Sail on Oakhurst

A sermon celebrating the Church’s 91^st anniversary

Lanny Peters, pastor, Oakhurst Baptist Church, Decatur, Georgia

August 22, 2004

Luke 13: 10-17

Jesus rarely played it safe. This often chagrined his closest disciples, who over and over wondered what in the world they had gotten themselves into by following this guy. Countless times, they must have groaned and said, “O Jesus!” as in today’s episode brought to us by the lectionary. Jesus had invited himself to be the guest rabbi at the local synagogue as they passed through some town. There were so many times like this the narrator seems not to remember just which one, saying, “Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath when suddenly there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and unable to stand up straight.”

When I read this, I recalled rural women I saw in Morocco carrying huge loads of brush firewood on their backs, bent low, looking like beasts of burden. We would see other old women with their backs arched permanently from this type of work. Once, on a busy street in Fez, we saw a little girl who looked to be about four years old, trying to carry two big packages. They were clearly too heavy for her as she was trying to pick them up enough to drag them along the street. I wanted to help her but was worried I would frighten her. All kinds of people walked right by her without stopping. I said to Karen, “Why doesn’t somebody help her?”

Karen, with a woman’s perspective on the world, said, “They know she’s in training.”

Whether the woman passing by in the Temple that day was suffering from some type of ailment or some type of oppression, she seemed to accept her situation. Nobody even noticed except one person. Jesus was intent on teaching, yet when he saw her walk by all bent-over, he stopped and called her over. The disciples looked at each other and said, “Oh Jesus! You are not going to do something dangerous, are you?”

No doubt she hesitated, but when she came near Jesus said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” The disciples cringed when he laid his hands on her because he had just made himself unclean. A man, especially a rabbi, could not touch a woman while in the Temple, especially one with some kind of ailment.

To the woman’s shock, as well as those around her, she stood up straight for the first time in eighteen years. The disciples knew trouble was brewing and they no doubt tried to get her to thank Jesus quietly and let him get back to his teaching. But she began loudly praising God, probably even raising her arms since she hadn’t been able to do so in all those years. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you Jesus.”

Well, sure enough, the leader of the synagogue was upset. In fact he was indignant that Jesus had not only cured on the sabbath, a definite no-no to the religious legalists of his time, but he had touched and cured a woman. Any rabbi certainly should have known better and the leader of the synagogue jumped right on it. He addressed the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus, “There are six days on which work ought to be done, come on those days and not on the sabbath day.” After thus reprimanding both the woman and Jesus simultaneously, he reiterated this in several ways, as the narrator says he “kept saying this to the crowd.”

Jesus sat and listened to him. The disciples must have prayed, “Oh Jesus, just don’t say anything! It’s his synagogue. Just let it go.” But Jesus rarely played it safe and he did not this time either. After letting him go on for a while, Jesus burst out addressing not only him but his cohorts and anyone else with his mindset: “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound of eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”

Now that is speaking truth to power! Jesus is speaking to all women who were treated worse than beasts of burden, saying that they are just as much children of Abraham as any of the men there, including the leaders of that synagogue. 

When Jesus said this, the crowd, mostly peasants no doubt, rejoiced at what they had just experienced as well as all the other “wonderful things he was doing.” The religious leaders were quiet-for now. But they joined the growing ranks of those in power that knew this was a dangerous man, and something had to be done to stop him.

As he sailed through life, Jesus knew that “the safest place for ships is in the harbor, but that’s not why ships were built.” (Anonymous quote used on bulletin cover)

This month, we celebrate the launching of the adventure called Oakhurst Baptist Church. Oakhurst was a separately incorporated town then with its nearest neighbor the Decatur township established in 1823. There were a number of well established churches in Decatur, but as hard as it is to imagine, it was not easy to get there over unpaved roads by horse and buggy, especially in rainy weather.

Mrs. Georgia Johnson helped meet this need by opening up her home in 1908 on Sunday afternoons for Sunday school. It soon outgrew her house, and the recently formed Ladies Legal Aid Society bought a lot nearby and put up a tent. A year later, the Pastor of Decatur Presbyterian Church invited a circuit riding Methodist preacher, Charles L. Pattillo, to use the tent for a series of revival meetings, which was a great success.

