Sermon of October 14, 2007

This is a red-letter day for our congregation. We are making pledges to an ambitious capital campaign and to next year’s budget. We are hoping for expanded ministry. We are welcoming back our organist-choirmaster after his sabbatical leave, and we are nearing the completion of a process that began some five years ago.

Before this day could happen, we had to ask ourselves some hard questions. What is the mission of First Presbyterian Church, and where should it take place? Should we remain downtown? Should we flee to the suburbs? Should we pull up stakes and head toward the promise land, the land flowing with milk and honey and parking spaces? Has the time come to cut our losses, bid “Adios” to Big Bertha, and vamoose to greener pastures?

The questions were worth asking. Folks in the ‘burbs have souls, too, and are in need of the gospel. There’s nothing wrong with suburban congregations. I grew up in one, in fact.

The First Presbyterian Church of Lake Charles, Louisiana, began its life downtown, too, but as the white folks moved toward the suburbs, so did that congregation. Nowadays that church is nestled in what is euphemistically called a “changing neighborhood,” and is dealing with shifting demographics, an aging constituency, and (are you ready for this?) underground water intrusion. (On the positive side, they’ve got lots of places to park.)

The question “Should we move?” was worth asking, and the answer from the good folk of Old First came through loud and clear: We’re staying put. Back in 1832, God called this congregation to do ministry right here, and we haven’t finished yet.

Back in 1832, you might recall, Tallahassee was a frontier town. Public drunkenness was a problem, not just amongst delegates to the Territorial Legislature. Saloon brawls and fistfights in the street were common. Some people thought the best antidote to this uncivilized behavior would be the establishment of a Presbyterian church.

In 1829, a Presbyterian minister who was serving as a kind of scout wrote to The Missionary Reporter magazine urging the Missionary Society to send church planters to Tallahassee as soon as possible. But beware, he wrote. Missionaries coming to Tallahassee would have to have sound minds in sound bodies.

“They ought to be men of intelligence,” he warned, “because the people are intelligent; capable of appreciating the force of an argument, and the fairness of an illustration. They ought to be men of enterprise and active habits because the inhabitants are sparse, the country new, [and] the discouragements many.”[1]

That preacher knew what he was talking about. In 1832 the congregation was organized, and in 1835 they began to build this house of worship. But the construction took almost three years, due to many “discouragements,” such as disagreements over slavery, yellow fever epidemics, and the nagging fear of Seminole Indian uprisings.

Despite these troubles, the congregation pledged $6,000 to build the new church. Barbara Rhodes reminds us that this was a tidy sum when you consider that in the same year of 1835 the national debt was only $37,513.05. In other words, the church founders pledged an amount equal to 16% of the national debt to build this house of worship.

The sanctuary was finished in 1838. All told, including the pulpit bible, the wall clock, the silver service, and the hymn books, the building fully kitted-out cost just over $13,000.00. Not bad, considering that the national debt had ballooned in those three years from $37,000 to $3,308,000. If you take the long view, this sanctuary has always been a bargain.

Nowadays you seldom see fistfights in the streets outside the church. Instead you see lobbyists in Gucci shoes with cell phones plastered to their ears. The natives are no less combative – they’re just less physical.

The founders began with worship. They felt called to worship God in the spirit of holiness, to hear the gospel, and to respond in faith. Corporate worship has always been the heart of this congregation.

It’s true, standards of decorum have changed. In 1833 the General Assembly adopted a statement describing how Presbyterians should behave in church:

In time of public worship, let all the people attend with gravity and reverence, forbearing to read anything, except what the minister is reading or citing, abstaining from all whispering, from salutations of persons present, or coming in; and from gazing about, sleeping, smiling, and all other indecent behavior.[2]

Our understanding of how to “glorify and enjoy God” has changed over the years. We no longer consider “whispering,” “smiling,” “gazing about” and offering “salutations” indecent behavior. Nevertheless, our goal in life, our “chief end,” is still “to glorify God and enjoy [God] forever.”[3]

As the city has grown up around us, our mission outside these walls has grown as well. Over the years we have helped to start six new churches and launched dozens of new ministries – ministries to prisoners and their families, to young children and their families, to homeless and hungry people, to those who feel estranged and to those who have been wounded by the kind of Christianity that knows more of blame than of grace. We have built houses, started shelters, paid light bills, prevented foreclosures, put food on tables, and opened doors to people who swore they would never cross the threshold of a church again.

