Fifty years ago this summer, this congregation
was in the process of completing the paperwork
And taking vote after vote, changing the wording of by-laws
In order to make one church out of two.
It was not easy to get the two churches together.
It took a lot of conversations, it took a lot of votes,
It took a long time.
It was Pastor Raymond Danforth who was hired in 1932 that
was the first pastor hired to serve both
The Acworth Congregational Church and the First Baptist
Church of South Acworth.
He kept a crazy schedule, teaching in Claremont, serving as
selectman in Acworth,
And doing two services every Sunday morning.
One in South Acworth at the Valley Church building
And the other in the center here.
1932. That was 83
years ago.
83 years ago, necessity forced the hands of two small
historically divided congregations to cooperate.
Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention.
33 years after that, the final vote was cast that fully
merged the churches into
the one United Church of Acworth.
And so, 50 years later, we look back at that moment.
And I think of Rev. Merle Everett Corbett who worked so hard
and was so enthusiastic for the churches to make the final
step toward uniting.
People like Rev. Corbett get excited when they see cooperation
and fellowship
across geographical, theological, historical, and cultural
lines.
I never knew Rev. Corbett, but I really appreciate his
leadership in the early 1960s –
And reading his letters, I’ve gotten the impression he was a
really cool guy.
Although he left just before the finalization of the union,
We have a letter he wrote to Earl Luther full of excitement
over the news.
Someone like Rev. Corbett rejoiced in the vision of God’s
redemptive promise for the world.
And saw in events like the uniting of two churches in a
small town –
a glimpse of that reconciliation that God longs for
throughout the world.
The day as we will later pray together, “when [God gathers]
all [of God’s] saints from the four winds to share in [God’s] eternal banquet.”
We’ve been given a great story in this uniting of the
churches.
I think in some ways it speaks to the desire
of those who came before us in the work of ministry in this
place –
to be a church in
and for the community.
To not play the game of institutional preservation,
But be active in the work of reconciliation,
To bring people together by the bread and cup and the words
of grace and forgiveness.
To bring together East and West Acworth,
South and North Acworth.
Folks from all directions beyond our community.
At one table.
To bring together young and old,
native and flatlander,
Conservative and liberal,
Libertarian and communitarian,
Traditional and progressive.
This is the United Church of Acworth,
I wonder what might it mean to think of ourselves as the Uniting Church of Acworth.
United is something that was done once in the past,
Uniting is something ongoing in the present.
It’s easy to be united,
It’s harder to be about the ongoing process of uniting.
Don’t worry! I’m not suggesting a name change.
But it is an ongoing struggle to keep our attention
fixed on what all of this that we are doing is all about.
Especially when we hit difficulties like high fuel bills,
major maintenance needs,
Conflicts and hurt feelings,
people leaving the church never to return –
It’s not an easy thing to live life together.
It’s like on a personal level – we find ourselves one day
Feeling really satisfied
and a fullness and excitement in our lives.
All of the pieces are coming together for us,
we are feeling the peace of God,
we have good friendships,
things have come together for us and are working out.
And then the next day we receive a diagnosis,
Lose someone we love,
or find out that someone we thought we could trust was
someone else altogether.
I had a conversation with a good friend the other day about
his recent experience with divorce.
He said that oftentimes people think that what he’s most
struggling with is the question
“Why is this happening to me?” “Why would God allow this to
be?”
But, he says, the “why” question is not the question that he
is living with,
And, he thinks, the “why” question is not what most people
who are suffering are asking.
In his experience, it was not the question “why is this
happening,”
But the question “how am I am going to get through this?”
that is more pressing.
I don’t think he meant that he never contemplates the why
question or that others don’t.
But it’s not on the front-burner.
Instead, he said, it was the front-burner question of his
parents and others that loved him.
They were struggling with the why – he was struggling with
the how.
“How” he was going to make this transition and find himself
again on the other side –
how he was going to still be a good father to his kids,
find and settle into a new apartment –
how he was going to find the new normal.
And this made a lot of sense to me.
You don’t have to live long in this world to realize
that there are a lot of things we will never fully
comprehend.
