Abundant Blessing
II Corinthians 9:6-15
January 26, 2020
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church

The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written,

“He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;
    his righteousness endures forever.”

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

II Corinthians 9.6-15

A group of women living in the Carrollton neighborhood had a vision for gathering children together to tell them the sacred stories of their ancient faith. In 1884, Mrs. Crouch, Miss Eddy, Mrs. Haygood, and Mrs. Nelson organized themselves to start a new endeavor. By April of that year, enough folks had gathered for enough weeks in a row that the gatherings took on a name, and ultimately, the St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church was born. Of course, they didn’t call it that yet, and it would be another 27 years before they moved to the corner of St. Charles and Audubon, but a foundation was laid with the words of sacred story.

Mrs. Crouch and Miss Eddy began the Sunday School class at Cherokee and Maple. Mrs. Nelson raised the money and built the first building of 25’ x 40’ on Mrs. Haygood’s property. Miss Eddy took the lead on organizing and implementing programming. These women believed that the words of their faith tradition were meant to be taken into human experience and lived out. These were words to guide children, shape lives, create new ideas, and spark movements that would shape neighborhoods and cities and even the whole world. I imagine them gathered around a kitchen table some 123 years ago, one of them brought the king cake, another snipped fresh azaleas and stuck them in a pretty little jar, and a third made sure the coffee was strong and plentiful. They sat down at the table on the house somewhere at Maple and Cherokee Streets and started to make their plans.

Who knew someone with money? Who had land to share? What organization would sponsor the new group to lend them credibility and gravitas? What neighboring organizations will back the vision? They brainstormed, they worked their networks, they knew that this idea and hunch that wouldn’t let go of them had staying power. A community of faith, rooted to direct action in life, needed to be formed for the greater good of New Orleans at the uptown bend of the Mississippi River. 

The vision for this faith community continued to grow and expand, always reaching beyond the actual needs of the gathered worshipers with an eye on other people who could benefit from gathering in sacred space. The work of the congregation always reached out into the city, supporting the universities, the birth of a hospital, the growth of a seminary, the work and needs of social movements and community organizations that supported and sustained the wellbeing of neighbors in need. The rhythm was constantly flowing between smart, thoughtful teaching at the growing edge of Christian tradition, excellent, soaring music steeped in history yet borrowing from outside of denominational traditions, and informed, purposeful action in the world.

The women who gathered around that table made a second pot of coffee because the ideas were so quick and so big. They needed a fuel that would send them far into the future, far beyond their lifetimes, far beyond the edges of their imaginations. They could not imagine that some of the biggest, most honored names in 20th century progressive Christian thought would enter the pulpit of that revered space they were imagining. They could not imagine that a movement of training chaplains for pastoral care in a medical setting would be rooted from that uptown corner. They were not yet seeing a time when women led in public office or had the right to vote, but they imagined a community in which women’s voices led and spoke worlds into being. They did not know that the Jim Crow South would be transformed. How could they have imagined the very movement they were starting would be embodied decades later by an outspoken pastor who broadly criticized segregation and also supported by an ambitious, congregation-wide letter-writing campaign through partnership with a Baptist agency in D.C. 

They talked about classes for children and the stories they would tell them. They talked about holding a space for young people to learn together, play together, and grow in the stories of faith. It was surely beyond the farthest edge of their imagination to foresee a space where all people were welcome, truly welcome, and safe to worship as they fully are. Could they have imagined women ordained as deacons and pastors? Would marriage equality have even been a floating fantasy through their daydreams? Could they have foreseen a grand sanctuary sitting high among the oak trees dancing with the music of Mardi Gras? Overflowing to hear a former Secretary of State? Pulsing with organizers and activists and civic leaders and faith leaders working together to dismantle the legacy of Jim Crow and imagine something better than the Carceral state?

The thing they started was rooted in sacred story but had branches heading in so many directions that took the shape of real, life-changing action in their world. The dreams they shared that day around the table are still coming into being, and this is where we make our commitment today. We are making a commitment to each other that we are rooted in this place. We are making a commitment to those women who gathered and dreamed almost 125 years ago. We are making a commitment to our children and their children and into a future that is not ours to see.

