The Power of Legacy

The Power of Legacy

A Sermon on 1 Kings 2:1-12 and 1 Corinthians 3:6-9

For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

On The Twelfth Sunday Following Pentecost

Linda Miller Raff and Griff Martin

August 12 2018

Incarnate and Resurrected God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing new reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

Introduction (Griff)

To quote the ongoing creative cannon, a genius walking amongst us, Alexander Hamilton as created by Lin Manuel Miranda: “Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” He sings these words in his final dual, as he is choosing his next chapter and trying to find an answer to one of the central questions to the entire musical: How will history remember me? 

It’s a question that haunts and drives all of us, it’s hard wired into who we are and our very chemical make-up. Psychologist have discovered an entire brain functioning system, the mammalian limbic system which releases chemicals which make us feel happy when we do things that promote reproductive success. It’s why we plant trees, create art, write journals, have children, create foundations, tell stories, make music and pass on secret family recipes. 

One of the things we have learned about legacy is it’s the faith that the seeds you planted will grow in the future even if you don’t know anything about it. It’s Gregor Mendel who at his death thought all this work about genes and DNA were pretty much a flop and much of his self-published work ended up in monastery libraries until one day a scientist stumbled upon it and discovered that Mendel was a genius and had discovered genetics. It’s Van Gough dying and only having received ridicule for his art, he never made a cent off his work while he lived.

On one hand that seems almost tragic for Mendel and Van Gough, but then on the other hand there is something quite beautiful about it… they did not do what they did because they wanted the celebrity, the power, the fame… they did it because they believed in, they loved it and they were called to it. They were all in. Their legacy came about from living their life and their calling.

It’s the very words __ read from 1 Corinthians: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God is the one that caused it to grow.” Or in the words of everyone’s favorite summer find, Mama Tammye from Queer Eye: “Some people plant, some people water, and God gets to increase."

It’s what a church legacy and a saint’s legacy should look like: not doing anything because of the fame, the power and the celebrity, but doing everything because we believe in it, love it and are called to it…. Doing the planting, doing the water but knowing it’s bigger than both tasks and knowing that God will increase. 

It’s what First Austin has always strived for…

The Legacy of First Austin (Linda)

We planted our feet as God’s people in Austin in 1847. There were seven of us then, a very young missionary minister, and no building. Our name was the Baptist Church of Austin. Our city was still a frontier settlement and our state had been an annexed member of the United States for two years. Together, this small group of us made a covenant to serve God and each other, a pledge that we still hold today. 

In 1916, we entered a new building perched on a hill at 10th and Colorado, its white columns gleaming in the sun. In 1963, we reminded the world of God’s love for all people-- and of who we were as a church-- by proclaiming that “we will not now nor in the future, restrict the fellowship of this church to the white race.” On a Sunday morning in 1970, we came down off that hill together and made the journey to this higher hill and into this building, into the downtown heart of our city, into a place where we can see, and feel, and touch the needs of our brothers and sisters. 48 years later, we’re still here. 

We cracked the stained-glass ceiling by being the first Texas Baptist congregation to elect a woman to the position of deacon chair. We left the Southern Baptist Convention because of its increasing spiritual incongruity, and we were escorted out of the Baptist General Convention of Texas because we raised a rainbow-hued flag for all people in the name of love and inclusion and sacred identity in Christ. 

We have planted churches and missions and people and maybe even some ideas—like the possibility that faith practiced together and lived out loud can actually make a difference in the world. For 171 years, this congregation has lifted our hearts and our hands and our voices because we have been called to do so as God’s people in Austin. Our legacy has consistently been one of risk and reach for good. We give thanks that this legacy has brought us here for worship and celebration today, and that it has equipped us for action and compassion tomorrow.  

The Legacy of David (Griff)

This week we come to two conclusions: we end the story of David we have been following the entire summer and we celebrate the end of this chapter of our music ministry and Louise’s leadership and transition into a new chapter.

Logically Linda gets to talk about Louise’s legacy, but that means I get David, which means she has two home court advantages… as the Poet Laureate of our Community she gets to talk about one we are celebrating and one who has impacted all of us…. And me, the stumbler of words in our community, I get David. I start with two strikes.

