by Rev. Dr. William M. Lyons, Conference Minister, Southwest Conference UCC
This sermon was preached at the final worship gathering for First Congregational Church of Flagstaff, September 25, 2022. To download it in pdf format, click here.
I was standing on a lakeshore fishing. Concentrating on the lure or the bobber so strongly, my orientation to the ground was lost to the motion of the water and I suddenly felt adrift. Panic rushed through me. It took what seemed like a long time to regain my balance and sense of groundedness.
“What do you mean we are closing the church?” Her question came in an instant of disorientation and confusion – for both of us. Neither of us had ever experienced the end of a local church’s life. News that any church is closing is difficult and painful. It doesn’t matter that more than 4500 local congregations annually – 375/month, 86.5/week, 12/day[1] – find themselves making legacy decisions. All that matters is that it is happening to me, to us, to my church. A profound sense of personal loss follows a decision to close a church. Healing from that kind of loss means giving ourselves permission and time to grieve. There is no sermon I can preach that makes today easier. Maybe, by reflecting on what closing a church means, we can begin to reorient ourselves to some realities that keep us grounded and remember that all is not lost in this ending. SO what do we mean when we say First Congregational Church of Flagstaff is closing?
The fiduciary answer to “What do you mean First Congregational Church of Flagstaff is closing?” is that members are laying down an institutional identity and the tasks associated with governance. No more annual nonprofit corporation filings or budgets to prepare and balance. No more council or committee meetings. Those responsibilities, as necessary as they are in the corporate life of a congregation, consume much energy and focus. With the sadness there can also be a sigh of relief. The worries and challenges related to FCCF’s institutional longevity and sustainability – decades-long worries and challenges according to letters and reports sent to the conference office – have been resolved through a process of discernment in which you have been faithful to God, to yourselves, and to the mission to which has long called you. Discernment through which God has been faithful to you.
Today we are giving thanks for each one of the faithful and committed church leaders and pastors who for more than 60 years have given themselves fully to the fiduciary tasks of FCCF. Well done, good and faithful servants!
There is also a theological answer to “What do you mean we are closing the church?” Any church. Scripture teaches us that a local congregation is the physical manifestation of the Body of Christ in the world. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.[2] Physical bodies, including local congregations, are mortal. The body that was Jesus’s – the one animated by his person in the first century – and the ones animated by his Spirit through the ages – have always been mortal. Mortal bodies have lifecycles. And eventually they cease to be. Jesus’s mortal body died not because Jesus did anything wrong. Not because he failed. Not because Jesus was unfaithful to God or to his mission. Not because God was unfaithful to Jesus.
Faithfulness is not an antidote for mortality. FCCF is not ending institutional ministry because collectively or individually anyone has been unfaithful. No one failed! The beginnings and endings of local congregations are part of the lifecycle for the living Body of Christ. Those beginnings and endings (births and deaths) are understood in the metanarrative of our faith, affirmed each time we repeat our statement of faith, a mystery we acclaim each time we celebrate the liturgy of the eucharist: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”
Today we affirm our faith and give thanks for FCCF. Your faith in God and God’s faith in you is evidenced by the American Youth Hostel, the Early Childhood Learning Center, partnerships with Weekly Refresh and United Christian Ministries at NAU, collaboration with the affordable housing coalition, the bold decision to become Open and Affirming in 2005, commissioning a minister for health and healing, parish nurses who began a different kind of service to member-families’ health concerns, the Stephen Ministry, and a go-fund-me campaign raising tens of thousands of dollars that provided food to families on the margins. FCCF has for more than 60 years been the voice, ears, hands, and feet of the Gospel’s extravagant welcome, continuing testament, and transformative power in people’s lives. There is so much for which to give thanks.
The long and varied list of your legacy gift recipients bears witness to your faith and is a fulfillment of today’s Scripture readings. Through your generosity, in these last months of FCCF institutional ministry, and in decades you have served your neighbors in this community, your generosity [has resulted] in thanksgiving to God.[3] Jesus’s words, “Ones who believe in me will live even though they die,” apply as much to local congregations as they do to individual believers. The ministry of this church lives in new ways through groups who share your values, who have been partners with you these many years, and who now are the beneficiaries of resources entrusted for the common good.
Fixing our eyes on the ways FCCF’s ministry continues beyond its institutional life, in the several organizations that will carry your legacy into the future, and in the countless lives who have been blessed and transformed by your incarnation of progressive Christianity, is one way to reorient ourselves in our grieving. Not everything about FCCF is ending! The most important things about FCCF, the qualities that made FCCF what she is can never end:
· your faith in God and God’s faith in you, the works that testify to your living faith as described in the words we heard from Jesus again today,
· your hope, your confident expectation that God is working all things, even the end of a beloved congregation’s institutional ministry, for good because you love God and continue to be called according to God’s purposes,
· your love, the caring relationships you nurture with one another, the companionship your share on life’s journey, your love for Christ and his Church, God’s love for you from which nothing, nothing, nothing can ever separate you.
In affirming our faith and giving thanks for First Congregational Church of Flagstaff our faith, hope and love, are as vibrant and alive as ever. The ways in which you live them in the days ahead will certainly be different without FCCF. For a body raised in newness of life is nothing like the body sown in mortality. That, too, is part of our story as resurrection people.
When Jesus presided at the last gathering of the community which he gathered “he blessed them”[4] and gave them this charge: You will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere[5] and making them my disciples. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”[6] May it be so for you, and for us all. Amen.
58 So, my dear [siblings in faith], be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. [7] Our worship has ended; let our service begin!
[1] 2019 statistics cited in https://religionnews.com/2022/03/15/thousands-of-churches-close-every-year-what-will-happen-to-their-buildings/
[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (1 Co 12:27). (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[3] The New International Version (2 Co 9:11). (2011). Zondervan.
[4] Luke 24:50
[5] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ac 1:8). Tyndale House Publishers.
[6] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Mt 28:20). Tyndale House Publishers.
[7] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (1 Co 15:58). Tyndale House Publishers.