Confession:  I’m an audiobook addict.  I listen to a lot of them, using two separate audiobook apps.  I listen to a wide variety of genres—detective stories, spy stories, police procedurals, literary fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction, memoir, young adult, and even the occasional theologically inclined piece of writing.  When it comes to the historical—fiction and nonfiction—I’m especially drawn to stories that are, one way or another, oriented to the sea and involve disaster.  I loved The Terror, by Dan Simmons (historical fiction, with a horror twist) and that led me to other stories about the doomed Franklin Expedition.  And, some of those other audiobooks led me to stories about Norwegian exploration of the Arctic—very different from the British approach.

Through these various books, I have learned a great deal about the exploration of alien and harsh environments, along with an awareness of the rather remarkable drive to venture to the outer limits of the known world, whether that be physical, mental, and/or emotional.  I’ve also learned about reckless ambition, greed, and the contempt that some explorers have for those who already inhabit the regions they are eager to explore and claim.  It’s a sober reminder that human beings possess some truly dangerous and problematic tendencies.

What exactly do we learn from the past?  Whose stories are being told and how do we engage in meaningful consideration of those stories that are not told?

Now that Old South Church is creeping ever so slowly to a closing on the sanctuary building, we find ourselves at something of a crossroads.  We look forward to what may come once we have broken the tether to the expensive and needy sanctuary building, while we are also taking a moment to look back.  The looking back part is primarily brought to us by way of the digging up of a time capsule that was buried under one of the entrances to the sanctuary building.  Now that we are close to not being owners of that building, a few people declared that it was necessary that we remove the time capsule from its home of more than thirty-five years.  Although the intended date for opening the capsule is not for decades, we just couldn’t help ourselves once it was sprung from its nest.  Although not every carefully and archivally enveloped group of items has been opened, or will be (at this time), a few have been opened.  

The perusal of items, and the lists of contents of unopened envelopes, has brought a range of responses.  We laugh at the photos of people wearing weird outfits.  We pause in silence at photos of or pieces written by precious people we remember, who are no longer with us.  We catch our breath at photos of the full choir loft.  We smirk at the carefully packed fundraising packet, championing the fundraising efforts in the 1980s, along with the note, “Thought you might need this!”

Amid all of these various items—the photos, the written pieces, the ledgers—I find myself wondering about the stories that are missing.  Way back in 2007, I officiated at the funeral of a young man.  He had died from injuries suffered in a terrible accident in California.  His family had been one of those bedrock families of the church for decades.  When they brought his remains home for a service at the family church, the parents, who were no longer active at Old South, admitted to me that their son had never felt welcome at the church.  He had known he was gay since he was a young child, and had heard many gay slurs while in the company of the church community.  The former minister who was present at the planning meeting for the funeral suggested that we just not mention it.  I insisted that we not just push the issue aside, that we needed to offer a clear and open welcome.  The church had not quite adopted its Open and Affirming statement, but it was working on it, at the time. It broke my heart that this young man would experience his first welcome at his home church on the day of his funeral, but it was important this welcome be unconditional—for him, for his family, and for his friends who would gather to remember him.  What stories might he have told about the church of his childhood?

Like other Christian communities, Old South is called to engage in its easily accessible history, as well as those aspects of its history that are more hidden and even ignored or intentionally dismissed.  These less accessible histories, by their nature, may be more difficult to consider, but that doesn’t mean we should allow them to linger in the dark recesses of the communal memory.

In delving into the church’s history, reflecting the good and the not so good, allows the community to recognize and appreciate that we are a work in progress, and always have been.  It can be all too easy to gaze upon old photos of large groups of people, and read the minutes of meetings that led to the construction of a second building when the Sunday School ballooned in number, and think that the church of the 1950s, 60s and 70s was some sort of pinnacle achievement.  If we stick to looking only at what’s been preserved, we might actually begin to think that way.  But, a more honest reckoning reminds us that the church of the past had its issues, and often failed in its mission to be the church it was called to be.

We are a work in progress.  The story continues.  We may perceive that there are no disasters in sight, but we are yet being called to explore unknown dimensions of the faith, as God still speaks, inspiring us to stretch our welcome and to share God’s love with others in what too often feels like an increasingly hostile environment.  There’s a lot to do.