Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Selected verses from Ezra, Chapter 3
September 29, 2002

This morning’s sermon is occasioned by a very special day in the life of First Church, Birmingham. We gather to celebrate a 50-year anniversary in our present sanctuary, having moved here from the corner of Maple and Henrietta in September of 1952. We also gather to break ground for a $6 million Christian Life Center that will add 28,700 square feet to our building and shape our ministry for years to come. Both the title and the text for this sermon are borrowed from Dr. Arnold Runkel who used them for his first sermon in this pulpit, 50 years ago.

The Preaching Text

(as translated from the Anchor Bible)

Preparations for the building of the temple

They also contributed money for the masons and carpenters, and food, drink and oil for the Sidonians and Tyrians [in payment] for bringing cedar lumber from Lebanon by sea to Joppa in accordance with the permit granted them by Cyrus the king of Persia.

Laying the foundation of the temple

So in the second month of the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Jeshua the son of Jozadak and the rest of their brothers the priests and Levites, together with all those who came to Jerusalem from the captivity, began [operations] by appointing some of the Levites who were twenty years old and upward to direct the work of the house of Yahweh. Then Jeshua and his sons and his brothers stood united with Kadmiel and his sons, the Judeans, and the sons of Henadad and their sons and their brothers, the Levites, to direct those who did the work on the house of God. When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Yahweh, the priests in their robes stood up with trumpets, as did the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise Yahweh according to the order of David the king of Israel. They sang antiphonally:

Praise and give thanks to Yahweh

For he is good

Eternal in his devotion toward Israel.

Then all the people raised a mighty shout in praising Yahweh when the foundation of the house of Yahweh was laid. Many of the older priests, Levites and family heads who had seen the first house wept very loudly when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many [others] shouted aloud with joy, so that the people could not differentiate between the sound of the joyful shout and that of the weeping of the people, because the people shouted so loudly that the sound could be heard from afar.

The Sermon

There was a day when most funerals were conducted in funeral homes, most burials were completed in cemeteries, and most travel arrangements (from funeral to burial) were coordinated as processions (hearse first….limos second….everybody else, third to last….headlights shining ….flags tilted).

Most of the time I rode in the hearse (albeit upright in the front, not reclining in the back). That’s because I rode with the funeral director, enabling him to keep a close eye on me while enabling me to learn a great deal about him. Which was how it came to pass, some thirty years ago, that I listened in on one mortician’s lament about what in the world he was going to do with his business upon retirement. And a good business it was. He had a great name in town….the only chapel in town….a loyal clientele in town….sixty years of history in town. What he did not have was any offspring in town.

As offspring went, he had but one. That being a son who didn’t much like the funeral business….and (at that time) didn’t much like any business. This was the early seventies, remember, when “doing your own thing” was in, and “doing the establishment thing” was out. And how much more “establishment” could you get than a funeral home, owned by a father who was also an elder in the Presbyterian Church? The same father who was not getting any younger, and who was not finding the daily grind any easier.

So maybe because he liked me, or maybe because I was closer in age to his son than himself, he asked my advice. What did I think he should do with his funeral home?

Keep working it and die?

Sell it to strangers and bale?

Give it to the kid and pray?

His real fear was that, for all the wrong reasons, his kid would want it but wouldn’t love it, and wouldn’t sweat over it and bleed into it as he had done, along with his father before him. Which is pretty much how it turned out. His son took it and worked it, without much of a passion for it. And, not too many years into the future, sold it. Meaning that everybody got mildly rich from it. Except that, today, there’s no more family in it.

I have to believe that a lot of you have wrestled with similar questions from time to time. How do you pass anything on? And, if it’s a business, how do you ensure that the recipient will view it as a pump to be continuously primed rather than a cash cow to be continuously milked? Will anybody love it as you loved it….work it as you worked it….sacrifice for it as you sacrificed for it?

That’s what Arnold Runkel wondered about this church in 1944 (the same year he started as our preacher). Writing to the congregation in December, he questioned whether he was preaching to a comfortably contented crowd or a restlessly visionary crowd. He told them they were living off the surplus of the past (and figured they were bright enough to know it). What he didn’t know was whether he could motivate them to push beyond it.

