How
are we to remember?
By two things.
First, by musing. Pondering, considering the history you remember. The opposite
of muse-ment is ‘amusment.’ It’s the entertainment of ourselves with tv and
movies, with endless sport and endless noise which does not allow us to think,
quiet our souls and really think. So first thing to do is muse. Psalm 77 shows
us King David doing this pondering, meditating:
"Then I
said, “It is my grief, that the bright hand of the Most High has changed.”
I shall remember the deeds of the LORD; Surely I will remember Thy
wonders of old. I will meditate on all Thy work, and muse on Thy deeds. Thy way,
O God, is holy; What god is great like our God?" (verses 10-13)
Second, we
remember by the telling of tribal stories. Do you realize that the Bible is one
long tribal story? It’s the telling of what God did and what we did and how it
has all worked out so far. And thus we need to be telling tribal stories.
Tribal stories are truths of actual events and actual people that a people tell
and re-tell and keep communicating far into the future. It keeps stories as
truth (and not fable or fiction [that is, it prevents revisionism]) and reminds
us like the Bible teaches us to do, of who God is, what He did, what He told us
to do, and what we are by nature. And each song we sing is itself a tribal
story. Each hymn and modern song from the Bible is a rehearsing of the stories
of the people of God. Last weekend we told the stories of the early days.
Following then are many of those early day stories:
I moved from
Kansas City in early January 1972, in one way chasing a woman, in another
trying to ‘start the church of Lawrence’ and expected to sleep in a crashpad or
on the streets, and ended up that first night at the Holiday Inn on 23rd
and Iowa at the request and payment by the Ohio House people. They didn’t want
to let me stay and infect their evangelical home with charismatic doctrines
(back then there was very little overlap in this regard).
During the next
week I met with Harold Mallett, the pastor of nearby First Presbyterian Church,
and told him I was in Lawrence to start the church of Lawrence. He was gracious
beyond measure, and allowed me to start BASIC (Brothers and Sisters in Christ),
a weekly Saturday night gathering a la the gathering in Wichita (held at Faith
Presbyterian) or the House of Agape on Sunday nights in KC (held at Second
Presbyterian). Pastor Hal was ever gracious and let me teach a Sunday school
class there.
In February that
year I moved into the House of the Fourth Watch, with the music group Ninth
Hour (Chuck Lemmon, Bob Lee, and many others) out east of town off K-10. I
stayed about a month. We learned a bit more about community, about fellowship
and love of the brothers. And how to make Mendo Mess.
In February I
prayed regularly with Steve Churchill, who was attending KU, and was one of the
people who was to have a key leadership role in the new church. He had joined
us at BASIC. We prayed that God would confirm for us His desire to have a house
ministry (like House of Agape, Harvest House, and so many other Jesus
communes). We asked for “a little bit of money.” The next day Steve received a
letter telling him of the sale/transfer of mutual funds into his name, from
some relative of no immediate knowledge of anything we were doing. The amount:
$20,000. We believed that was ‘a little bit of money’ and thus Steve
immediately went to realtors to find a suitable place for us.
After a long bit
of searching and a lot of knock-backs, Steve encountered a realtor who was a
Christian. I had met the realtor when I prophesied during an evening service at
the Free Methodist Church on 22nd Street. He was keen to help the
fledgling community become what we wanted, and to sell us a house. The 1538
Tennessee Street house was Steve’s as of the beginning of April. Steve, Chris
and I moved in immediately. Others quickly followed.
Steve, Chris
Samuelson, Terry Bysinger, Dan Spencer, Dave Payne… so many young people who
were keen to serve God and make a difference in the world. That’s the
beginnings of the Mustard Seed.
It was Tuesday
night, April 10, 1972, when I taught the first Bible study at the house. 5
people attended including Libby Berger and Mary Robinson (later May). I spoke
about Matthew 17.20, “if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to
this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it shall move; and nothing shall
be impossible to you.”
Three weeks later I went to a rubber
stamp company on Massachusetts Street in downtown Lawrence and had a stamp
prepared.
