2024.10.29 | This Far By Faith
“This Far by Faith”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring, Senior Minister & Executive Director
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Sunday after Pentecost, Sunday September 29, 2024
Psalm 124 | Español
The primary text for today’s sermon is based on a page torn from the hymnal of ancient Israel, frequently referred to as the book of Psalms. Psalm 124 is a song that was composed to commemorate one of the most important periods in our ancestor’s life--the Exodus from Egypt--specifically, the crossing of the Red Sea.
You may recall that our Hebrew ancestors were migrants. They raised sheep and goats and migrated around the ancient near east in search of green pastures to feed their flocks and sufficient water to keep them and their livestock alive.
At a particularly difficult time in their lives, the entire region where our ancestors traveled suffered such a severe drought that there was a famine in the land, and the only way they could survive was to leave that familiar region, and sell themselves into indentured servitude to a king--a Pharaoh--who ruled the land of Egypt.
Pharaoh did not treat our ancestors well. He made them plant and harvest grasses. The stalks of the grasses were referred to as “straw.” They were ordered to mix the straw in with clay and water, and form the mixture into bricks. These bricks were then layed in the construction of buildings that were used for Pharoah’s purposes, which included keeping them enslaved for his purposes.
So when Moses received the call to lead his people--our people--out of the land of slavery to freedom--that call was epic, and the day when he and his brother Aaron and Sister Deborah rose up before dawn, headed north into the wilderness, and God pushed back the water so that the could safely cross to freedom--that occasion was memorable in a grand and glorious way--and someone wrote this song about the occasion. And folks have been singing it ever since as an expression of celebration, and thanksgiving to the Way Maker--the one who makes a way where previously there seemed to be no way.
Today is one of those kinds of days in the life of Eden Church. Even though our congregation and our ancestors has been fortunate--for the most part--to have escaped any form of indentured servitude, there are people here today, and people whose names are on the rolls of this congregation who have suffered significant hardships, and who have migrated here, and found relief and had their hope restored--individually and corporately, and so we are bold to repeat the words of Psalm 124 as we lean into a celebration of our 160th year of life as a congregation.
II
The written and aural history of Eden Church is fascinating, and at times, scary. The most interesting parts are the parts that have yet to be written down. They’re in the aural memory of a few remaining saints, or the muscle memory of those who have already gone to God. Some of the history was so ubiquitous or in some cases so sensitive that people didn’t find it notable enough to write down, or too tender to document. So to some extent, you have to be around for a very long time, listen closely to the ancestors when they get to talking, or read between the lines for what is not said, not written, which is sometimes referred to as the “null curriculum” by educators.
For example, the first week that I was here at Eden I sat down in my office and read Esther McStay’s A Century in Eden that was commissioned by Church leaders on the occasion of the congregation’s centennial. There I learned that during its first 137 years of life, Eden Church had 27 senior ministers and 10 associate ministers. Study the fine print and you’ll see that only 6 of the 37 pastors who served Eden lasted longer than five years. This kind of turnover is very unusual for churches in our denomination.
You may wonder what accounts for such rapid turnover. I certainly did. According to Esther’s official history, the congregation had difficulty retaining pastors because they were not good at meeting payroll. Most people who go into the ministry expect that they are entering a life of service, that they will not be on Fortune 500’s list of CEO’s with the highest compensation in the world, but they/we still need to meet our basic financial obligation, such as rent, utilities, and groceries. When Eden didn’t keep its financial commitment to its pastors, they had little choice but to move to other pulpits.
As a result of these economic circumstances, Eden Church didn’t always draw clergy who were the healthiest or the most fit for the role. Esther McStay, author of A Century in Eden, explains in the first volume of our congregation’s history that the deacons had to take turns keeping one of the pastor’s company on Saturday nights while he was preparing his message to make sure that he was sober enough to preach it on Sunday morning.
On the one hand it’s kind of funny that such a story as this would make the press, especially given that this pastor served during the Victorian era when people tended not to mention unpleasantries. On the other hand, it’s refreshing that Esther and her editors did not leave the story of the alcoholic pastor on the cutting room floor. This truth telling that was shared in a history printed in the mid 1960s reveals Eden’s capacity to acknowledge that our people have feet of clay, including our clergy.
The truth be told, not only have there been alcoholics serving as pastors in this congregation--the other one whom I’m thinking of is now in recovery--there have been several members who have struggled with behavioral health issues of one type or another, and there have been several members and families who have struggled with various mental health concerns.
All this is to say that some struggles that God’s people have grappled with are environmental, some economic, and some political, and others have been psycho-social, such as behavioral and mental health issues. Regardless of our circumstances as individuals, families, and congregations, we hopefully can all appreciate the power and meaning of the lyrics that comprise Psalm 123, and say if not sing these words with gusto.
III
In addition to leaning into our year-long 160th celebration, we are here today to celebrate the completion of two important capital projects: the completion of our Sanctuary window replacement project, and the repainting of the main campus. The successful completion of these projects was not guaranteed, especially given the challenges that the pandemic presented.
I ask you, who launches into the replacement of the sanctuary windows when supply chain delays, inflation costs are on the rise, and pandemic circumstances complicate and stretch out the work plan? Nobody, right? Well, nobody whose windows aren’t leaking, but ours were. So perhaps we can agree, without being too self-congratulatory, that Eden Church has got nerve--even in nervous times. And this is not a newly hatched trait of recent members. Study the history of Eden Church and you will discover that the people who have sat in these pews have always been gutsy people. But that is not all.