Citing Edward Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he described the lack of religious spirit in the monks of tenth century Constantinople. Quoting his source (while warming to his task), he wrote:

They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers, without inheriting the spirit which had created and improved their sacred patrimony. They read. They praised. They compiled. But their languid souls seemed incapable of thought and action.

Then, laying his concern in the lap of his congregation, Arnold added: “There is but one question that comes to me over and over. Can it be that we hold in lifeless hands the riches of our ancestors without inheriting their spirit?”

You see, Arnold was about to lay something bigger on ‘em….a building. This building. And they bristled a bit. And they fought a bit. But then they bought more than a bit. They bought Arnold’s impossible dream. They bought it in big bites….at the cost of big dollars. And here we are. Meaning that Arnold bet on the right people….believed on the right people….built this place on the backs of the right people. Which people? You people. Languid souls? Not yours. Lifeless hands? Not yours. Fifty-year members, stand up and take a bow. Congregation, applaud ‘em….praise God for ‘em….and while you’re at it, sing a quiet doxology for Arnold who inspired ‘em, fed ‘em and led ‘em.

Fifty years later, they’re still around. Haven’t died off yet. Better yet, haven’t burned out yet. Having completed one building in ’52, another in ’57, a third in ’67, they are here to break ground with the rest of us for a fourth to be completed in 2003. Which means that a whole lot of us have caught the spirit they radiated in the fifties, and answered the bell that they rang in the fifties.

Sadly, it is the nature of church life in mainline Protestantism….especially mainline Protestantism in the Rust Belt….that stories like ours don’t happen all that often, and projects like ours aren’t launched all that often. In this part of the world, denominationally speaking, we have more experience with closing churches than we do with growing churches.

Which explains why there will be those who will look at what we are doing, scratch their heads and wonder why. Just as there will be those who will look at the cost of what we are doing and question why the money wasn’t diverted elsewhere. Frankly speaking, when you are the pastor of this church, you sometimes feel a need to hide First Church’s light under a bushel and talk about First Church’s future with a hint of apology. For not everyone understands a church like ours. And not everyone applauds a $6 million building program in times like these.

Does that mean we should constantly search our hearts, read our scriptures, monitor our mission and test our motives? Of course it does. But does that also mean we should come to a day like this feeling more guilt than pride and more embarrassment than joy? I think not.

So how do we respond? Well, I suppose we start biblically. Simply stated, the Bible is bullish on buildings. When Arnold preached his first-ever sermon in this sanctuary, he quoted Ezra. In 38 years of preaching, I have never quoted Ezra (especially this particular slice of Ezra, which sounds like a construction document for a building contractor).

At issue is the second Temple. The first Temple….Solomon’s Temple….was laid to waste with the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah in 587 BC. Jerusalem, leveled. Temple, toppled. People, bundled off to Babylon, in that tumultuous period that Jews remember as The Exile. But now it’s 536 BC (give or take a year). We’re talking “happy” now….“healthy” now….“homecoming” now. It’s time to begin the second Temple now. Altar first. Followed by the building. And the instructions are complete, even to the proper age of the Levitical foreman (age 20), the building materials (stone, timber and masonry), and the sources of cedar (felled in Lebanon, floated down the Mediterranean, brought ashore at Joppa, according to a sub-contract with the king of Persia).

What I find fascinating is the number of biblical accounts that reflect this kind of detail, the implication being not that God designs or dictates buildings, but that God takes an interest in buildings. To be more accurate, there are two kinds of building projects in scripture….one kind to help the memory, the other kind to house the people. The first kind are in the nature of monuments or memorials. Somebody has a religious experience of some sort and starts gathering stones together so as to remember the place where it happened.

God is not big on such monuments. Recall the Mount of Transfiguration where Peter, James and John finally sensed that Jesus was more than met the ordinary eye and bigger than one mere moment of history. Upon experiencing this epiphany, the first thing Peter wanted to do was build a monument (complete, no doubt, with a gift shop). To which Jesus said: “Aw, Peter, get on down the mountain.” But when the building project is about the housing of God’s people (rather than the mere stimulation of their memories), the Bible is quite willing to talk about buildings in detail, not only as to their necessity, but also their artistry.

