A Look At The Past                                                            First Presbyterian Church

            It’s always struck me as odd that we celebrate major birthdays in a large way while almost ignoring the others by comparison.  The year I turned 40 I was greeted with black crepe paper and even a black cake.  40 is supposed to be the most terrible age of your life.  41? No big deal.  At 90 you can expect a huge surprise birthday party with all the family gathered together – even your second cousin twice removed.  Turn 91 and you get some birthday cards in the mail and maybe dinner out.

            This is not one of those significant birthdays in our church --- or is it?  Yesterday we turned 163 years old.  Pretty good for a church that almost didn’t make it in those early years.  They even disbanded for a while, but in 1927 they moved into a brand new sanctuary at 115 Front Street and had a weekend of dedication. 

            I thought it might be interesting to listen once again to excerpts from the sermon given that weekend by the Rev. Harry Scherer from the Niles Presbyterian Church. It begins like this:

            “Church members ought to rejoice that the church is being discussed today as never before.  There are plenty of first cousins to Nathaniel walking the streets of Buchanan today asking if any good comes out of this church.  Unlike Nathaniel, they did not come to see.

            The church is being discussed pro and con as never before.  Many fine things are being said and many not so fine yet that are true.  Let us rejoice that a church is being discussed, that it is being placed on the dissecting table of human opinion. 

            We ought as a church to be able to answer these questions with not just our mouths but our lives.  We ought to constrain men to come and see. 

            Men of the world are hungry for God.  The church has something to offer them.  The Church of Christ has far more to offer than you or I have appreciated.

            I am not referring now to the things so often mentioned by businessmen when they say we could live in a community without a church.  The church is not an organized police force nor a protective agency of any sort.  The church is not an insurance division whereby the man who enters it is saved for the remainder of this life and eternity.

            The church has truths to offer which challenge this community.  Dogma is not being referred to, such as questions of the second coming or baptism.  The eternal truths of Jesus Christ alone stands all tests.

            Two things in particular the church has to offer.  It offers spiritual fellowship.  In this day of progress we depend on each other in the physical world.  We talk of individualism.  There is no such thing.  A man cannot live alone.  We realize physical fellowship but have forgotten spiritual fellowship.

            The church is the one organization that opens its doors at all times.  Whosoever will may come.  It is inclusive. 

            Clubs and fraternal organizations are exclusive but the church takes in hypocrites, little children, ignorant people, rich people, the conceited and self-sufficient, the poor people, sinners and it ought to take in more of these than it does, scarlet women and scarlet men.

            The church is the only institution that has ever made such a challenge.  All men says its decreed are created equal, regardless of clothes, money, or position.

            The second thing the church has to offer is a spiritual adventure.  The world’s greatest heroes are yet to be.  The land of greatest resources is yet to be touched.  That land is the territory of our own soul. 

            Greater than the physical structure is the spirit of the builders.  More important than the dimensions of brick and stone is the purpose that built these walls.  The thing we do is not so important as what it does in turn to us. 

            The telling of a lie does not matter so much but what does matter is what the lie does to the individual.  Not this building, but what happens in the hearts of the people who have built it is what counts.” 

            Those words spoken so long ago on this very site still apply today.  They represent in many ways not only the challenges of our past, but of our present, and our future as well. 

            We must always remember that this building is not the church.  The church lies within our hearts and our actions --- not just for this one hour of this one day but for all the minutes, all the seconds of each and every day.  The church lives as shut-ins are visited, as the poor are fed as those who have lost all hope receive hope through our sharing the good news of a God who walks with them giving them the power and strength they need. 

It is obvious then, that brick and mortar, bell towers and organs,  grand stained glass are not the church.  So why are these things so near and dear to our hearts?  I think in part because they represent our true  home.  It is where people who have no family, find family. 

It is here, in this place, that we have felt the safest, the most loved. It is where we have baptized our children, watched them grow and cried at their weddings, and in the end it is where we have buried the loves of our lives.  But it is more than that.

It is here where we are challenged to do better to be better --- to become the person God created us to be.  Here we take the time to remember and celebrate the Lord God of our Universe.  It is here that we praise Him, confess to Him, am strengthened by Him.

We come here to be nurtured and fed and challenged for the week ahead.  We come here to worship, for this is more about God than about us.  And we invite others to come with us --- to make our family stronger, to make them stronger. 

Praise be to God.