Hilton Head Island, SC – January 6, 2019
The Chapel Without Walls
I Corinthians 12:12-27; II Corinthians 4:1-12
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. – II Cor. 4:1
The Chapel Without Walls held its first service on January 5, 2004. At four weeks short of sixty-five years of age, I was its organizing pastor. And now, four weeks short of my eightieth birthday, I am still here.
I am going to include far more personal history in this sermon perhaps than in any other sermon I have ever preached. I do so in order for you better to understand how you and I together have come to this point in our lives personally and collectively. I started out in the ministry fifty-four years ago at the Presbyterian Church in Bayfield, WI, a congregation of two hundred members. Then for five years I was one of three assistant ministers on the staff of the three-thousand-member Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. In 1973, I became pastor of the twenty-two-hundred member Presbyterian Church in Morristown, NJ. Then, in July of 1979, I became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church here on the island. At that time it had 650 members, but the island was growing quickly, and within eight years we had 1800 members.
In June of 1996 I resigned from the First Presbyterian pastorate. I became the interim pastor of three large Presbyterian churches in Lynchburg, VA, St. Paul, MN, and Cleveland Heights, OH, and one small Disciples of Christ church in Warren, OH. Lois and I decided to return to Hilton Head, where I would inaugurate a new non-denominational congregation. The first service of The Chapel was held exactly fifteen years ago yesterday. We have met together every Sunday since then, except for occasional, although as it turns out by now, more frequent, hurricanes.
With unbounded --- and also unfounded --- optimism, I blithely assumed that within a few years we would have three or four hundred people who would have become affiliated with The Chapel, and thus a weekly attendance of perhaps 150 or so. In statistical fact, however, the biggest attendance we have ever had occurred a few years ago when it was announced that the Rev. Dr. John McCreight was going to preach his last sermon. For the first several years John was our preacher whenever I was away. Although John was never officially one of our ministers, he attended The Chapel almost every Sunday from its inception until he died last February. Nearly a hundred and seventy-five people attended that day to show their respect and gratitude for a man who had nobly served the Church of Jesus Christ as a minister for seventy years when he delivered his final sermon. Our second highest attendance was the first service we held fifteen years ago yesterday, when about a hundred and thirty people were there. Apparently they just came to wish us well, because that was the only time most of those folks ever attended. We averaged 55 people in attendance per Sunday for the first third of our existence, 45 for the second third of our existence, and for the last five years we have dropped to about 40 on average.
Why do I tell you all this? I do so not because numbers are everything in the Church, because they certainly are not. But they are something. The Chapel Without Walls has been consistently viable, and still is. Nevertheless, our attendance numbers are slowly shrinking, and it behooves all of us to become aware of that fact. However, many other churches are also declining, alas.
One of the things that has been most encouraging to me is that in the relatively short period The Chapel has existed, five retired clergy voluntarily associated themselves with this congregation. Besides John McCreight, a Presbyterian, who was there from the beginning, there also was Dick Keach, an American Baptist. He was with us for over ten years until he died. Then came John Melin, a Lutheran, who became and is still our associate pastor. Later, there was Bob Naylor, a United Church of Christ minister, and Adrienne O’Neill, a United Methodist minister. For a very short time we had a co-pastorate of Melin, Miller, Naylor, and O’Neill. John Melin and his wife Barbara then moved back to France for a while, Bob Naylor moved back to Massachusetts, and Adrienne and her husband moved to Mississippi to be near their daughter. Then, as the prophet Elijah said, I, I only, was left, until the Melins providentially moved back to Hilton Head Island. In any case, it has been a blessing to me to have been surrounded by so fascinating a cloudlet of clergy witnesses during many of these years. I concluded we must have been doing something right to have all those clerical colleagues within our merry band.
However, I made another miscalculation before our first service was held. I supposed that we soon would be like most congregations, with people of all ages, including children. In fifteen years we have had less than fifteen island residents under the age of eighteen who ever attended, and most of them for only one or two Sundays. We did have one child who came with his parents for perhaps three years or so, and then he and they both dropped out, much to my chagrin.