Second, I suppose this particular building can be defended programmatically. In short, justification flows from utilization. Friends, how else can I say it? The present place is full. Sue Ives tells me we had 31 second graders in one room last week. Now I ask you, how many of you would be willing to teach 31 second graders in a room the size of those on the second floor? And 31 second graders last week have to be considered in light of 300 Vacation Church Schoolers last summer. And what of the fact that there’s no real space for recreation internally, and not much more in Birmingham, externally? And then there’s WOW (Women of the Word). This year they outgrew the small chapel upstairs, necessitating a move to the big chapel downstairs. Moreover, last year there were two Thursday night Growth Groups of young marrieds. But over the summer they resprouted (sort of like my wife’s hostas) into five Thursday night Growth Groups for young marrieds. And then there’s Carl Price who sat in my office last spring, wondering whether he’d “pretty much tapped out the Disciple and Christian Believer market,” only to stay on and test the waters another year. Now he and Rod have gone from 90 to 120 in those wonderful seminars.

Even in here, Arnold’s dream sanctuary, few envisioned how much use we would give it. Four services on a Sunday. A concert series. A slew of weddings. An even greater slew of funerals. In Arnold’s day, the dead were dispatched from a funeral home. When Wiley Groves died, 50 years ago, Arnold had to talk his family into having the service here. Today, everybody comes here. I’ll say a few well-chosen words over the dead at least 40 times this year. Seventy-five percent of those occasions will take place here. In the last three days, Rod, Lisa and myself have done four memorials and two weddings. That’s not the title of an offbeat British movie. That’s our work schedule.

Finally, I would submit that our building program can also be defended missionally. Not just because of other buildings we support in other places….not just because of a record-shattering $839,000 in beyond-the-local-church funding in 2001….not just because we’ve got adults working with hammers and saws in places that range from Pontiac to Prague (with kids following suit in Memphis)….and not just because of four Habitat houses built in four years. But because this building has consistently sent messages to this community that its doors are openable….its rooms, usable….its programs, attendable….its staff, available….its services, inspirational….its sacraments, invitational….and its people, hospitable. Quite apart from whatever signage hangs on our walls or is suspended in our halls, I want this building….old part….new part….to scream but one word. And that word is “Come.” This building, quite apart from being built by tools, is (in itself) a tool. And I think we have demonstrated over the past 50 years….if not the whole 181 years….that we know something about how to maintain tools, sharpen tools and use tools. Which is why I believe God continues to trust us with tools and place them in our hands.

So what kind of a house will this be? Well….

not a fraternity house, even though there is brotherhood here.

not a sorority house, even though there is sisterhood here.

not a counting house, though lots of money flows through here.

and not a club house, though we have lots of camaraderie here.

Clearly, this is not the “Big House,” in that no one is being held against their will here.

Nor is this the “Little House” (on the prairie) even though children feel very much at home here.

And it is certainly more than a greenhouse (reserved for plants) or a White House (reserved for presidents), but rather an open house with no reservations, where everybody gets in who needs in, wants in, wanders in, or is carried in.

In its own way, I suppose that this is….

a flophouse, because you are never too far gone (or down) to come through the door.

and a poorhouse, because even those who are flush of pocket sometimes find themselves impoverished of spirit.

and a playhouse, for the melding of body and soul.

and a guest house, for the melding of stranger and friend.

along with a safe house, for those needing a port in the storm.

and a halfway house, for those needing skills to go back to the storm.

and, most certainly, a rental house, wherein can be learned the delicate difference between master and servant, landlord and tenant, deity and disciple.

and, of course, a banqueting house, where the table has been set….the board spread….the Lamb slain….the Supper served….the bread broken….the wine poured….and the cup filled until it overfloweth.

My friends, let me tell you the truth. I did not come here to build this. With three building programs on my resume, one of the better reasons for taking this job was our conviction….Krissy’s and mine….that in coming here, we would never have to build anything again.

But as Margaret Valade likes to say: “You want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

Not that we shouldn’t make them.

Not that we shouldn’t show them.

But that we should be prepared, every now and again, for God to trump them.

Because when God wins, everybody wins.