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Luke 23:
32-34
February 14, 2010
OUR MEETINGHOUSE AND THE STORIES OF JESUS: With this being the 100th anniversary of the reconstruction of our Meetinghouse, in this series of sermons, I’m trying to make a connection between the life and stories of Jesus and some of the architectural details of this building. Thus far we’ve looked at doors, windows, gold leaf, the baptismal font, ionic columns and mahogany, and this morning I would have us ponder this tiny bell. Last week I talked about – among other things – the origin of things, as we pondered how the mahogany in this building came from the great continent of Africa. And so I would ask you to ponder the origin of this bell. Some of you might own one of these bells and know the story of how these little bells are a remnant, a saving remnant of the large bell that used to be about 100 feet up in our Meetinghouse spire. The predecessor of this building was built in 1817 and the bell for that building was brought to our community by Schooner and then by oxcart and so for 90 years, this little bell was part of a larger bell that was rung for worship services, funeral services, weddings and other ceremonial occasions. In a day before sirens, the church bell also would have been rung to alert the community to any emergencies. The tolling of the bell was also used as a way of keeping time, and even to this day some of our immediate neighbors have told me that they feel disoriented if they do not hear the hourly tolling of our bell. The bell of which this one is a tiny part rang for the very last time at midnight on July 2, 1907. Many of you have heard me tell the story of how on that night a very troubled person came into the building late at night and started a fire up in the pulpit area. According to our church history, “it was a few minutes before 12 o’clock that John Sterling, the liveryman of the town, in returning from the dock to his stables in the rear of what was then the Old Lyme Inn, which is now the sight of Lyme Regis, saw a blaze in the vicinity of the church property…Running his horse at a furious gait through the street, he quickly gave the alarm to the sleeping towns-people, and in a short period of time, nearly the entire population of the town was at the scene.” As I mentioned a few weeks ago, when we first came to Old Lyme in the early 1970’s we knew people then who could remember that fateful night, how their beloved meetinghouse spire – of which this one is a replica – was completely engulfed in flames even as the bell was tolling midnight. Now, for those of you who are mathematicians, here’s something you can do while you’re listening to this sermon. Assuming that the bell rang every hour on the hour every day for 90 years and also assuming that it rang for worship services, funerals, weddings and a variety but undetermined number of other occasions, by your estimation, how many times did that bell ring? You can let me know by the end of the service. Be that as it may, I can only imagine how poignant, how sad it must have been for this community to hear the bell toll for one last time, midnight on July 2, 1907. I don’t know, but I like to think of that bell as being a reflection of our congregational Christian ancestors, a “dead ringer” – if you will forgive the pun – for the tenacity and the work ethic of those who have come before us. That bell, engulfed in flames, was so determined to complete its work that it rang all 12 times before it finally let go and came crashing through to the ground where with all the burning timbers it was rendered into a mass a molten metal. This is some of the molten metal from that old bell, and this is the clapper from that bell. The next day, July 3, 1907 Mr. D.O. Maynard, perhaps one of your ancestors, took some of this molten metal on his horse drawn wagon up to a bell foundry in East Hampton, Connecticut, and think of how long that must have taken! But, in 1907 East Hampton was the right place to go, for at that time it was known as the bell capital of the world with a number of different foundries, and so it came to be known as “Belltown” or “Jingletown” and at one point in the 1800’s, the foundries of East Hampton made 90% of the world’s sleigh bells! I don’t know if it is, but “Jingle Bells” ought to be their town song. So, Mr. Maynard knew he was going to the right place, and so he took some of the molten metal from the old bell and he had the foundry up there make 500 of these dinner bells which were then sold for $1 each to help finance the new Meetinghouse. Furthermore, the rest of the molten metal was taken to a foundry to be incorporated into the new bell – recycling at its best, and long before it became popular! A new 1400 lb bell was completed on August 25, 1909. The joy of it is – if you look at it poetically – the bell may have “thought” that it rang for one last time at midnight on July 2, 1907, but that was not the case, for every time I ring this bell, this is a little bit of the old bell undaunted by disaster, a higher pitched reminder of that original bell, and every time we ring the bell up there – having a little of the old bell in it -- we should be reminded that that old bell is still as determined as ever, still ringing out its message to the people of this community. Refusing to be nothing more than a mass of molten metal, refusing to be silenced, the bell, if you will, reinvented itself and indeed helped to finance this beautiful Meetinghouse. Of course, I have overly