Good morning, Friends! Happy birthday! Just over 250 years ago, on the first Sunday in May, a small group of Quakers held their first meeting for worship here.
They all came here from other places. None of them were born here. At that time, this whole area was a wilderness. Our country didn’t exist. The Declaration of Independence was still three years in the future.
Some Quakers moved here from Pennsylvania, looking for land they could afford. Some came from South Carolina, looking to disentangle their lives from the evil of slavery. Some came from the island of Nantucket, off the shore of Massachusetts, because the island was small and there was no room to live and build.
Maybe two dozen families, total. They settled here and they made new homes. They built a meetinghouse out of logs, which also served as a school. They had a lot of children, and as they grew up, their children married each other. The family tree of Springfield was pretty tangled back in those early days.
They came here for worship twice a week, on first day (or Sunday) and fourth day (or Wednesday). They worshiped on hard benches, with no padding and no backs. Not the way you’d build a church nowadays. Most families had no book at home but the Bible. They hungered for education, for themselves and for their children.
When I was a boy, I used to go to the history museum in the city where I grew up. Carved in stone over one of the doors was a saying from the Seneca people, the Native Americans who lived there.
The words said, “Other council fires were here before ours.” There’s a lot of wisdom in those words.
“Other council fires were here before ours.” We aren’t the first people to worship here. We won’t be the last.
As we all know, other Friends have sat here and worshiped before us – many in the very same seats where we are sitting. Others worshiped in log cabins and in the simple brick building next door, in what’s now the Museum.
We aren’t the first. And we won’t be the last. We are only the most recent worshipers – even if some of us have been worshiping here for many years.
Our scripture today echoes that understanding. We’re not the first. And we won’t be the last. Let me read to you from one of the Psalms of the Old Testament, from Psalm 90.
Lord, you have been our refuge in every generation.
Before the mountains were born,
Before the earth and the world were in labor,
From age to age – everlasting, you are God.You turn us back into dust.
You say, “Back to what you were, you children of clay!”To you, a thousand years are like a single day which passes quickly,
Or like an hour in the night.
And we – we are like a dream.
We’re like grass which grows in the morning,
And which fades and withers by nightfall.When you are angry, Lord, we are destroyed;
When you are angry; we are terrified.
For you know all our sins, even the ones we do in secret.
And in a moment of your anger, our lives pass by.Our lives pass like a breath.
We live for seventy years, or eighty if we are strong.
But the years are full of hard work and pain,
They pass quickly, and are gone.
Who can know the full power of your passion?
The more we understand you, the more we hold you in awe.
Teach us how short our lives really are, so that we may be wise.Lord, how long will this go on?
Have pity on your servants!
Let us wake in the morning filled with your love,
Then we will sing and rejoice all our lives.We have seen years of trouble,
Now give us as much joy as the sorrow we have had before.
Show your servants the wonderful things you do;
Show your greatness to our children.Let the kindness of the Lord our God be upon us,
And let all that we do go well.
That’s what I really want to say this morning. The Bible says it so much better than I could say it myself. The Lord has been here in every generation – including our own.
We can’t live in the past, and we wouldn’t want to. But we can be aware – always aware – that God has been working, right here, planting seeds, opening eyes, changing hearts, building lives – for many, many years. More years than we can count.
The reminders are all around us. And by “reminders”, I don’t just mean the gravestones out in the cemetery. There are so many hints, so many clues, that we were not the first people here, that God gave people vision and faith, long before our present time.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking along the road, doing one of my monthly chores, picking up trash along the side of the road. I never can understand why people do that.
I remember throwing trash out the window of our car exactly once, when I was about six years old. I threw a gum wrapper out. My father looked in the rear-view mirror and saw me do it. He instantly stopped the car, and made me get out, and walk back and pick it up.
I never did it again. Somehow, my father made me understand that throwing trash out, to land on someone else’s yard was deeply wrong. It meant disrespect for them, and out in country, it meant disrespect for God and for nature.
Every month, on work day or whenever I can find an hour, I walk along the road out here, and I pick up anywhere from 3 to 5 big bags full of trash that people throw out, going down the road. Never less than a hundred pounds, every month of the year. Often more. People just don’t understand, or don’t care, what they’re doing to the world. And that attitude multiplies and grows, everywhere you go.
Anyway, I was walking down the road, doing my thing, when I saw a long piece of stone, half-buried in last year’s leaves, down in the grove by the foot of the cemetery. I walked over, and brushed the leaves away, and there was a stone step, six feet wide.
I looked, and I saw another step, and another, going up the hill. Some of you have seen those steps, and remember them. They were almost buried. I uncovered three flights of stone steps, heading up towards an open space, across from the Museum.
