2-3 I'll make you a great nation
and bless you.
…
All the families of the Earth
will be blessed through you."
God promises great blessing, and so Abraham and Sarah put their trust in God, and set out on a journey with God to find a new home.
Then we get to the passage of scripture that Kristen read for us today. This is one of those great visual images of scripture. They paint this picture. God says: "Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You're going to have a big family, Abram!"
That’s quite a promise that God tells Abraham, dream big. Because you see, he is 75 years old by this time, and he no heir. Having children, sons especially, was so very important in those days. And Abraham and Sarah have no child. And then God comes along and says they will have as many children and grandchildren and great grandchildren as there are stars in the sky. And God says: “I am leading you to a new home and there I will bless you.” Do you think Abraham thinks God is a little crazy?
So if you read the book of Genesis, you will see that God makes good on those promises. Sarah does indeed have a child, when she is well up in years. Abraham is the father of many sons, who become the 12 tribes of Israel.
So, because Abraham and Sarah were faithful and listened to God, they left their homeland, and went out on a journey with God into a new land. These are our ancestors in the faith. They built strong relationships with God. They were blessed, and their blessings are our blessings, We have their roots in those people.
Well today, in our series on the book Life of the Beloved, our theme is “Blessing.” We are blessed. Today is our last day in this building, and I want to give us a chance to reflect on blessing, and what it means to be a community that celebrate blessing. You see, the story of Abraham and Sarah, and God’s promise to give them descendents as many as there are stars in the sky speaks to us too.
As a new church, I believe God makes that promise to us. I believe God says to us, that if we are faithful, our ministry will touch lives with that same impact. We are coming up on three years of being a church. We have already seen some people come here and go. Sometimes it’s hard to see people go. I need to tell you that it’s just the nature of Church in the 21st century. Some people come to our church for a season, and then they move on. Of course we want to hold on to more people longer, when we can. But sometimes circumstances just mean that people aren’t going to stay with us forever.
I want to invite us to see that even when people come through this place for a short time, they can be touched by this ministry and blessed. And you just never know how God will use them, and you never know what impact this community has had on them. Just think about how you have been blessed by being here. And even if some circumstance took you out of Toledo tomorrow, you would take with you the blessing of The Village, with you?
So I’d like to tell you a story about how blessings come back to us. Thirteen years ago this summer I met a young boy at a block watch party in our neighborhood. I was passing out information about the free summer lunch program at our church and I invited him to come. He was about to enter the 6th grade at the time, at Glenwood Elementary School. Our family had just moved to the Old West End so I could be the pastor of Central United Methodist Church, a 100 year old inner city congregation with about 28 people in worship, about half of them gay and lesbian.
Central was a site for the summer feeding program for children in the central city who might need a free lunch in the summer. I had only been on the job a couple of weeks, as pastor, when one day the cook for the summer food program did not show up for work, and I found myself in the basement fellowship hall trying to fix lunch for 60 kids. Oh yes, and it was my day off, so I had no child care for Becca, age two months there with me in her baby stroller. You can imagine it was quite a sight.
This young man shows up with his smiling face and offers to take care of my baby while I cook. I’m a bit skeptical because I don’t know this kid, but I am desperate, so I let him push her stroller around the fellowship hall while I cook. On that day, our family friendship was born. Over the years he has mowed our grass, (and weaseled way too much money out of us for that service, I might add), joined us for dinner, stopped by our house on Christmas morning for the stocking Santa left at our house, and he even went to Cleveland the next summer with the folks from Central United Methodist Church when we went to a rally to speak out for the full inclusion of LGBT folks in the life of the UMC. I had to call his mom, a single mom who did not attend our church, when he signed up to go on that trip. He was only about 14 at the time. I said, “Now ma’am, do you understand what kind of church we are and that we are going to a national church meeting for a little peaceful demonstration?” She laughed and said, “Yes Pastor Cheri, I know you are good folks, and I told my son he can go anywhere he wants to go with you.”
