When Momma called to tell me that this service was being held as the last service in this church, I knew that my family would want to attend. When she said that if I wanted to say a few words that I could, I was moved to say yes. As I thought about this church, one particular teaching of Christ kept coming back to me.
“A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.”
(Mathew 13:3-9)
It says in Mathew when Christ was asked why spoke in parables he replied it was given to only a few to fully perceive. For those that could not perceive, the message must be delivered in a way that those that could not see could picture it and those that could not hear could know its sound. During the lifetime of this church we have come to heed Christ’s advice. We who cannot hear, who cannot see, gathered here to glean what understanding we could from God’s word. We came to keep covenant with God and each other. We came to follow in Christ’s way and honor His teaching of Christian love.
If ever a message was meant for a church, this message was meant for this church. This church tended its congregation in the same way that the congregation tended the land about it. Instead of rice, soybeans and oats, this church has raised generations of Gunnells, Shooks, Lairds, Trice’s, Montgomerys, Hastys and others. In the lives of these people, God’s church was the fertile ground that nurtured us as we grew. His grace and love were the rain and sun needed for us to grow and mature.
Since before the turn of the last century, this church has welcomed its family to celebrate, console, counsel and inspire its members, each to their own needs. The lessons received here taught fairness, justice, mercy and love. We learned to forgive, though we would not forget. We learned to love when we could not like. We learned that justice and mercy were delivered from the same hands.
After more than 135 years of continuous ministry to this community, these doors will close. The responsibilities of this church are being passed on to other congregations in other churches. We will continue to gather to hear God’s word from scripture and his inspiration from ministers of the faith. But, we will not hear those words in this familiar and welcoming home.
We might feel that we have been cast adrift, that we have lost our home. As these doors close we might feel that we don’t know where we will find God. But, if we remember, people before us have been forced from their home and made to follow a God that they knew not nearly so well as we do. When Moses led the tribes of Israel from Egypt, they cried out and were afraid. In the forty years that they wandered the desert, God taught them one lesson above all others. He was with them wherever they were gathered. God was not confined to a temple, a mountain or a bush. That is the covenant that God makes with us even today. His covenant is that wherever two or more are gathered in his name, he is there.
Most of us here today are involved in other church families. We lead church lives in addition to when we worship here. Today we celebrate the fact that this church family has a heritage that lives on in our involvement in other congregations. The measure that the harvest was great beyond expectation is in the strength of Christian discipleship that has been fostered under this roof.
In the closing of “A History of Shiloh United Methodist Church and Cemetery” Betty Gean expressed a hope that I think is appropriate to this occasion. With it is a verse from Deuteronomy (6:5-7 RSV).
“This history was written with the hope that the children and children’s children of those of us who grew up in or at some period in life were part of the little, rural Shiloh Church will better understand their spiritual heritage. The truths learned here continue to have a far-reaching influence on lives touched by those who passed through the doors of this church for almost a century.”
“…and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
By F. Lee Hartz
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