Yes, part of our work here is the same as theirs. We will continue to gather, to worship, to tell stories of faith, to teach our young people, to be challenged in our stubborn ways as adults, to allow the Holy Spirit to expand our thinking and assumptions, to welcome the guidance of Jesus to move our steps in holy ways, and to align our hearts with the heart of God. That is what we do here as a people. 

And. We will also continue to tap into their holy imagination taking a simple idea—being a smart, thoughtful, convening, incubating space where sacred story and purposeful action can flourish—and then nurturing that idea for the future. Even in our very wildest and boldest dreams, we cannot fully see what might be here in this place in years to come. Even at the beginning of my lifetime, communities of faith in the American South did not foresee a time when they would not occupy every part of their buildings for private use. It was surely beyond possibility for them that they would remain active in the weekly routine of church life while their adult children did not. They could not have imagined the ways paradigms would shift, but they knew the movement they were dreaming into being would still be relevant and significant in all times.

This is more than an event space or an office building. You can rent out a theater for a wedding and private party. You can take an elevator high above Poydras to a beautifully maintained office space. And goodness knows you can find somewhere to attend a worship service most any day of the week and in most any tradition or style you might prefer. This place does not have to exist for good to happen in our city or in our world. And yet, this place persists. And you and I know that this place more than persists, it has an energy, a presence, a dogged determination to be and to become. When loss and decline chipped away at what the St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church had become at its height, the dreams of the women who imagined a community serving the good of the neighborhood persisted. Their faith must have been deep and their determination must have been absolutely exhausting. Can you imagine if they’d had access to EMAIL AT ALL HOURS, for goodness’ sake?!?

Friends, this is our legacy now. We are living out their dreams. We are sitting at their table and pouring the next cup of coffee. We are making our own lists of networks. Who do we know? Who has resources? Who will listen to our ideas? Who will join us as funders and investors? Who will provide supplies we need? Who will help support our vision for an adaptive, multi-use facility that serves the common good from sacred space for all people of faith and people of conscience? Who can see the potential of old plaster and out-of-date heating and cooling? Who do we need on our design team? Our dreaming team? Our implementation team? What is going to be born here because we dared to imagine from God’s abundance and not the limitations of our own fear?

Centuries and centuries ago, across the world and in another language, a man named Paul wrote a letter to his friends. The friends were a group attempting to stand between the paradigms of what had been and what was becoming, and more often than not when times get challenging, folks want to go back to what has been and let go of the work of what is becoming. Paul wasn’t going to let them give up. Dreaming something new into being takes constant encouragement and lending of bravery. He reminded these friends: “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work…You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God…Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”

Friends, hear those words to you today across time and space and language, from a table far away a long time ago: God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity. Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!”

Hear the clinking of coffee cups and forks on plates as the women at Maple and Cherokee moved from a dreaming place to an implementing place. Imagine the meetings they set up, the requests they made, their boldness in asking for support, property, and funding. Thanks be to God for that indescribable gift! The work they did that day reached across time and the limits of imagination to hold sacred space for us right now at the edge of something new.

We make our pledges today—to support the operating budget of this transformational year, to launch our Sacred Places Capital Campaign and the necessary Endowment Funds that will support and sustain this sacred structure for years to come, and to give shape and support to our missional legacy: The St. Charles Center for Faith + Action. These sisters of ours, these mothers of our congregation, could not have imagined what we are dreaming and doing today. I am confident that even just 2 and 5 years from now, we will be amazed by what is born from the commitments we are making to those sisters, to one another, and to the future of this place. It is an honor to be your pastor and to stand in leadership with you at the edge of this new movement. Thanks be to God for the coffee pourers and cake bakers of the 1890s, thanks be to God for the dreamers and reformers of the 20th century, thanks be to God for the ones who will make a new way for what is coming into being in the decades ahead!