The 250th Anniversary Sermon

The 250th Anniversary of The Dover Church

November 4, 2012

This past year, several of us found a box in the basement. In that box, we found Walter Kraft's 200th anniversary sermon, addressed to us today from 1962. In that sermon, Mr. Kraft posed many questions about the last 50 years, wondering how the burning topics of 1962 had been resolved. With the election only two days away, our country's "big issue concerns" are front in center in many of our hearts and minds. But what questions to ask of the folks in 2062? I can all to easily imagine those people chuckling while they read my words, "Olmstead wondered about that? Talk about ancient history." My prayer is that my questions will in fact be ancient history. My prayer is that our history of The Dover Church will be a story of people from this church doing meaningful ministries and missions to address our questions. My consolation is that I probably won't be here to blush if I am wrong.

In November of 1962, Mr. Kraft asked: "What was the result of the "shameless destruction of hundreds of millions of people in ugly war in this (twentieth) century"?

"(We) are bewildered...by what we call the "population explosion." It is feared that we cannot feed those who now live and every hour of every day there are thousands more mouths to be fed." Not a question, per se, but take it as such, for such it is.

"At the present time, politically and religiously, we are in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. What was the outcome of this struggle? How legitimate really was it? Did...the use of propaganda completely mislead people in both lands?"

"Did the Russians "bury us?" If so, if you are Christian...just how are you faring? Did the forces of these two countries at last accept the ideas of tolerance and freedom? Did understanding in the final analysis lead to a more peaceful solution of things?...Just what is the shape and form of the image of freedom, then, in the world of 2012?"

"How did our dealings come out with Cuba? What happened to Castro?" (he's still there!) "Did our so-called victory in the Fall of 1962 (two weeks before Kraft preached his sermon, I should point out) work to our advantage? Or did it only prove that we were a mighty military power?"

"What about leisure? Did you find anything more profitable than horse racing; taverns selling liquor along the highways where one is forbidden to drink; and spectator sports wherein there is no exercise save that of disputing with umpires and booing the things in others of which we are quite incapable.

"Has leisure at long last drawn people into the enjoyment of the creative arts? ...How did you solve the problem of leisure which troubles us? How can mankind maintain it's physical vigor in a world in which robots do all the hard work? Is the vigorous life plebeian, and how has leisure produced fitness of life?"

And finally, the topic that Mr. Kraft begins and concludes his sermon with, what he calls the Conquest of Space. Yuri Gagarin's first flight was in 1961. Mr. Kraft writes, "we expressed some misgiving about this...how are you making out? Do you feel about our automobile age as we do about the horse and buggy?...many of us feel that it will be a costly affair, and the cost will be in excessive taxation. Many of us cannot see how this will give the hungry bread or slack the thirst of those who need clear water. Does it look foolish to you, and if not, how was it that it was accomplished? How did space travel work out to enrich the life of common people? To us this is the crux of the matter. Did it give to mankind endless space to live in?"

And later, Mr. Kraft returns to the subject: "Did we find super human life on some other planet? In this vast space adventure, what has happened to the idea of God?...If they found such a planet, did this planet and it's people send another spaceman to earth 2000 years ago and did he become as a child? And did he use our symbols to teach us the deeper realities of life?"

I have to say that Mr. Kraft caught me off guard with his speculation about an extraterrestrial Jesus, but all questions of ultimate concern, the boldness of which should encourage us to courageously ask our questions. Mr. Kraft confesses that "to us the future is dimly foreboding. We are not good at making predictions. We have become a cautious and unprophetic people. My age prefers to act and then to ask questions afterwards. This is our unbelief." To which I ask, what will be our unbelief? Will we continue to be cautious and unprophetic? Will we continue to act and ask questions afterwards?

So let's start where Mr. Kraft left off, with Jesus. Instead of wondering where Jesus came from, will we actually live with him here in our midst? Will we leap into our unbelief and find Jesus, or we will continue to scan the horizon?

"What has become of the idea of God?" Mr. Kraft asks us. In our time and in  our community, I think that is a great question. For most of the people in our town, God has become just that, either a fantastic or an anachronistic idea. Will we live our lives as a congregation and as individuals so that our neighbors know that God is not an idea but alive and acting? Or will we become a museum where the curious can come to take a peak?