Some of you will recognize Travis Williams in this picture. He’s 24 years old now, and he runs our Village Kids program. You see, he still has a knack with children. But life has not been necessarily easy for Travis. He graduated from Scott High School. And even though he grew up in the Old West End, which can be a rough neighborhood for many, he stayed out of the gangs and he stayed away from drugs. But it’s a tough road out there right now for a young African American man without much money, and only a high school diploma from a low performing public school district. He would like to go to college and he has a dream of running his own day care center. But right now the only job he has is this very part time job at The Village. Over the past 13 years Travis has drifted in and out of our lives. He would come to Central United Methodist now and then, he attended worship very little. Our family went years at a time without seeing him, but he would always show back up.
The recently when we needed a Village Kids leader, I thought of him because I had heard he was working at a day care center. He is doing a great job. The Walters family is here, right now, because of how at home their kids felt.
And as I work with him each week to plan his lesson for the kids, I am reminded of a mission with Native Americans I learned about in New Mexico many years ago. There was an anglo couple that went to live in New Mexico at the edge of a reservation and they started a Christian ministry by having vacation Bible School with the children of a particular Indian tribe. About 25 years later, they had built up a church, with leaders in it. Those adult leaders had been children that had gone to their Vacation Bible School. Visiting that Christian mission in Prewitt, NM and visiting that elderly couple that had spent their whole life working there, reminded me that growing a ministry takes time. Sometimes, it takes a whole generation of work to build a ministry.
When I look at this picture of Travis and my daughter Rebecca, I am beginning to see the seeds of a generation of ministry coming to fruition from my work as a pastor here in Toledo.
Travis was one of the seeds planted at my last church and his ministry is coming to fruition, here, now with The Village Kids ministry. Thirteen years ago, I NEVER EVER in my wildest dreams when I met Travis 13 years ago, and let him push Becca’s baby stroller around the basement of that church fellowship hall, could have dreamed that he would be leading our Village Kids ministry now.
So when I look at some of the people in our ministry now, some of the people who have already walked through these doors, even those who have moved on, I wonder, what might God do with some of us to change the world?
I’ll tell you about one. Many of you know Edie. On the first day we opened for public worship in this space, in October of 2009, Edie showed up. At the time, Edie was mostly living as Ed, then, but she knew that she was ready to become Edie. She walked right up to me after that first worship service and said to me, “I read in the paper that you are a pastor who includes LGBT people in your church. Do you really mean it when you say you want to include transgender people? Because we need a church in Toledo that will really welcome us. And we need to start a support group for Trans people in NW Ohio, because there isn’t one.”
I told Edie, who looked more like Ed that day, that I did not have much experience with transgender folks. Most of my experience thus far had been with gay and lesbian people. But that if she was willing to be patient with the fact that I would probably make some unintentional blunders, that yes, of course, it would be my privilege to be her pastor and yes, we would help start a support group here at The Village. And that’s what we did. One of our first ministries here at The Village was the NW Ohio Transgender support group that had more than 25 people at its first monthly meeting here back in 2010.
Now some of you have probably noticed that Edie has not been here much the past few months. You might be concerned that she has left our church. When people leave our church, it might make us feel like we have done something wrong, like we have failed them. Maybe they have gone to another church because they don’t like something about this church. This could not be farther from the truth. I asked Edie to write a letter to explain what The Village means to her and why she is not here much anymore, and I’d like to read it to you:
Saturday, February 25, 2012
To my friends and family at The Village,
As the Time draws near for The Village to leave its residence at Monroe and Central and move to the Maumee Indoor Theater, I want to explain my absence. I hope that this letter of explanation will reassure those that feel or think that I have totally left The Village that I have not!
Slightly over two years ago, I was searching and struggling to find a community for my faith, to be accepted and allow me to praise our Creator. The Village was that answer. As time moved forward, through the assistance of The Village, I was able to feel accepted and guided to form the Transgender Support Group, become a charter member to form the UCC GenderFold Action Alliance (for the transgender) and then to sit with the UCC LGBT Coalition to rewrite the educational material for the ONA process to include the Transgender.
All of these things took place as I was struggling with my other personal issues, divorce and transitioning. It was the strength that I received from the community at The Village that saw me through those times. Approximately 6 months of attending The Village I had a conversation with Pastor Cheri and informed her that it had been placed on my heart that I would not remain there for ever. That God’s plan for me had just begun and the Village is where I was to only plant my roots. I was not sure where or when I would be going but I knew that in time I would branch out. That time has come.
