Imagine Together

When we have imagined together, look what our church has done!  And what more can we do?

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Transcript

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC

San Diego, California

Rev. Dr. David Bahr

david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org

November 24, 2024

“Imagine Together”

Romans 8: 22-25 – Common English Bible

We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now. 23 And it’s not only the creation. We ourselves who have the Spirit as the first crop of the harvest also groan inside as we wait to be adopted and for our bodies to be set free. 24 We were saved in hope. If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. Who hopes for what they already see? 25 But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.

“Can you imagine it?”  Imagination is crucial to a vital, alive, spiritual life, but it’s sad how often people say things like, “That’s only your imagination.”  Or, “There you go again, just imagining things.”

Sure, sometimes we need people to “get your head out of the clouds” or out of the sand.  Daydreamers at work or school can be frustrating and feel like their wasting the time of those who are more sober and hard working.  We need people who can just “get things done.”  But don’t we also need people who can imagine what’s never been done before.

One time at the dedication of a magnificent new building, the master of ceremonies lamented that the architect had died before she could see her brilliant work complete.  “Isn’t it a shame that she couldn’t see her work finished?”  A wise soul in the audience remarked, “But she did see it.  That’s why it’s here.”  We need people who can picture what most of us could never imagine.  

Paul said to the small, beleaguered Christian community in Rome, “If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope.  Who hopes for what they already see?”  So he might have said, “You’re not being imaginative enough.  Give yourself permission to dream bigger dreams.”  Well, Paul probably wouldn’t have said that exactly.  He was a pretty serious guy but, then again, he wouldn’t have stood against such tremendous persecution and imprisonments and sailed through dangerous seas to spread the gospel if he didn’t see what didn’t yet exist.

In our passage, Paul then adds, “If we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.”  To wait in hope, not knowing exactly what it is that we are waiting for.  Sometimes that’s all we can do.  However, I would say that the example of Paul’s own life was that hoping isn’t enough.  While we are waiting, are you getting ready?  Are you putting in the work or just wasting your time?  

You see, back to the dedication of the architect’s magnificent new building, “She did see it.  That’s why it’s here” is only half the story.  Yes, we need people who can picture what most of us could never imagine.  We also need people who can build it.  And others, for example, who know how to finance it, fundraise for it.  And, the list of who we need keeps going.  People who bring lunch to the workers.  People who teach the next generations of dreamers and builders and so on.  That’s why we must imagine, and build, together.  And that’s what I celebrate here today.

Before we ever did it, someone once visualized tables in our parking lot covered with boxes of big green heads of broccoli and crisp stalks of celery, cases of bright red peppers and long orange sticks of carrots.  Someone saw this and said, we could help feed our neighbors.  

One of my favorite lines in the communion liturgy says, “we come in remembrance and celebration of the gift of Jesus Christ, whom you sent, in the fullness of time, to be the good news.”  Jesus was born, could only be born, when the time was right, in the fullness of time.  Which we don’t control, for which we can sometimes only wait.

And in the fullness of time, (START FOOD PICTURES) volunteers who may not have known they had been waiting for just such an opportunity jumped right in.  Now, because someone saw it first, every third Tuesday you can see volunteers show up to roll and carry tables outside and set them up.  Then you see volunteers unload $1,000 worth of produce from a red pickup full of cases of fruit and fresh vegetables.  They lift those heavy boxes onto tables.  And still more volunteers then walk up and down the tables adding all those items plus potatoes and protein and more to fill 150 grocery bags handed to people one at a time.  Plus, another table along the side to hold cabbages the size of human heads.  And why not add a little more hospitality, so this past Tuesday we offered cups of coffee and pieces of pumpkin pie for our 100 plus guests.  And then it all has to be torn down and put away and preparations made to do it again next month.  It’s a lot of work, only possible because we do it together – combining physical labor with financial contributions and prayer.  Because someone imagined it and got ready for when the time was just right.  (PICTURES OFF)

Long before it was built, Mr. Green and Rev. White saw a 13-story tower sitting on the corner over there.  They saw it and church members embraced their vision to sponsor a safe and affordable home for low income seniors and then continue to serve for decades as the board to steward this precious legacy, which might have been it – a sufficient-enough response to the need for low income housing about which we could proudly say, look what we’ve done.  But today this board of our church members and community partners has imagined what we can yet do.  We picture a rainbow of manors – green, and then blue, red, orange, yellow, purple…, not literally those colors but our real participation in building 5,000 more units of housing over the next 20 years.  The legacy of someone who had an idea.  Can you see it too?  Purple Manor.  It’s definitely a together-thing.  People who bring their experience with money and finances, others who understand housing development, others who operate with a business sense and others who bring their talents and skills unrelated to money but who help everyone hold tight to the mission.  And who pray.  We never start a meeting without first praying.  