For over 150 years, there was a school here at Springfield. Actually, there was a whole series of school buildings. The last one was torn down a hundred years ago, when it was consolidated into the public school system to create the Allen Jay school.
When I first came here, there were a few people still alive who remembered going to the Springfield school. They told me that often, kids would walk barefoot to school, carrying their shoes, so their shoes wouldn’t wear out so quick and would last longer. They’d stop at the bottom of the hill, and put on their shoes to walk the last few yards up to school.
Those stone steps were given to the Springfield school by one of the graduating classes, to make it easier for kids to make it up that last steep stretch to the school yard.
That’s almost within living memory. The last few people who went to that school are all gone now. But the stone steps to that school, are still there.
Those kids grew up, and they built the Rock Gym. Their grandkids grew up, and built the “new” Allen Jay school. This summer, the “new” school is being torn down, and a new, new Allen Jay school will be built and ready a year from this fall.
Generation to generation. We aren’t the first, and we won’t be the last.
We think that we’ve got it hard now. We think that we have to work harder, than people did in the past. I’m not convinced about that. I think every generation has to work hard, not just to stay alive, but also to build and grow, to find vision and plan, to find the hope and faith and love to live to the full in their own day.
This meetinghouse where we’re worshiping today was built in the 1920’s, when High Point was a boom town. The population was doubling every ten years. New factories were opening every year. People were pouring in from the countryside. Families were big, and everything was growing.
But High Point didn’t even exist, 75 years before that. There were people alive here at Springfield in the 1920’s, who remembered when High Point was just a whistle stop on the brand-new railroad.
All of downtown High Point used to be the family farm of one of the founding members of Springfield. Jeremiah Piggott owned 247 acres in what’s now the downtown area. He helped to build the first paved highway, the Plank Road. He was a major stockholder in the railroad. He built the railroad depot and the first hotel, and he helped to build the new brick meetinghouse that’s now the Museum.
He lost everything he had in the months before the Civil War. His entire fortune was worth only 18 cents on the dollar. But he never lost his faith.
Times change. They really do. And we have to change with them.
We always need to remember and learn from our history. My father’s favorite saying was, “People who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
If we don’t learn, we will repeat and relive the agonizing lessons of history – the tyranny, the wars, the racism and slavery. We will forget how important it is, to live with truth, with integrity, with fairness and justice. A lot of people seem to be forgetting about those things right now.
Probably one of the worst things we do, is we forget about God. We forget who made this world, and who this world belongs to. What a change in attitude that would make!
We forget about Jesus, who he is, what he taught, what he did. Easter was just a couple of weeks ago, and most people don’t give a thought about that now.
We forget about the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, the spirit of wisdom and power. How much we could do, if we lived in that Spirit, it we listened to it every day. Listen to the Holy Spirit! Share what you feel the Spirit is saying to you. Especially, share what you feel the Spirit is calling you to do, with your life.
We don’t need more people telling the world what everyone else should do. We need more people telling the world what they, themselves, feel that God is calling them to do.
I know that we don’t have as many people here at Springfield as we’ve sometimes had. So what? We have often had even fewer people than we do now. What matters isn’t the number of people we have. What matters is whether the people who are here, have a vision. Almost everything starts small.
FEMAP, the ministry that meets right here at Springfield, is really just a small number of people. On a hot Wednesday morning, maybe 10 or 12 Quakers show up to work. But they draw on the resources of many Quaker meetings.
And last fall, when Hurricane Helene hit, within 48 hours, FEMAP sent truck loads of pre-packed basic hygiene kits to the western part of the state. Many hundred people were helped.
Few in number, but a great vision. A small group, but a great God.
Or take COAT, another ministry which you all support. Every month, we collect food, and Gene delivers it to COAT. 23 years ago, a small group of ministers, local business leaders, and Gary Lewallen, who at that time was the chief of police of the city of Archdale, got together.
Very few churches at that time had food pantries, and most of them had people coming to their door every day asking for help. They decided to form a food pantry to which all of them could contribute.
Some of the people who come to COAT are unemployed. Some families have children at home, others have only one parent. As times have changed, older people on fixed incomes have also turned to COAT for help. This year, COAT has been asked for more help than ever before.
COAT is flexible with people who come with little or no documentation – COAT’s ministry is to help where it’s needed.
In 2007, COAT began a new program, providing backpacks of food for children. These kids get meals at school during the week, but on Friday and during vacations many kids go home with nothing to eat. COAT currently provides food backpacks to 10 schools in the area, including the Allen Jay School.
We may be a small congregation, but when we have a vision, with God’s help, we can do great things. God has been with us before, in every generation. We are not the first, and we won’t be the last.