Not long afterwards, Brother Patillo later moved here and became a Dekalb County Justice of the Peace and helped start interdenominational worship services following the union Sunday school classes in the tent. By 1911, some 200 persons were regularly attending. We have ecumenical roots, for out of that came three churches founded in Oakhurst, Georgia: a Methodist, a Presbyterian and a Baptist. On August 31, 1913, five years after Mrs. Johnson started the union Sunday school, Oakhurst Baptist Church was organized in the home of Mrs. W.J. Mitchell right down the street at 133 Madison Avenue. Georgia Johnson was a Baptist and an important early leader of the church.

From our church history, we know that several matters of business were handled at that meeting and the next couple of meetings to follow. We often talk about how much this church has changed over the years, which it certainly has, but as I read the account of the first organizing meetings, I am struck by how much is the same some 91 years later. For example, one of the first items of business was to adopt a covenant. The covenant was not an original one that they wrote themselves as the church would decades later, but it’s fascinating to see that the idea of covenant has always been at the heart of who we are.

At that first meeting, they also appointed a committee on Constitution and By Laws, and it seems we have been working on some version of those every since that day. The minutes of that first meeting said that Brother Julian Rogers then read a partial list of those entering into the organization, the list consisting of about twenty names. But two other lists were later found, one with twenty-eight names of charter members and the other with 33. Only thirteen people were on all three lists, beginning another Oakhurst tradition that continues to this day with people disagreeing afterwards about what it was we actually agreed upon at a business meeting.

Now the next thing that happened also fascinates me. A Pulpit Supply Committee was formed consisting of three people, and to my surprise when I read it, two of them were women, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Mitchell. Now in 1913, to let women be the majority in deciding who will preach seems pretty radical to me. No wonder we ended up being one of the first Baptist churches in Georgia to elect women deacons and to ordain women.

Finally, before they closed the meeting, they took up an offering of $5 and gave it for state missions. So our church’s history of the importance of missions was there from the first day.

They also elected the first church clerk, Louise Griffis. No just kidding, Louise has not been around quite that long.

The next business meeting was held about two weeks later following worship. I love the note in the minutes that says deacons were chosen but only “after much balloting.” There you have it; from the beginning we had a propensity for long meetings trying to come to a decision. The offering in worship that day was $2.40.

In October, the church voted to call its first pastor, Brother C.W. Hudson of Thomaston, Alabama, “provided we were able to raise the necessary funds to pay for his services.” His salary was $35 a month. Worrying about whether we will have enough money is a ninety-one year old tradition here.

Five months later, they had the money and a pastor. Soon after he arrived, the church appointed its first building committee to find a place to build a suitable building. They chose the location where we sit today, though it would be years before the church would have a proper building.

The first pastor caught typhoid fever. He served only 15 months and was ill much of that time. The church had 9 pastors in its first 15 years. Without strong lay leadership from the beginning, the church would not have survived. More than once, the church was close to disbanding, but each time they decided to keep going on faith. “The church that stayed” and “Every member a minister” has been two of our themes from the very beginning.

The church met first in homes, then a tent, and later a wooden structure built by the men of the church called formally a tabernacle but informally a shack. It was 1932 when the basement to this building was built and 1937 when the sanctuary was opened.

I would not know any of this if it were not for Alverta Wright, for it all comes from her book, Not Here By Chance. (See pages 86-100) I spent hours this week re-reading my worn and marked up copy, which I received before I came to Oakhurst. On the title page is an inscription; “To Karen and Lanny. With anticipation, Alverta S. Wright, March 29, 1989.”

Alverta recently resigned as church historian. She began that role along with her job as church librarian. In 1986 the church honored her on the occasion of her retirement after 27 years as librarian. She continued as historian another 18 years. So it seems Alverta has been our historian for some 45 years.

Where would we be without Alverta and all those who have worked with her over the years to preserve our history? How would we know who we are?