And what about war? As disciples of Christ, we are unambiguously called to be not peace wishers or peace thinkers, but peacemakers. Ever since the end of the Cold War, our country, the lone Superpower with a military larger than the next ten combined, arbiter of world order and peace, has been engaged in a series of small, isolated, and yet hot wars. Will we as disciples proclaim another way? Will our church be the voice in our society for another way? Will we work to turn our many swords into ploughshares? And if we don't, what effect will these huge costs and the constant wars have on our democracy, our way of life and our humanity?

And just in case you think that I am wandering too far afield into realms beyond our congregation's ability to affect meaningful and tangible change, what about those solar panels we have just installed on the roof of Kraft Hall? Scientists are in agreement that our carbon based lifestyle is creating unsustainable climate change. Our church is about to become a de facto flagship church in the environmental stewardship movement. There are no other churches in our area with such an installation. But will we preach it? Will we proclaim it? Will this gift transform us? Will we work to transform our society? Or will we just be happy for the savings on the electric bill, carry on as usual, and take the thing for granted?

And what about overpopulation, starvation and poverty? This is yet another ministry that Jesus calls us to: to do justice, to feed the hungry and help the poor. Our time is one of an ever widening chasm between the very wealthy, people like us, and the absolutely destitute and hopeless, most of the rest of the world. People are moving all around the world in unprecedented numbers, trying to get from places of poverty to places of abundance. What will we do? Will we wrap ourselves up in our idyllic community and try not to see what is happening? Will we offer assistance on a case by base basis, helpful in its way but sort of like building a sand castle with the tide coming in? Or will we both give assistance and work to rework the way the world works so that the tide might actually begin to recede and we no longer need to prop up those crumbling walls?

And finally, to quality of life. Our time has been one of remarkable, at least to us, advances in in computing and medicine. Science and technology are progressing exponentially. We have more information at our finger tips than ever before in the history of humankind. We are able through modern medicine to both alter human life in meaningful ways and prolong it beyond what would have been thought possible fifty years ago. These are all great goods, but it is unclear to us where this progress will lead us. We struggle with questions about the beginning and end of life. While computers are fantastic, most people I know feel overwhelmed by the sea of information washing over them. Most people I know feel harried, even oppressed, by the ever quickening pace of life, the greater and greater efficiencies expected of us. Most people I know are more connected, more comfortably entertained in their own homes, and with more options for recreation, amusement, and education than ever before imaginable in human experience, and yet all too many also feel disconnected, bored, without time for family, relaxation and recreation, community, God, faith, all of the things that were constant norms in the lives of our ancestors. Will we continue to spin off, faster and faster, ever more efficiently and well informed, ever more comfortably entertained and over scheduled, into our individual orbits of personal isolation? Or we gather again into community, for faith, recreation, and reflection?

This is not a hypothetical preaching exercise for me. I am writing this sermon to my sons. Did Daddy and the church have joy and hope in their faith? And did they invite others to be part of that joyous hope? Did Daddy and the church make a difference? Did Daddy and the church teach us how to make a difference? Did Daddy and the church find answers to their questions in their faith? Did Daddy and the church step out boldly in faith to do the work that their Lord told them to do? Did Daddy and the church lead society towards a brighter future? Or did they just hang back and go with the flow? Did Daddy and the church just fade into the sunset? Or did they live the good news of God's Love and Christ's Resurrection in meaningful and tangible ways?

We have much to celebrate on this day, a wealth of gifted and engaged people and a largely untapped mission field for our kind of Christianity. We have something of ultimate concern to offer to our community and our world, the god person around whom we gathered, our Lord, Jesus Christ who called us here at this time. Our Christian view of history is neither cyclical nor cataclysmic. Creation is heading towards a consummation, the coming together of heaven and earth when God will dwell with humans in a new Jerusalem. God will not desert us. Whether we do our best to live into God's vision for us is another matter which the people of 2062 will know the answer to. Will our generation of disciples be the ones to put our hand to the plow, or will we just hope for the best and leave the answers to our children and grandchildren?