But in a fundamental way it’s not understanding that we
need,
We need hope
and people
who will love us no matter what,
We do not need ways to figure out or fix the hard
circumstances we are thrown,
We need to know that we have a way to live in the midst and
through the difficult times.
Those of us who are close to the one who is suffering,
may find ourselves overwhelmed by the “why” and the feelings
of sorrow and sympathy.
But what may be most helpful to someone who is going through
a hard time is not to speculate about why God would allow this or that, or what
it might mean – or worst of all what the person might have done to bring this
upon themselves.
None of that why-thinking, however true parts of it might
be,
none of that kind of why-thinking is usually helpful for the
person who is suffering.
What usually is helpful,
is for you to come alongside and offer your support for the “how”.
To walk with the
one who is having a hard time,
not trying to fix or figure it out for them,
But being the loving friend –
Showing up. Being
there.
That’s what can give encouragement and hope.
The Spirit is God’s presence with us,
within and among us.
And in John’s gospel the Spirit is called “Paraclete”
And that’s a word that has many possible meanings.
The most literal meaning is “the one who comes alongside of”
We can imagine walking alone and seeing a community of
walkers ahead of us on the road.
And we feel left behind.
But one of them notices and comes alongside us.
And suddenly we feel less alone.
We still have the walk, the incline, the strain of the hike,
But now we have someone who has come alongside.
The Spirit is God come-alongside-us.
Not in order to give us new certainties,
But to give us the grace to go forward in the midst of
uncertainties,
To remind us that God loves us,
that God’s love and companionship with us.
Is more real than the abandonment or disappointment or
discouragement of the circumstances of our life.
And that as we trust God,
God will bring us through all of this to a greater
appreciation of the most important things.
Paul says in our reading this morning, that in the midst of
difficulties of his ministry,
“We never become
discouraged…”
instead, “we fix our attention, not on things that are seen,
but on things that are unseen.
What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be
seen lasts forever.”
The trials of the present moment do not compare, he says, to
the glory of the unseen that is growing within his own and his friends’ lives –
their own love for God.
Or the unseen that is the reconciled community coming into
existence in Corinth and other places as a result of their ministry – more and
more people finding hope and the power of knowing God’s grace.
The unseen is growing.
Even when what is seen, feels like a kind of dying.
They are not asking why God is allowing such opposition to
their ministry,
such hardships to come about in the midst of their efforts
to do good
and bring more and more people into the experience of grace
and to a place of
grateful reconnection with God and others.
They have fixed their attention on the unseen, the most
important things,
The things that are eternal in their permanence and
significance.
And they walk through and in the midst of the trouble,
keeping their eyes fixed on what’s most important,
When all the temporary things, the momentary things
vie to discourage and make them give up.
In 1960 Acworth had the lowest population of its history,
down to 371 in 1960,
five years before the churches officially united.
Can you imagine the discouragement some may have felt in the
community?
Some of you can remember what church was like in those days
–
maybe not as adults who were fully aware of the finances and
other issues.
Maybe they asked “why” at certain points.
Why are small towns getting smaller? Why aren’t more people
interested in the mission of the church?
But they put their trust in the paraclete God,
the one who comes alongside and walks with us in our
uncertainty.
And they looked to the unseen, the mission,
the vision of God’s reconciliation and reunion of all people
with one another and with their Creator –
As they ate the bread and drank the cup together.
And in those moments they were not discouraged.
Instead, they were brave and went forward into uncharted
territory of forming a new church.
And fifty years later, the same Spirit walks with us as we
look to how we might
Do all things for the sake of the unseen and the eternal,
How we might walk through the difficult times,
fixing our eyes on the vision of God’s kingdom,
The bringing together of all people by grace,
The forming of a people of gratitude
for all that God has been – is – and will be with us and for
us.
Fifty years later, we
look with hope to the next fifty years –
so that, in Paul’s words, “as God's grace reaches more and
more people,
they will offer to the glory of God more prayers of
thanksgiving.”
Let us work together towards this hope.
And may we not be discouraged, but trust in the God who led
us to this day
and who walks with us each and every step. Amen.
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