Pilgrim People

This is the sermon I gave at First Congregational Church of Maltby on Sunday, August 14, 2016.

Pilgrim People

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

August 14, 2016

Scripture: Matthew 18:20

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Ever since I came back from the 2016 Annual Meeting of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches in Detroit last June I have wanted to talk to you about what it means to say that we are a Congregational Church. Today, after worship, we’ll have our annual church picnic. That’s a time of fun and relaxation when we just enjoy being together as a congregation of God’s people. So I thought that maybe today would be a good time to talk with you a bit about our being Congregationalists. Yes, I know that for some of you that identity either doesn’t mean much or doesn’t matter much. I also know that all the research today says that people generally don’t care nearly as much about denominational identity as people used to. Still, this church was founded one hundred thirteen years ago precisely as a Congregational church. We still call ourselves a Congregational church. Perhaps you have noticed how in our narthex (you call it the foyer) we make a bit of a big deal out of our being Congregationalists. Congregationalism in this country goes straight back to the Pilgrims who sailed to the New World on a ship called the Mayflower in 1620. We have a sort of tapestry of the Mayflower on our wall out front. We have a few pamphlets sitting on the table out there about being Congregationalists. They have the titles “The Congregational Way of Life,” “The Biblical Basis of Congregationalism,” and “ What It Means to be a Member of a Congregational Church.” We have a line from an early Congregationalist covenant up on the wall too. If a visitor pays attention she will promptly realize that somehow Congregationalism is kind of a big deal with us. It’s kind of a big deal with me too. I’ve never been anything but a Congregationalist, albeit I’ve lived most of my church life in the United Church of Christ. But belief among many National Association people to the contrary notwithstanding, the UCC is thoroughly Congregationalist in its structure. So I’m a UCC Congregationalist serving a National Association Congregational Church.

OK. We’re Congregationalists, but just what does that mean? Congregationalists point to the verse we heard from Matthew as the biblical basis of Congregationalism. For us the Holy Spirit is present in and among the people, not in some rigid hierarchy of clerical authority. Congregationalism is a free church tradition that goes back to the Church of England in the late 16^th century. I know however that while I’m an historian most of you aren’t, so maybe that doesn’t matter much to you. So let’s approach if a different way.

What it means to be Congregationalist is suggested by the very name of our tradition. The word Congregationalist points to the local congregation as the basis of the Congregationalist tradition. In Congregationalism the local congregation of Christian people is pretty much everything. Our congregations are wholly autonomous. There is no institution or person outside these walls that can make us believe anything or make us do anything. There is no institution or person outside these walls that can make us not believe anything or not do anything. It’s all up to us, a local church in the Congregationalist tradition.

Yet there is a bit more than that to being a Congregationalist. Over the centuries Congregationalism developed two other strong elements to what it means to be Congregationalist. One of them is individual freedom of conscience. Perhaps you have noticed that we don’t recite any creed as part of our worship. That’s because we don’t believe that there is any test of Christian faith that a person must pass in order to be a Congregationalist. Yes, we are a Christian tradition, but just what that means is up each member of the church individually. That’s a strong part of being Congregationalist.

Another is Congregationalism’s strong tradition of standing and working for social justice. Congregationalists ordained the first Black man to be ordained in a predominately white denomination in the late eighteenth century. Many of the leading Abolitionists were Congregationalists. When I was in Detroit we visited First Congregational of Detroit, a church still proud of the fact that it served as a final stop on the underground railroad helping runaway slaves escape to freedom in Canada. Congregationalists ordained the first woman to be ordained anywhere since New Testament times in the 1850’s. Congregationalists were prominent in the Social Gospel movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That was a movement that read the Gospel as being largely about social justice for all people, and by the way I think they were right about that. Some Congregationalist congregations both in the National Association and in the UCC have led the way working for the equal rights and dignity of LGBT people. If you don’t know what that means, ask me after the service. So to be Congregationalist means to value local church autonomy, individual freedom of conscience, and Christian social justice work. All of which does indeed add up to being kind of a big deal.

Beyond that, we Congregationalists tend to make kind of a big deal out of our direct historical connection to those Pilgrims who landed in what today is Massachusetts nearly four hundred years ago. We Congregationalists tend to think of ourselves as Pilgrim people. Lots of Congregational churches name themselves Pilgrim Congregational or Mayflower Congregational Church. We’re proud to be the descendants of those first Pilgrims to land in North America.

Ok, we’re a pilgrim church, and we’re pilgrim people. But when I was at that Annual Meeting of the NACCC in Detroit recently I heard someone say some powerful and disturbing things about what it means to call ourselves a pilgrim church and pilgrim people. At that Annual Meeting there is always what they call “the Congregationalism lecture.” It seems to function like a keynote address for the meeting. This year it was given by Rev. William Lange, a Congregationalist pastor in the Southeast Michigan Association of the National Association, the group that hosted this year’s Annual Meeting. Rev. Lange said: Pilgrims are people who are going where they’ve never been before. Pilgrims are people who are doing something they’ve never done before. He said: Don’t harp on the Mayflower if you’re not going someplace you’ve never been before. And don’t harp on the Pilgrims of 1620 if you’re not doing something you’ve never done before. That’s what true pilgrims do. They go someplace they’ve ever been before, and they do something they’ve never done before. That’s mostly what I remember from Rev. Lange’s talk, and I think those are powerful and challenging words for us Congregationalists.

So let me ask you something and ask myself something: Are we going someplace we’ve never been before? Are we doing something we’ve never done before? I actually am doing something I’ve never done before. I’m serving as pastor of a church that is not a UCC church and that is not Open and Affirming, and believe me, that reality sometimes presents me with some pretty significant challenges. But what about us as a congregation? Are we going anywhere we’ve never been before? If so, where? Are we doing anything we’ve never done before? If so, what? I guess you did something you’d never done before when you called a dyed-in-the-wool UCC guy as your pastor a little over a year and a half ago. But beyond that, are we going someplace we’ve never been before? Are we doing something we’ve never done before? Or do we just put pictures of the Mayflower in our narthex and leave it at that?

Well, that picture of the Mayflower in and of itself doesn’t make us pilgrims. Our Congregationalist tradition calls us always to be looking for new ways to be faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our Congregationalist tradition calls us always to be asking “What next?” Where is the Holy Spirit sending us now? What new Plymouth Rock lies in our future? What new Mayflower is going to take us there? Those, I think, are the most important questions before us in these days. I pray that we may explore them together and together find the answers. Amen.