In 1962, Rev. Jerry McLain and members of First Congregational Church downtown San Diego at 6th and A (Artwork PICTURE) began to think about what to do with their historic structure because the Fire Department had declared it unsafe.  He proposed tearing the church down and constructing on that spot a 24-story affordable senior apartment building with underground parking and a church on top (Green PICTURE).  On top!

The church on top part wasn’t approved, imagine the long wait for the elevator.  The sanctuary was relocated to the first floors, but the rest of the project, scaled down to 17 floors, moved forward, secured a government loan, and news appeared in the San Diego Evening Tribune on January 15, 1965 (Newspaper PICTURE).  

But alas, at just the wrong time, that government program ran out of money and the whole project died, but not the idea.  (PICTURE OFF)  Five years after Rev. McLain’s initial idea, a new committee was formed in 1967 to negotiate with HUD to build First Congregational Memorial Tower.  The author of the history of the tower wrote, “one could never relate, nor could most people ever imagine, all of the details, evasions, rejections, and revisions of red tape that were encountered as the possibility of building was pursued.”  In 1972 they bought land on Park Boulevard just north of Balboa Park.  Ten years after the committee was formed, a loan was finally approved in 1977, and work on the 100 unit, 13-story tower was completed in 1978.  (PICTURE of Tower)  Sadly, Rev. McLain died in 1971 and did not live to see his vision completed, except of course that he did.  That’s why it’s there.  (PICTURE OFF)

But in the meantime, their downtown tower plan rejected, the church considered relocating but decided San Diego did not need another UCC church and it would be best to join an existing congregation.  They just so happened to choose one of the churches they had helped to start in 1911 in Mission Hills, which just so happened to have opened its own senior tower called Green Manor in 1969.  The newly merged congregations took on the rather long name of Mission Hills First Congregational Church until the 1980s when the name was simplified to Mission Hills UCC.  Just this week, following the example of Green Manor, the current members of our church and I who serve as the board for First Congregational Memorial Tower have begun imagining how we can expand our legacy too.  

• Whoever first imagined we could build a house in Tijuana every year?  And how many people has it taken every year to nail those walls together in addition to raising the all money needed to build?
• Who first imagined El Nido, an apartment complex for women and their children fleeing domestic violence, each unit sponsored by a church – including our church?
• Given the vibrancy of our ministry with children, youth and families, about this time last year, Wally and Laura Borschel dreamed of a whole new ministry with older adults.  It was a fullness of time kind of thing.  They gathered a team who did an incredible amount of work on surveys and focus groups which has resulted in amazing programming already like the Second Saturday Series, and this handrail, and much more on its way.
• One of the most fun things we did all year was Kim Antos’ imaginative idea of a Homecoming Sock Hop dance.  Who would have ever imagined a church sock hop with members in poodle skirts who had graduated from high school all the way back to 1959 and children who will graduate in 2039!  
• I’ve always had a dream to take people on a civil rights pilgrimage to Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham.  I’ve been waiting for the right time.  And thanks to someone else taking on the logistics, we’re going in September!  Thank you, David Jay, for showing up at exactly the right time.  Let me know if you’re interested in our trip. 

I could keep going but we don’t just want to be busy, right?  Each of these are the means to embody our mission of going deeper with our faith, deeper relationships, and greater impact.  Deeper faith is first.  It is out of faith and relationships that impact grows, otherwise the impacts I’ve mentioned could not be sustained.   But neither could they without your generous pledges today.

And of course, how could I forget, who in their wildest dreams ever thought our choir would sing on the stage of Carnegie Hall?!  Should, yes.  Would?   Someone imagined it long ago, and a whole bunch of people who didn’t know they had been waiting patiently jumped up, ready to go.  Did you know you had been waiting patiently?

So, I want you to help me to finish this sermon.  I’ve told some stories and shared some examples.  I invite you to use your colored piece of paper to write, “This is what I’m grateful for at Mission Hills UCC.”  

And on the other side, put your head in the clouds and just imagine what is possible for our church.  You might just be the first person to see it and the rest of us have been waiting for you.