We do this because it’s our calling as the Church of Jesus Christ. We share this calling with all the congregations of the Church Universal. All congregations do these things – or should be doing them. Our mission is not unique.

Our mission, however, is uniquely shaped by our location, right here in the heart of the city. Because we’re downtown, we are called to do things other churches can’t do, and are granted a certain kind of authority other churches can’t claim.

When a church that feeds homeless people week after week talks about the plight of homeless people, movers and shakers are more likely to listen. When a church situated halfway between the Capitol and the Governor’s Mansion hosts a rally for social justice, people pay attention. When a church whose sanctuary has slave galleries invites conversations about reconciliation, the world listens.

Our location and this historic building are not liabilities. They’re assets. They’re gifts from earlier generations to ours. They’re living symbols of God’s engagement with the world through Christ’s body, the Church. They’re sacraments of God’s incarnation and intimations of God’s coming kingdom.

Our Old Testament reading this morning is a word to God’s people in the city. It comes in the form of a letter from the prophet Jeremiah to the former residents of Judah, now exiles in Babylon. This is the first wave of exiles, now far from home, and feeling far from God.

Jeremiah, you will remember, had warned the people of Judah and Jerusalem that defeat and exile would come. Over and over he had preached against their foolish alliances, their lack of faith in God, their unjust practices, their callousness toward the poor and needy.

People hated Jeremiah’s message. They didn’t want to hear it. Some accused him of being on the payroll of the Babylonians. At the very least, his criticism of Judah’s government was unpatriotic. By criticizing his government’s foreign policy, Jeremiah was giving aid and comfort to the enemy. So the argument ran.

Over a period of ten years, Jeremiah’s prophecies of doom and disaster came true. In 597, Jerusalem capitulated and some of its most prominent citizens were taken away to Babylon. Ten years later, in 587, the Babylonians came back with a vengeance and finished the job. They breached the walls of Jerusalem, slaughtered most of its inhabitants, razed the temple, and took more exiles away.

Life in Babylon was humiliating and miserable for that first wave of exiles. Some wanted to stage a revolt. Some wanted to fade into the woodwork and forget all about the God whom they had worshipped in Solomon’s grand temple. Some were so heartsick they couldn’t even sing the songs of Zion.

The exiles wrote a letter to Jeremiah. You were right all along. What should we do now? Should we fight? Should we forget? Should we give up?

Jeremiah wrote back. Here’s what God says you should do: “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.” Get married. Have babies. Multiply there and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you . . . for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7).

You didn’t end up in Babylon by mistake, Jeremiah tells those exiles. You’re there because God sent you there, because that’s what you deserve. But God hasn’t finished with you yet. You still have a future through God’s grace and covenant love. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you . . . for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Now, downtown Tallahassee is hardly downtown Babylon, and life under Governor Crist should not be compared with life under King Nebuchadnezzar. Still, these ancient words of Jeremiah seem to be God’s words to this congregation on this red-letter day.

To seek the welfare of the city today means to seek the welfare of its poorest and most vulnerable citizens. To seek the welfare of the city is to point to the God who calls us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. To seek the welfare of the city is to change our way living, consuming less so that future generations will have enough. To seek the welfare of the city is to continue to sing the songs of Zion, to worship the One who is Light from Light, true God from true God.

You and I are called to seek the welfare of the city for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Lord of all cities and of all life. This is what this congregation was called to do back in 1832, and by God’s grace, we’ll keep doing it right here, until the kingdom comes or God tells us to do otherwise.

[1] Anonymous letter cited in At First: The Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee, Florida 1828 – 1938, by Barbara Rhodes, p. 11.

[2] Cited by Rhodes, p. 34

[3] Westminster Shorter Catechism