How would we know how deep our love of good music goes? It began with the arrival of Mrs. T.H.Wingfield in 1923. She had studied piano and voice and opera in New York City. Karen Shipp, see how far back our tradition of getting fine musicians from New York City goes. Mrs. Wingfield was choir director for twenty years and they (the choir)  choir gained a reputation for doing good music. (P. 102)

Each time I read Alverta’s book I am amazed anew at our incredible history. She chronicles our history from those struggling first years on through the depression and two world wars. She describes how after the second world war, the church experienced phenomenal growth until it was busting at the seams, reaching a peak membership of over 1500 in 1963. (P 173 ff.) That year Oakhurst was declared the outstanding church in the Southern Baptist Convention for the year 1961-62 by the Church Development Ministry of the Home Mission Board. (P. 201)

She tells about a deacon of Oakhurst, Walker Knight, who on a business trip to Miami in 1962 saw firsthand the huge influx of refugees from Cuba. On his return, he shared his concern with the pastor, Ted Doughtery, who encouraged him to place the burden he felt before the congregation. (P. 203 ff.) Later, we would call this “Sounding a Call”, a process that has started countless mission groups here at Oakhurst.

In the sixties our church faced another critical time when the neighborhood changed and went from all white to predominantly black residents. Once again, there was a period without pastoral leadership when lay people made critical decisions and once again in the face of tremendous odds, the church chose to stay even as it lost some two thirds of its members. (P. 221 ff.)

If you want to understand how we came to be who we are, also read Walker Knight’s book chronicling those years, called Struggle For Integrity. It is valuable not only for its history but for the profound theological questions it explores around what it really means to be church.

Without our historians, we forget the amazing things God has done in making of us a fellowship. We realize our concern with Peace and Reconciliation goes back to the sixties. I read about the beginning of the Hospitality Mission group in 1981 and the kind of commitment it took to house homeless men in the church. (P. 24-27; 79-80)

I love the little stories too. Gail Bell spearheaded the Giving Tree in 1981. She described it as “an alternative Christmas opportunity to help our children and youth focus on feeling of giving rather than receiving, to give up exchanging material gifts.” Small cards are hung on the tree, each representing a person’s love and appreciation for another and a donation used to purchase Christmas gifts for Hospitality House residents.  (P.26) This tradition continues to this day.

From our history, we know that our congregation was involved in a Coalition to support Cuban detainees led by Sally Sandidge and Carl Dudeck, and they played a key role in reconciling the uprising in the Atlanta penitentiary in 1987. (P.29)

Without the guardians of our history, we will forget the amazing things God has helped us accomplish. We can remember SEEDS magazine, a nationally recognized award-winning hunger magazine that flourished at Oakhurst in the eighties. (Pp. 41 ff; .302 ff.)

We can remember the formation of the Baptist Peace Fellowship in September 1984, which was first housed here. (Pp. 23 ff.; 44-45)

We can celebrate the story of the birth of SBC Today (now Baptists Today) in 1983 and our role in the founding of the Alliance of Baptists in 1987. (Pp. 39-40; 83-4)

Because of our historians, we can recall how our covenant came to be and its importance. Alverta notes: “The covenant would serve to define the community and would become the central document around which the future would unfold.” (P. 57)

We can remember a young man named David Chewning who came here in 1979 and saw in the covenant that this was a place where he could know and be known. He let it be known that he was a gay man and challenged the church to let him fully participate. In the midst of some long-time pillars of the church leaving, newly arrived Pastor Mel Williams pronounced, “I’ve said over and over as a pastor, every person is welcome here. We’re not going to discriminate against anybody. I see this community as becoming a community of acceptance.”  (P. 63) When I arrived in 1899, one of the places David had found to belong was in the storefront mission church, Wayfarers Chapel, that Amy Greene began on Peachtree Street.

I have only scratched the surface of our rich history. I have not even mentioned any of the amazing things that I have experienced first hand here in my fifteen years. I hope this helps you see how important it is to know what God has done in this place and to feel connected to it. Our covenant says that we will be sensitive to God’s message as it comes to us in myriad ways, including history, including our own history. We cannot do that without our historians. We owe them an enormous debt.   

In her history of Oakhurst, Alverta wrote: “God does not call us to small or simple tasks. The responsibility is to be faithful to the perception of God’s call, regardless of the outcome.”

“The safest place for ships is in the harbor, but that’s not why ships were built.” Sail on Oakhurst, sail on!