This last fall I became aware of the Sylvania UCC starting into training to become ONA certified with the National UCC Church. God guided and supplied me with a means to become involved in that process. I had to make a hard decision prior to Christmas to physically walk away from The Village and the community I knew so well and become active with a new community at Sylvania. I felt this was necessary to help them accomplish their goals and be able to be all inclusive to people. I have since been approached to become a member there, while knowing my ties with The Village.
I have declined and explained to them the same thing I told Pastor Cheri. The difference for Sylvania is that my roots still, and always will, belong to The Village and they are just a portion of the vine I am to create for God’s service.
The work that I am to do was started and reassured while at The Village. I know there is possibly more that I could do at here but it is also in my heart that the “COMMUNITY” I left is strong enough to maintain the soil that my roots are planted in and allow me to thrive in Gods service where ever I am. I will always look to The Village and call it “HOME”!
Let me be an example and challenge the members of my Village family, while maintaining the soil, plant your seed so it can sprout into a form of service for our Lord and allow it to grow and mature, where ever!
In Gods Love and Grace,
Edie
You see, she can’t stay here with us. There are other churches that need to understand what it takes to be a welcoming church to transgender persons. They can only do that when a transgender person of faith, like Edie, is willing to walk with them, and tell her story, to challenge them and love them. It would be too easy for Edie just to stay here with us and love and be loved. She has a higher calling. And we gave her the strength to go live out that calling. I wanted her to be here today, but she needs to be the one leading the Children’s Message at Sylvania. So she sent that letter.
God said to Abraham: “Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You're going to have a big family, Abram!" And God made a covenant to be their God if they would be God’s people.
I can see that God is already blessing us the way God blessed Abraham and Sarah. We are part of that covenant. Travis Williams grew up in one of God’s churches and now comes here to bless our children. Edie found her way here, and now this infant church sends her out from The Village to bless others because of the strength we have given her.
I see the way God blesses our community every week. I see the way you care for one another, and seek to be a blessing to the greater world out there. We have been a blessing in this location, and we will be a blessing in our next location in Maumee too. We are blessed, just like Abraham and Sarah because we put our trust in God.
Now I would like to give you a chance to give thanks for the blessings you have experienced with The Village. We are having a little party today to celebrate the ministry that we have birthed in this space, as we prepare to move to our new space, so I’d like to give you a chance to share your favorite memories of blessings. Would anyone like to share a memory of a favorite experience, or give thanks for a blessing of The Village community?
Cindy shared the blessing of our music and how much it has meant to her. Rock shared how she thought this was a crazy church, except Betty calling her, connecting with her and inviting her back. Then she knew she had a church. She said “ I’ve been truly blessed by everyone here”.
Terri shared how she had met Tianda & Bea at work, had retired and never expected to see them again, but found them here. She went to check out her Brother Allen’s church family and found hers. We feed the hungry every month now, thanks to the Village (and the Village does thanks to Allen and Terri).
Patrick shared how he found God again, having been alienated from religion and now is happy to be back. Graham found us as a fluke, having been a member of another faith community, but being a part of a group who needed space, checked us out. Having tried the Village, he thought this was a crazy place, but a place where everyone was never more accepted. And found himself a part of that community and is excited to be a part of our new home. The whole world should be like the Village.
Shelly shared how she never had gone to a church by herself and the first thing someone did was hug her. The Village has gotten her through a tough year. Teresa celebrated how in a very short time she and her partner have found a new home and family. A great big family is what Rock added. Russell shared how the people, the hugs and the community helped him find himself and the Lord again. Amy grew up in a very Lutheran home. She was afraid to be a part of a liberal church. But again, strangers hugged her, welcomed her, let her put herself out there, vulnerable to share who she was, and found a home.
As we closed, Cheri reminded us all how we all were out there without the Village. We were adrift, going through the motions, not experiencing the deep joy of God. There are many more people out there who need this. Who don’t have church home, a family like this. They need a place like ours. And they are out there, waiting for an invitation. Continue to pray about who might need this blessing.
Are you out there, looking for a home like this? Do wait for one of us to find you in the real world. We are out there looking for you. But you can find us yourself. We were at the corner of Monroe and Central, but next Sunday we will be at the corner of Conant Street and the Anthony Wayne Trail, in the Maumee Indoor Theater, at 10:30. Come join us, we’ve got God’s love, acceptance, caring to share and we want to empower you to go out and share that with us in our world.
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