The
Mustard Seed
1538
Tennessee
Bible
study Tuesday 7:30 pm
I began stamping the Gospel tracts we picked
up from The Gospel Tract Society of Independence. Steve came home one night and
asked, “What’s the Mustard Seed?” I said, “That’s our name!” Not that I did
much in collegiality in those days.
In 1974, Derek Prince came to visit at
First Presbyterian Church and he came to the Tennessee house for dinner.
Hopefully Iris Lannon (later Armstrong) was the cook that night. He spoke that
evening at the church about Ezekiel 37, The Valley of Dry Bones. Derek always
had a love for Israel. In the sermon, Derek spoke about finding another bone,
with whom to be in relationship, and to make sure your bone and you knew what
mattered to each other. That night, I met with Nick Willems and we immediately
knew that our lives needed to be bone-to-bone and thus we ‘annexed’ the Sunday
night group that was happening at the Engel house where Nick and Ineke lived.
Tribal stories abound in the beginnings
and in the continuing of the Mustard Seed.
Back then we were iconoclasts and knocked back anything that smelled of
‘church.’ We did not want a Sunday morning meeting because that’s what churches
did. We even had a group of us who played sport on Sunday morning, in the fall
titling our group, “First church of the holy gridiron.’ We disparaged anything
historic, to our loss, to be sure. But that’s part of who we were.
Last Saturday night (on the reunion
weekend) I told about meeting a pastor who told me he had a doctorate of
divinity. (D.D. is a very prestigious academic degree) I disparaged him
whispering to myself, “Doctor of Divination, I imagine.” We wouldn’t call
ourselves a ‘church’ but rather a fellowship. Our elders and pastors were not
such, but initially ‘sheepdogs’ so we didn’t assume a title beyond ourselves.
Tribal stories are not only found in
Lawrence, or in the deep dark Africa, but in the Bible. Israel tells its story
each year in Passover and all the feasts. How God delivered us and made us into
a people for Himself.
And the Church does it with communion
each Sunday. We tell the story of the cross and the resurrection. That’s the
place where we make sense of it all. Our own shame. Our own failures. All the
things that make us angry. God was nailed at the cross. It centers us better
than a down dog in yoga. It centers us better than one toke over the line. It
centers us to find Y’shua nailed to the roman cross.
Friends, this is not so much a reunion
as a homecoming. Like the Jayhawks do or Lawrence High School does each fall.
Oldies gather back to celebrate the past and hope for a good future.
But in Christ we know Hebrews 6.10 is
true and will ever be true. It is about that future that we are convinced.
”For God is not unjust so as to
forget your work and the love, which
you have shown toward His name, in having ministered
and in still ministering to the saints.” (Hebrews 6.10)
In other words, we can spend this
weekend looking backwards and dreaming of ‘the good old days.’ That’s not
useful. We can spend this weekend saying then was then, but now is now and
discount the past. That’s not useful. Or we can look backwards, ponder what God
did in the past, use it to strengthen us today to His good work, and ponder
what we are to become in the future.
It’s that understanding that gives
me the title of this talk, “Then, and now.. and then.” I believe that in the
future the Mustard Seed Church will continue and will thrive and be a bold
witness for Jesus in Lawrence and beyond. I hope that the few hundred which
worship here will continue to grow and the Matthew 17.20 verse will remind us
that we have a long way to go until mountains are moved. We are small but “Jesus
presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a
mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than
all other seeds; but when it is full
grown, it is larger than the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the
birds of the air come and nest in its branches” (Matthew 13.31-32) We started
small, very small, and have grown and ministered to thousands of people over
the decades. And we have miles to go before we sleep, amen?
Thanks
to Dr Barry Foster and all who helped him for organizing this weekend.
Thanks to Pieter Willems for continuing to lead this church well into the 21st
century. Aren’t you looking forward to what God will do tonight and tomorrow?
And until He returns? And then His return?
Final prayers...
No comments:
Post a Comment