I have thought a lot about David this summer, I have spent a lot of time with David. I have always said that David is the most human character we have in all of Scripture, it’s one of the reasons I think we are so drawn to Michelangelo’s Statue of David, it’s so life like you almost look to see if it’s breathing…. And that is David in Scripture, he’s just so wonderfully human and at the same time he’s so dang human. 

This summer I have laughed with him, admire him, been reminded of what I love and learn from him but at the same time I have yelled at him, been really angry with him, wanted to disown him. You know this…. David reads anew in this era and it’s not as easy for us, but that does not give us a pass.

Even our text today is not easy. Even in David’s death he is complicated and makes us lean in and lean away….. there is manipulation, there is a struggle for control, there is plotting at the very end and then there is the text we read, David’s parting words.

They start off so beautifully…. “I’m about to go the way of all the earth, but you—be strong; show what you’re made of! Do what God tells you. Walk in the paths God shows you: Follow the life-map absolutely, keep an eye out for the signposts, God’s course for life set out in the revelation to Moses; then you’ll get on well in whatever you do and wherever you go. Then God will confirm what God promised me when God said, ‘If your sons watch their step, staying true to me heart and soul, you’ll always have a successor on Israel’s throne.’

And how I wish he had ended there, if his Last Lecture was just those words…. But again so dang human…. Because then he goes into a tirade about Joab and murder in cold blood, and Shimei who has cursed him and he warns Solomon that he is going to have to, well in David’s words: “make them pay.”

And this week I have sat with David’s words and I have realized that I am so glad no one edited them…. You see there is actually some truth in what he tells Solomon and there is some beauty in the fact he is honest about the story he is inheriting, David doesn’t sugar coat any of it.

And beyond that isn’t it the very Gospel in that it is so human and so real. It’s so us because it’s so true. Legacy is not sugar coating it, legacy is the real us and it’s the fact that those who continue on in our story learn to overlook and forgive what needs to be overlooked and forgiven and choose to remember the good because despite our very human reality, there is more good to us. 

Yeah David was really something and there is violence in his story that makes me want to debate if he belongs in the cannon, but there is also lessons of faith, there is music, there is praise, there is confession, there is friendship, there is dancing with joy… and all of that is what we remember, that’s the legacy. It’s Dorothy Day, who like David was just about as human as could be and before her death issued a pretty strong warning: “Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.”

The Saint’s aren’t the ones who have fairy tale stories and Puritan faith. The saints are those who live, who are brave enough to live and share their lives with us, the saints are those who give their very life to create something beautiful that is going to outlast all of us. It’s brave, it’s bold and it’s beautiful.

The Legacy of Louise (Linda)

From Psalm 57: My heart, O God, is steadfast. I will sing and make music. 

David was in trouble when he prayed this. I suspect that David, a musician, knew that there are times when words lifted up to God, even the most eloquent words, are utterly insufficient. But a melody… a melody barely voiced or one proclaimed with goosebumps of joy connects us to God like lightning. We are shot through with an energy so expansive, yet so intimate, that all we can acknowledge in that moment is the grandeur and the grace and the love overwhelming that is God incarnate. 

And when there are people like Louise Kemp Avant whose lives and very beings are dedicated to building that musical connection, to growing it in our children, to creating it through meaningful worship every Sunday, we have been blessed beyond even the most eloquent words. 

It seems to me that there are people who are born for things. David was born for Israel, and I have always suspected that Louise was born for First Baptist Church of Austin, at least for a time. A winding trajectory brought her here, or rather back to here—the church where she was raised— in 1994 as interim music minster when Bob and Millie Downer retired. Frank Cooksey and I were members of the search committee, and I remember sitting in his living room with other committee members, leafing through the resumes that had been submitted for the permanent position. By this time, Louise had been interim for several months, and one night we decided that there just really wasn’t a decision to be made. Of course it was Louise. But it had probably always been Louise. Because there are people who seem born for things. 

I could spend all my time today talking about the magnificent music we made in this sanctuary over 24 years, or the musicals we staged, or the laughter from Cantamos rehearsals, or the adorable kids’ concerts, or Christmas grams, or Taize or Easter or poinsettias-and-garlands 

or any of the experiences Louise has created with us, but there’s more to this day, and this farewell, than recounting a timeline. This moment, after all, is about legacy.