As I said earlier, I was a month short of 65 when The Chapel was organized. I was then several years younger than the average age of those who regularly attended The Chapel in the early years. I am soon to begin my ninth decade. I am closer to the average age for those who come here on a frequent basis, but I suspect I am still statistically a tad younger than average by a year or two. From this I deduce that we can safely be described as an old congregation in terms of the average age of our people. Initially I never envisioned The Chapel being a congregation of senior citizens, but that is truly who we are.
Consciously and subconsciously, that reality affects all those who consider The Chapel Without Walls to be their church. Years ago a very talented writer named Effie Leland Wilder lived at the Presbyterian Home in Summerville, SC. She wrote a book called Out to Pasture But Not Over the Hill. It was about what life is like in a retirement home. I gave a copy to my mother when she lived her last years in a retirement home in Dixon, IL. Effie Leland Wilder (what a great name for a grande dame southern lady!) told, in an hilarious fashion, about life among the old folks in Summerville. I happened to meet her there when I was on the board of the Presbyterian Homes of South Carolina. She was then a very live-wire nonagenarian.
Getting older can be a hoot, if we allow ourselves to perceive it as such. When Lois and I moved into The Seabrook four years ago, she remembers my saying to her a couple of days after we were there, “Older people either seem to have lost their filter, or they choose not to use it.” I don’t recall having said that, but if she remembered I said it, there is no question that I did. She remembers everything, and I remember far too little, which is a most unfortunate trait for a pastor. Furthermore, I notice with more frequency that drawback is only getting worse.
I made two incorrect assumptions about The Chapel Without Walls before we officially began. I thought we would be larger than we are, and I thought we would have all ages in our congregation. Because neither came true, and because some older people tend to say things they might not have said when they were younger, I too find that my filter either seems to be defective or I choose not to use it. Not having the constraints of being in a denominational setting may also contribute to my elderly let-it-all-hang-out attitude. Without question I have said things from the pulpit in The Chapel I never would have said in any previous pastorate. Nevertheless, I think many of what I consider my best sermons I preached here in the Chapel setting.
I also want to repeat something I have said before: being a pastor of a congregation our size also has been the happiest pastorate I have had in 54 years of ministry. Large churches are more stressful than small churches, and greater numbers of people in worship invariably affects the nature of worship. Things are more casual here than they were even in Bayfield, Wisconsin, where there were almost a hundred in attendance each Sunday, or Warren, Ohio, where there were about seventy-five. I can honestly report to you that it is almost a totally unmitigated pleasure and not at all a burden to be the pastor of The Chapel Without Walls!
A year and a half ago The Cypress graciously and generously agreed for us to hold our services here in Cypress Hall each Sunday. Our average attendance increased by 28% the first year we were here. Now our older congregation finds itself in a retirement community, having previously been housed in four different locations. For over ten years we met in the sanctuary of Congregation Beth Yam, the island’s sole synagogue. Thus in our decade and a half of existence, we might accurately also title ourselves “The Peregrinating Parish of Paradise Island.”
The move to The Cypress was carefully and intentionally thought out. If we turned out to be a church of senior citizens, we may as well hold our services in a retirement facility. This move has been very beneficial for us. At first only about 20% of those who attended were Cypress residents who had previously been regulars at The Chapel; now perhaps 40% are Cypressians.
I would postulate that well less than one per cent of American congregations are founded with a membership almost entirely of people 65 and older. Throughout the world probably not one-tenth of one-per cent fit that description. Therefore, since we are such a rarity, perhaps we should ask ourselves this question: How should we operate as a church of senior Christians?
From our inception, we never intended to be a “full-service church,” whatever that might connote. We would never own our own building; instead, we would rent space. Worship was always going to be our primary focus, and we did not plan to have a wide variety of activities. We have never had a choir, nor are we likely to have one. This limits us in one way, and liberates us in another. Each Sunday after the coffee time there is an open forum, in which usually at least a third of attendants participate. We have excellent, if somewhat repetitive, discussions. Two weekly classes are held, one here and one at Seabrook. Now and then we have a social gathering.
