The Remnants

“I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 3 ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.’4 But what is the divine reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’5 So, too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” --Romans 11:1-6

I had the unusual experience of arriving at church extra early on Sunday morning.  I wanted to allow plenty of time to get the camera we utilize to record and stream worship services working, as lately it has not been compatible with the Facebook platform.  I also had in mind that the microphone at the lectern wasn’t working last weekend, and perhaps I might be able to observe a simple fix.  Lo and behold, the camera worked right away (fingers crossed, knock on wood, someone sage the thing)! Additionally, the microphone that was giving us problems was also working. Thus, I was given a few extra minutes of peaceful respite on the front porch of the church.

As I sat there looking out over the beautiful lawn and the trees that are just beginning to have a twinge of changing colors, I wondered what those first families of New Providence observed from those steps. It must have been magnificent to come around the curve from the stagecoach road, or pop over a hill from the neighboring farms and see this house of worship that just kept growing and being rebuilt as the population of the community swelled. It must have been quite something to see her, glowing red in the morning sun, facing ever east (thank you for that reminder, Ken Wolfe). Imagine how dwarfed those early pioneers and their wagons were as they stopped here on Sunday mornings. Imagine watching the Old Sycamore grow as the grants became a county, as the colonies became states, as this country was founded, fought for, wounded, and stitched together again.  The same land. The same bricks.  The same tree.  Tremendous.

 I wondered what they would think of us now in the year of our Lord 2026; 280 years from the formation of the congregation. I wonder what it was like to stand on the front steps with hundreds of people to get a photograph. It would have taken a lot more time and effort than my haphazard phone and tripod trick. I wonder if the mothers also called out to their children not to get their clothes dirty or stop whacking each other with sticks.  I wonder if the fathers gathered outside to ‘shoot the breeze’ before services began.  I wonder if they complained, as I often do, how it is either a million degrees or freezing cold whenever we hold a funeral on the hill.  Would they have ever, in their wildest dreams believed there would be a woman in the pulpit? A woman sitting as clerk of session? When people came from far and wide to attend the chrysanthemum shows in the late 1800s & early 1900s; and all those Model-T’s were lined up in the lot out here, did they ever imagine that event would no longer be held? Would those elders of old be concerned by the fact that we no longer knock on doors when you haven’t been to church or barred you from the communion table if you’d been pegged as a sinner in the community for too much dancing or drinking? Would it shock them to know that we no longer take our wagons and trucks around the community to pick up kids and bring them to Vacation Bible School? That we no longer line up a hundred plus kids on the lawn and sing songs before we march inside for our lesson? Can you believe we don’t pass red Kool-Aid and a cookie out the kitchen window anymore? Little flashes of pictures I’ve seen from these bygone eras flashed through my mind while I sat out there. Same land. Same brick. Same tree.

The interior is probably the same brilliant white, lit by blinding sunlight pouring through the windows as the day goes on. The pews, still hard and creaking, but not with as many seats filled.  Across America that is a narrative that tracks for old mainline churches like ours. Would our ancestors shake their heads at us and pinpoint what went wrong? I am sure we have our own ideas about why church attendance is in decline, why rural living overall is in decline.  Would the generations long gone sit beside us like Job and his friends, who even as he grieved over events in his life, his friends wanted to put their finger on what sin he had committed to be so punished?

I don’t think we’re being punished though.  And I don’t think we should grieve that we do not have 800 members on our rolls. While we may long for ‘simpler’ times, we can’t change the leaps and bounds humanity has made in 280 years. And in a lot of ways, we wouldn’t want to. I sat on the porch and the words that came to mind for me were these; we are the remnants; we are the faithful.  This doesn’t mean that those who have departed from us, or those who choose not to worship with us are unfaithful…but that we can take comfort in the fact that we are faithful.

Genesis described God’s Garden of Eden as being “in the east.”  The glory of God approached the Israelites from the east. The Tabernacle and the Temple both faced east. The sun rises in the east. And the Son of Man declared himself that his return would be like a flash of lightening from the east to west.  Every morning we face east to greet the rising sun and the Risen Son.  Everyday dawns anew and we have the chance to begin again, to be faithful, again. Definitions of a remnant focus on something being left over or left behind.  You may describe the stones of a crumbling wall, the remnants of a fallen building.  But we are not a crumbling building or witnessing a crumbling faith or serving a decaying God.  We are the bricks that stand on a firm foundation. Same land. Same brick. Same tree. Same faith.