Anniversaries & The Spirit

 

The Day of Pentecost / Year C

The Day of Pentecost is an occasion for us here at St. Paul’s to celebrate some special anniversaries.  The first one we mark is the birth of the Christian Church.  (Now, let me apologize in advance because this sermon is going to involve a lot of numbers and dates, but hang in there with me.)  I am sure you all remember my sermon from January 5, 2020 where I laid out the case Jesus most likely was born in the year 4 BC.  Scholars speculate he was 33 years old when he was crucified (I’ll spare you the math).  If all of this is correct, then the Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell upon the church took place in the year 29 AD.  This means today is the 1996^th anniversary of the birth of the Christian Church. 

Today is also the day we observe the 383^rd anniversary of the founding of our parish in 1642.  In Colonial Virginia the General Assembly established parishes based on the system we inherited from England.  Each parish, governed by a single minister and a vestry composed of local elites, was the civil and religious authority covering a designated geographical territory. 

The parish vestry becomes the layer of government most accessible to the people.  They were charged with a variety of tasks:

· Selecting a minister and seeing to his pay.

· Caring for the poor as well as tending to the needs of illegitimate children.

· Maintaining roads and providing ferry services.

· Presenting moral offenders in court.

· Establishing property boundaries.

· Regulating farming activity, especially tobacco.

· Setting an annual levy (often the single, largest tax people had to paid).

Many of these duties were set up by an Act of the General Assembly in year we were founded, so our parish was formally established at a time when Virginians were beginning to think more deeply about the need for local governance throughout our colony.

And last, but not least, today marks the 130^th anniversary of the first service held here in this beautiful space.  Prior to here, we held services in a church we built in 1846 on a site now occupied by the Obici Foundation house.  As early as 1877, just 31 years after it opened, the Vestry began to consider options for a new building.  The Wright family operated the Allegany Hotel thirteen properties to our south on the same side of Main Street.  Their lot had 70 feet on frontage on Main Street and ran west 273 feet to a creek under what is now Clay Street.  We purchased this site on March 18, 1891 and broke ground on April 29 two years later.

Here are some things you may find interesting:

·  At least three factors drove the decision to relocate.  First, the 1846 building was too small to meet our needs and the property was landlocked limiting our ability to grow and expand.  Another impetuous to move here was to get closer to the center of downtown Suffolk life which had shifted from the waterfront to the intersection of Main and Washington Streets.  A final factor driving the move might have been a simple motivation to put some distance between the solemnity of our worship services and the noise of the Eastern Seaboard railroad tracks. 

·  A newspaper article stated, “The church now in course of construction will be commodious and of very handsome design.”

·  In 1894, the Vestry voted to have the church wired for electric lights and said it was in favor of heating the church by hot air.

·  No thought was given to parking because there were no cars at the time.  Most people walked to church, but there were a few hitching posts out front for those who came on horseback or in a carriage.

·  Our church building fit snuggly against our neighbors on our original deep but narrow lot and, unlike the other churches and homes on our block, the founders sited it a considerable distance back from the street, leaving open the possibility of one day having a walled-in parish grounds similar to many Anglican churches in England.

·  Heating problems and leaky roofs emerged within a few years of the opening service.

Here at St. Paul’s we do not worship our past, but we do remember it, we learn from it, and we give thanks for the faithful men, women, and clergy who, in their day, did their part.  Without their efforts, guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit at work in and through them, we would not be here today.  Because we sense the same Spirit is at work in our midst in our time, we see ourselves as being a part of an on-going witness.  And, by the grace of God, we trust their work and ours will go on long after we are gone.  As we said during our 375^th anniversary celebration, our aim is to connect with our past to cultivate our future. 

I am intrigued an effort throughout the Mid Atlantic to revive long-leaf yellow pine trees.  It was once incredibly abundant but became near extinct due to over-foresting.  These trees typically have a lifespan of 400 years.  We will be celebrating our 400^th anniversary in just 17 years and wouldn’t it make a statement if at this milestone we planted a long-leaf yellow pine or two on our church property with a plague dedicating it to the congregants who will take part in our 800^th anniversary in 2442.  That would say something to them, for sure, but even more it would say something important to us and to the community about our trust God will faithfully shepherd this place for generations in the years to come. 

Today we give thanks the Holy Spirit Jesus promised has been with us in the past, is in our midst today, and will be present in our future.