Legacy has an arc. And every arc has anchor points from which it launches. Louise’s anchors were her parents—her dad and mom and Millie and Bob—  and her brother John. There was also this church family that fed her prodigious musical talents and helped her become the outstanding minister of music she is today.  There was the multi-talented trumpet player who captured her heart forever, and then the beloved children, and now the treasured grandchildren. And there is legacy that we and Louise have built together at First Austin. 

Moments like these:

̶  When we were born and shared, she sang us a lullaby of alleluias and affirmed that we were an amazing gift. 

̶  When we married, she and Susan and David and Hye Ji cranked up the organ and celebrated us into our new lives.

̶  When our kids were old enough to be swamped by a robe, she and her choir leaders taught them the God songs they will sing for the rest of their lives. 

̶  When we asked for handbells and trombones and gifted young leadership, she loaned us Bob and Scott, Elizabeth and Colin.

̶  When there were orchestras to recruit, French priests to organize, people to feed, hotels to book, actors to accompany, bulletins to proofread, and music to order, she put on her reading glasses and got down to business. 

̶  When we needed some good old-fashioned happiness, she and Cantamos choreographed clumps and hauled out the boas and jingle bells and glitter and made us smile. 

̶  When our pulpit was empty, or waiting, and we were all standing “in the meantime,” she and her fellow minsters linked arms with us and journeyed us steadily toward our future. 

̶  When we died, she and the choir shepherded us through grief with music that expressed everything that we couldn’t. 

̶  When Jesus was born, was crucified, and rose again in glory, she gathered all her gifts, and ours, to help usher in that truth through worship and wonder. 

̶  When everything we are searches for a language to mark our lives individually and communally, and when everything we are yearns to praise our God with the deepest offering of ourselves, she steps up to a podium, raises her hands, and makes music. 

And that will never change. Because some people are born for things. 

Thank you, Louise. And thank you, Bob. The community we built and the memories we made together will live on because those are now our life stories. The music you helped us create will echo from the very bricks and mortar of this building because that is God’s story. You have blessed this congregation--this family--beyond words, and you have changed our lives for good. That’s quite a legacy. 

Our hearts are steadfast, O Lord. We will sing and make music. Amen.

Conclusion (Griff)

I’ve struggled thinking about legacy and these moments. I don’t know that legacy is something that can be neatly tied up in words, we try with acts like testimony and eulogies and toasts, but it’s not that simple… legacy is what is lived by those who stay behind. 

When Abby’s great grandmother died we found a camera with film in it in her top dresser drawer, now for anyone under 20…. We used to have to take our pictures with cameras, which are not phones… and these camera’s had film which you took to a store to develop and you might have forgotten what was on film because it was expensive and you did not waste it on selfies…. It was a whole other world, trust me. 

We finished the role we found and took it to be developed. When we got it back we found a picture on it of Nana at a dance her retirement community had hosted a few months before she passed, she is twirling and smiling…. She embodies all we know her to be: the woman who charmed Pancho Villa with her homemade egg nog (or so she claimed), the woman who was always the life of the party, the woman who was joy…. It’s her. 

It’s David in front of the ark… dancing, abandoning all he knows because at that moment with God all is right, it’s David knowing none of this is about him, it’s all about God, it’s David singing at the top of his lungs, praising, it’s David hugging Jonathan and inviting his son to his table, it’s David with a sling shot…It’s him.

It’s Louise and it’s the look in her eyes right before she directs an anthem because she knows what is about to happen, it’s Louise right after an anthem because she without pride knows she just took us to the throne of God, it’s when she talks about grandkids and the Downers, it’s her laugh, her creativity, her desire to make sure we experience God…. It’s her.

These are the picture we now live into….. because legacy has been created, it’s our turn to live into it. 

David planted it, Louise watered it and God is going to make it grow. Actually today it is more fitting to say David planted is, Bob and Millie fertilized it, Louise watered it and God is going to make it grown. Amen and Amen. 

*artwork: Blue Atmosphere IV, 1963, Helen Frankenthaler, frankenthalerfoundation.org