Should we have a parish nurse or a geriatrician? If so, should they be volunteers, or should they be paid? Are there other activities you think we should consider? If so, I hope you will let me know, either in a phone call, a face-to-face conversation, or in a signed or anonymous letter.
Jesus of Nazareth was the originator of the theological framework of Christianity, but Saul of Tarsus was the founder of the institutional Church. Saul (or Paul as he came to be known) wrote two letters to the Christians of Corinth, in Greece, and possibly three or four. The earliest Corinthian Christians were a fractious bunch, unlike the Christians in The Chapel Without Walls, who are truly a peaceful, pleasant, and pleasurable bunch. In his first letter, Paul wrote, “For just as the body does not consist of one member but of many, and all the members of the body, though many, are one, so it is with Christ” (I Cor. 12:12). Then the old warhorse of an apostle made a remarkable observation about the Corinthian Christians, and about all Christians: “You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.” The Corinthians were the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ. Every church in Christendom is part of the body of Christ. Without people, the risen Christ has no body. We are Christ’s flesh and blood in the world.
Then, in II Corinthians, Paul reverted to the theme he started in his first letter. “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart….But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God, and not to us” (II Cor. 4:1,7). The Church of Jesus Christ is a ministry, and everyone in it is a minister. But we are all earthen vessels. We are made of clay, of terra cotta, and thus are breakable, and sometimes, indeed, inevitably, we do and shall break. In any event, we get older, and then, if we are sufficiently fortunate, or maybe not, we get old. But through it all, our earthen-vessel-ness, our unavoidable humanity, displays the power of God! We are all sons and daughters of God! When we worship, we worship God! Through our lives, and throughout our lives, we attempt to live for God! This unique congregation of Hilton Head oldsters (and all Hilton Head people, old or not, are unique) attempts in our own way to give glory to God! Rise, shine, give God glory, soldiers of the cross - - - even if it’s harder to rise and shine than it used to be!
The Chapel Without Walls is what it is. We are who we are. Whatever we are, we are inextricably a part of the universal body of Christ. However, we can advance. Even if you or I personally may be in physical retreat, yet we, the affiliates of The Chapel, must still advance, as best we can and as far as we can. There are people ahead of us who shall become members of this particular body of Christ whom some of us may never know, because we shall not be here to know them. In the past fifteen years, there have been a few hundred different individuals who have worshipped in The Chapel Without Walls, and whose lives thus have been touched in some way by us. We may never know the degree or depth to which anyone has been affected by this unusual congregation, but God knows, and that is more than enough.
The comment I have heard most frequently during the past half century about my preaching ministry has been this: “I don’t always agree with you, but you do make me think!” It would be complete hubris for anyone to imagine everyone would agree with everything anyone said. However, if someone managed to make people think, that would make a preacher’s life, or at least this preacher’s life, worthwhile. The older I have gotten (and I have gotten sufficiently old), the more I have tried to become a rabbi, a teacher, someone who wanted to help others to think about what they believe. I never expected anyone to believe exactly what I believe, because I’m not always sure what, exactly, I do believe. I just keep thinking about it. I also hope all of us continually contemplate and cogitate and ruminate about what --- or Who --- matters most.
As I swiftly approach the starting gate of my ninth decade, a certain factor looms larger in my mind. I being I, I ask such questions as these: How long can I go? How long should I go? How long do I want to go?
Fifteen or twenty or thirty years ago, some of you were active in a church somewhere that had a pastor who then was in her or his thirties or forties or early fifties, and now may be close to retirement age or is newly retired. That person did excellent work in that church. Invite him to come visit you. Sell her on Hilton Head Island as a great place in which to semi-retire. Tell him about The Chapel. Bring her to The Chapel with you when he visits you. The Chapel can’t depend on its founding pastor to live forever. Nobody lives forever, at least not as an earthen vessel. Fifteen years from now I can virtually guarantee you I shall not be the pastor of The Chapel Without Walls. But I trust and hope and pray that somebody else will have this marvelous position in this marvelous setting in this marvelous ecclesiastical community.
Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God, and not to us.