Bickers and Evelyn Stell, as deacons. This was newsworthy at the time.

In 1983, Prescott sponsored Tom Walsh and Jimmy Burkeen on a mission trip to the USSR and that became the foundation for the founding of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. That was the same year Prescott affiliated itself with the American Baptists. In 1984, Prescott ordained a woman to pastoral ministry, Dianne Housam-Abbott. In 1987, Prescott became the first Southern Baptist Church in Tennessee to call a female pastor, Nancy Sehested. Continuing its courageous and pioneering acts of good faith, Prescott voted in 1997, to give full membership rights and privileges to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. 

You know these things. Many of you here this morning have held Prescott at the center of your life and heart for most of your life. And if you did not personally live through these events, then you have chosen along the way to identify yourself with Prescott because you also long to be a courageous pioneer in the faith. 

You are a community of followers of Jesus Christ, openly welcoming and accepting all people. In all things you remain open to the Holy Spirit. You are a pioneering and risk taking congregation, a small congregation with a large mission. 

I am simply reminding you of what you already know. You are not alone. You are together in the challenges you face and in the celebration of what you have done in the past.

 With God at your side and in your hearts you have made a difference in this city and the world. Your good will spreads all over the globe. That will continue. You will always be pioneers of the faith because you are motivated by the inheritance that is yours: the love of Christ, the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds you and the passion you have for including all God’s children in the good news of life everlasting. 

The author of Hebrews lists heroes of the faith. One was a prostitute. And another was Jephthah who made a vow to God. Jephthah kept the vow and his daughter lost her life.   Some pioneers of the faith were tortured, stoned, mocked and some were sawn in two—a gruesome and grizzly image. 

You know very well that being faithful does not guarantee purity of heart, peace, prosperity and good health. What it does guarantee is that you are not alone and that your ministries are not without meaning, purpose, and hope. This guarantee holds fast whether your congregation numbers in the thousands or is small enough to fit easily into the life and space of another congregation. 

You may have heard the story of John Stephen Akhwari, the marathon runner from Tanzania who finished last at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. No last-place finisher in a marathon ever finished quite so last. Injured along the way, he hobbled into the stadium with his leg bloodied and bandaged. It was more than an hour after the rest of the runners had completed the race. Only a few spectators were left in the stands when Akhwari finally crossed the finish line. When asked why he continued to run despite the pain, Akhwari replied, "My country did not send me to Mexico City to start the race. They sent me here to finish."

Why race if we are not in it for the trophy? The applause and acclaim? Why be a church if we’re not going to be the biggest and the most amazing congregation in town? Aren’t we running to be the winner of this race? 

The author of Hebrews urges us to run with perseverance the race that is set before us. On Wednesday evening you will gather to pray, to be together and to listen once again for God’s call on this courageous and pioneering congregation. You run your race on faith.

You are people willing to take risks, to do a new thing, willing to discover a new way to be closer to the heart of God. 

Amen