They/we have, for example, demonstrated cleverness, ingenuity, and a can-do esprit de corps that is notable amongst our peers. Esther McStay explains, for example, in her history of the first century of our congregation (A Century in Eden) that half of the debt on the the first building that the congregation owned, Pioneer Chapel, was retired in 18 months through a combination of initiatives including pew rent, the hard work of the Ladies Aid, and a $500 grant from the Congregational Building Society. (1) The retirement of such a large debt in 18 months is nearly unheard of in the history of US congregations, especially when you consider that this congregation was founded by failed gold rushers from the Midwest who came to California without capital resources in their pockets, and then failed to make it rich in the gold mines of our state.
Read on in the analysis of Eden Church, and you will discover that our congregation was among the early adapters to the envelope system (which we now refer to as “pledging”) in the late 1880s. This practice helped our financial situation considerably, (2) as did the Ladies Aid’s duck dinners, which drew people from all over town and who paid fifty cents per plate for birds that were raised by our members, and side dishes that were prepared in the kitchens of our Ladies Aid members. (3)
At the turn of the 19th century, the Ladies Aid also funded the church’s operations through bazaars—featuring home made mince meat pie—concerts, dinners, birthday socials, candy sales, lawn parties, and the like. (4)
One of my favorite stories about the Ladies Aid was the way they raised money in 1902 to renovate Pioneer Chapel. According to Esther, the church was re-carpeted and painted, new pews and swinging doors were installed in the Sanctuary, and the entire building was rewired for electricity at a total cost of $1,415.60. How did the ladies meet this challenge?
Simple, they made throw rugs out of the scraps of leftover carpet and sold them to the members. (5)
When the business district of Hayward proved to be a less than ideal location for serene worship and decent parking, the Congregation voted to move PC to Birch Street, near the current entrance to OH, and buy two Quonset huts which they sat next to the creek and used as Sunday School classrooms, while the congregation broke ground for this sanctuary and east wings which was used for administrative and the west wing that was used for the nursery and educational classes on the first and second floors. The fellowship hall, was located on the second floor of the east wing. (6)
The organ and furnace were disassembled. The cupola was sawed off to avoid a tangle with high wires, and later remounted. Then all three units—the chapel, parsonage and cupola—were rolled to our present site from Foothill and A Streets. (7)
Several recall how the last Pioneer Chapel roofing project was accomplished. A group of Trustees led by Bill Seevers sold annuities to the members, with proceeds used to pay-off a loan from the building fund, which was depleted to remunerate the contractor who installed the new roof.
In 1963 when the church’s second-hand Wurlitzer-Hope-Jones organ was on its last leg, Edmund Jensen challenged the membership to raise $30,000 to finance our current Swain & Kates organ. Edmund pledged $15,000 towards the project, and said that he’d pay off the pledge if the rest of the membership would match his pledge by Thanksgiving. Gene Tucker, Brent Tucker’s dad, was charged with the task of selecting the organ builder and overseeing the construction.
Forty years later after the organ was installed, I came to town and shared with this congregation’s leadership the vision of turning around a 50-year decline in membership. To that end, Pastor Brenda (the moderator) went door to door asking tribal elders for advice and support about running a second-mile campaign for evangelism purposes. Together, our members and friends pledged over $75,000 to underwrite local and national evangelism expenses. Folks made good on their pledges. We were then able to contribute $25K to the denomination’s God Is Still Speaking campaign, and fund Eden’s evangelism program for the following three years.
Eden’s most sizable and publicly known gift came in the form of a planned gift from the estate of Alden Oliver. Mr. Oliver’s estate gift afforded Eden Church the capacity to donate half of the land to HARD which is now known as Oliver Sports Park along the southeast part of Hayward, completely renovate the church campus between 2003 and 2007, invest $5M in a community foundation, and set aside about $3M in a Building Reserve Fund, to in part, endow the care of the church property. The reserve fund is far from sufficient to meet the ongoing capital repair and replacement of major systems, so it is still necessary to raise the funds--such as we did for the window replacement project last fall to cover the $138,000 for the window.
The $85K that was required to paint the exterior of the main campus was covered by the Building Reserve Fund which is invested with Morgan Stanley. The Brian Sharpes Group has continuously managed our portfolio.
IV
This whirlwind review of Eden’s history provides several significant examples of our members’ rocky start, leadership and funding challenges that coincided with regional and national trends that we did not control which definitely placed the odds of our success against us, but somehow Eden survived and even thrived. How was that possible? Was it an accident? Dumb luck? Or something else?
We do not worship a God who is harsh or capricious. We worship a God who teaches us that life cannot be lived faithfully without risk. To care, to give, to witness, to trust, to love, to hope—all of these behaviors that are consistent with the Christian life—all require faith. Yes, we’ve come this far by faith, by tossing our hats in the ring as individual members and households to do our part as we are able, and we’ve also accomplished these feets by leaning on the Lord.
As we move ahead into the next decade of our life and witness as a community of faith, we will be repeatedly called to step out in faith, to invest our gifts of time, talent, and treasure in a future that we cannot fully know from our current vantage, and to prepare for the arrival and nurture of a generation yet unborn. And as we do, we will be blessed in ways yet unknown, but not unlike our forebears. Thanks be to God. Amen.
(1) Esther McStay, A Century in Eden (Hayward: Eden Church, 1965), 5.
(2) Ibid., 14.
(3) Ibid., 19.
(4) Ibid., 20.
(5) Ibid., 21.
(6) Ibid., 39.
(7) Ibid., 38.