Just Say Yes! to the Inheritance

Hebrews 6:9-12

Rev. Monte Marshall

This morning is the third Sunday of our four week emphasis on giving.  The theme is Just Say “Yes.”  Today’s focus is Just Say “Yes” to the Inheritance.  This is an especially appropriate topic for All Saints Sunday which is a special time in the church year for remembering and celebrating those people who have gone before us and who have been as beloved saints to us.  Let’s pray.  PRAYER

From those who have gone before us, we have received a gift—an inheritance—Travis Park United Methodist Church.  In 1842, a twenty-four-year-old young man named John Wesley DeVilbiss, volunteered to leave his home in Ohio and travel to a foreign land as a Methodist missionary.  The foreign land was the Republic of Texas. 

In his first assignment, DeVilbiss was an assistant pastor on a circuit that included five Texas counties:  Jackson, Colorado, Wharton, Lavaca, and Matagorda.  He visited each congregation on his circuit once a month.  Each trip was four hundred miles long.  He covered the ground on horseback. 

DeVilbiss made his first trip to San Antonio in April of 1844 in the company of Presbyterian pastor John McCullough.  It was on this visit that DeVilbiss preached the first Methodist sermon in this city.

Several years later on February 4, 1846, DeVilbiss was appointed to the “San Antonio Mission Station.”  He then moved to San Antonio and secured the regular use of the Court House on the east side of Main Plaza as a place of worship.  He personally built the pulpit and the pews used in the services.  According to Josephine Foreman in her history of Travis Park Church:  “Here [DeVilbiss] organized a Sunday school and preached regularly, often having to contend, however, against the noise of the people who gathered on the plaza to engage in cock-fighting.”[1]  The congregation that DeVilbiss organized 169 years ago is known today as Travis Park United Methodist Church.  This community of faith is our inheritance.  It’s a gift of grace passed on to us by the saints who have gone before us.

And when I say “saints,” I’m not referring to people who reach a level of perfection in their faith that qualifies them for canonization as in the Roman Catholic tradition.  When I say “saints,” I’m referring to all the flawed human beings who have followed Jesus through the years within this congregation with varying degrees of faithfulness.  I’m talking about people like you and me—people who know what it is to be racist, or an oppressor—who know what is to be violent and unforgiving—who know what it is to be unkind and lacking in compassion—who know what it is to say both “yes” to Jesus and “no” to Jesus.  I don’t know about you, but I’m amazed that such flawed saints could have left us with such an incredible inheritance in Travis Park United Methodist Church.    

Now it seems to me that if we interpret the history of our church through the lens of this morning’s scripture reading from Hebrews, then our very survival over the past 169 years is a sign that God has not forgotten us and all of the work that has been done through the generations to build up this community of faith and sustain it as a visible demonstration of God’s love at work in this city.  Consider all that this congregation has lived through:  deadly epidemics, draughts, floods, a devastating fire, a divisive Civil War, economic panics, recessions, the Great Depression, two World Wars, periods of social upheaval, rapid technological innovation, a changing city, the ebbs and flows of congregational life, changes in pastors from time to time, and so much more. 

But through it all, God’s people have been served.  Through it all, sufficient zeal has been generated to keep the church moving forward toward the fulfillment of our hopes and dreams for the salvation of this world—a salvation that we today understand to be the triumph of God’s unconditional love and justice—the same unconditional love and justice that we have come to know in Jesus, the Christ and that we proclaim as essential characteristics of the reign of God. 

Now as we might expect from flawed saints, many have struggled to avoid what the text calls “carelessness” in following Jesus, and some have failed.  The book of Hebrews acknowledges this reality within the church.  Indeed, a major theme in the book involves an exhortation to fend off this “carelessness” or what other translations call “sluggishness.” 

Nevertheless, through it all, faith and perseverance managed to prevail among our forbearers, and for a simple reason:  The saints of the past who have bequeathed to us this glorious gift of Travis Park United Methodist Church, were themselves recipients of an inheritance at the root of it all—namely, the promises of God—promises that include the abiding presence of God with us, the steadfast love of God for us, and a salvation marked by love, justice and peace in every relationship.

Because these promises were graciously received by the people of this church as an inheritance, a rich legacy has been created of lives transformed, a city blessed, and the world flavored a little bit more by God’s goodness.  Ponder the evidence:

• Countless baptisms, weddings and funerals that have taken place within this congregation. 
• Thousands have drawn closer to Christ through worship, education, fellowship and service. 
• Hundreds of pastors have been ordained in this sanctuary and sent forth to serve. 
• In 1895, the San Antonio Rescue mission was formed when a brothel owner named Madame Volino responded to Christ through the ministry of this congregation, and transformed her house of ill repute into a home for women having children out of wedlock, and an adoption agency.  This ministry still exists in revised and expanded form as Providence Place.
• The Upper Room Devotional Guide that is now circulated around the world, began in this congregation. 
• Through the years, this congregation has given birth to other Methodist churches in San Antonio.. 
• And of course, today, Travis Park United Methodist Church is known for its ministries to the poor and the homeless through Corazon Ministries, Inc., its ministry to women in recovery through Deborah’s House, and its openness, as a reconciling congregation within The United Methodist Church, to all persons regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Now in this particular season of our congregation’s life with a focus on giving, it’s important note that generosity has played an essential part in building and sustaining the inheritance that is Travis Park United Methodist Church.   I’m amazed, for example, by how much John Wesley DeVilbiss gave of himself to further the work of Christ in his day and time.  The hardships he endured leave me in awe.  And others whose names are less prominently remembered, gave as well. 

It’s also the case that when DeVilbiss was assigned to the San Antonio Mission Station, he was given $200 to fund his work.[2]  When our Methodist ancestors built their first building called Paine Chapel on Soledad Street, John Rabb donated the lumber from his sawmill in Fayette County, over 100 miles away.  He hauled the wood on oxcarts to San Antonio, free of charge.[3]  The property upon which this sanctuary now stands was given as a gift in 1882 by church member James T. Thornton.[4]

This morning, I thank God that these few examples of giving are but a drop in a very large bucket.  Needless to say, if it had not been for the generosity of the saints who have gone before us—through gifts large and small—there would be no inheritance for us to receive today.  And needless to say, our generosity is absolutely essential if we are to build upon the inheritance and sustain it for those who come after us.

And I also thank God that joyful generosity is still a part of the DNA of our congregation.  And to bear witness to this fact, I call upon Phil and Shirley Watkins.  They’ve been in this congregation for a long time.  And they’ve been blessed to know a few of the saints who have gone before us in more recent years.

WITNESS

I have but one thing to add.  I invite you today to just say “yes” to the inheritance, and then, let that “yes” influence your giving.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

REMEMBRANCE OF THE SAINTS

Poet and artist, Jan Richardson, offers this prayer:

“For those who walked with us,

this is a prayer.

For those who have gone ahead,

this is a blessing.

For those who touched and tended us,

who lingered with us while they lived,

this is a thanksgiving.

For those who journey still with us

in the shadows of awareness,

in the crevices of memory,

in the landscape of dreams,

this is a benediction.”[5]    

Amen.