anthropomorrphized that bell, but I have done so for reason, for I believe that every house is more than just the building material from which it is made, but also a reflection of the owner of that house, every detail in that house an indication of the character of those who occupy that house, and as we survey the various details of this magnificent building, we should be reminded of the strength of character, the faith, the imagination, the courage, the tenacity, the iron will, the stubborn determination, the Yankee ingenuity, the generosity of those who have come before us, those who might very well have been silenced by a terrible disaster, but instead, picked through the rubble of what they had lost, reinvented themselves and in only 3 years rebuilt this Meetinghouse to be the pride and joy that it is today. For those of us that need 5 year plans and 10 year plans, think of it, the Meetinghouse was completely destroyed on July 2, 1907 but completely rebuilt and dedicated on June 18, 1910. In just less than three years, the congregation showed the mettle of its conviction, and I’ve used the word, “mettle” quite intentionally, for in the 16th century, “mettle” and “metal” were words that were used interchangeably. Like the metal in that 19th century bell, the congregation at that time, refused to be defeated. I reckon it is about 25 miles from here to East Hampton, and so Mr. Maynard had plenty of time to think as he drove his horse drawn wagon that day. I wonder what his thoughts were about his cargo, all that molten mass of twisted metal. I wonder if he thought about how his cargo was not only the bits and pieces of the old bell, but also the broken hearts and broken spirits of the members of this community. I wonder if he thought about the spiritual significance of what he was doing. My guess is that he was probably far too humble to think of his task in such an exalted way. Nevertheless, I can only imagine the joy the congregation must have felt when all that molten metal came back in the form of 500 of these tiny dinner bells which were sold for $1 each, and so $500 was raised for the cost of this building. And by the way, there were 4 bids for the construction of this building, ranging from $45,985 to $37,000. The building committee accepted the $37,000 bid, surprise, surprise. And then, they negotiated that down to $36,325! Surprise, surprise! That also is a reflection on the “mettle” of our congregational ancestors! Just think of what this building would cost today – $2, maybe 3 million? -- and then ask yourself about the strength of our spirit. Would we have what it takes, would we have the gumption and the determination to take all the bits and pieces of this building and all the broken hearts of our congregation and turn them into something that would be equal to what our ancestors did? Personally, I think that we do, as long as we remember – and here is where we get to our sermon for today – as long as we remember that the same spirit that was in Jesus is also in us. But, to reach the same proportion, we’d have to sell these not for $1 each but rather for about $80 each! You can tell me if my mathematics are correct! So, how then does this little bell and that big bell up there remind us of the life and teachings of Jesus? Actually, I looked in vain to find the word “bell” in the New Testament. In one of St. Paul’s letters he speaks of a “noisy gong” and a “clanging symbol” but I could find no mention of a bell. Bells first came into existence back during the Bronze Age, and so they were certainly in existence back then, and you’ll find a few references to bells in the Old Testament, usually with regard to the tiny bells that a priest might wear on his clothing, but I have found no indication that they used bells in synagogues in the same way that they are used in churches and cathedrals today. Be that as it may, even though there’s a scarcity of references to bells in the bible, I find in the story of this bell something quite central to the life and spirit of Jesus. In thinking about the bell tolling midnight even as the spire was engulfed in flames, I cannot help but think of the cross as being something of a bell tower, and even as Jesus was dying on the cross, like that bell, he refused to give up, he refused to relent, he refused to be silenced. Even as he was breathing his last breath, he was saying, “father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Just as the bell was determined to toll one more time before it tumbled down into the inferno, so Jesus was determined to ring out His message of love one more time, one more time. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And then, just when everything seemed to be in bits and pieces, something happened, something mysterious happened and as a consequence of that first Easter morning, little by little, little people began to pick up on the life and teaching of Jesus. They might not have had the prominence or the stature that Jesus had, but little by little, like this tiny dinner bell, they found their own voice and in their own way and in their own time, they began to proclaim the Good News of God’s Love. The story of the bell is really the spiritual story of Christ, the story of resurrection, the story of transformation, the story of regeneration and rebirth, a story to remind us that there is a spiritual foundry in which all the bits and pieces and fragments and broken hopes and broken dreams of our lives can be brought back together, that in the dark days of our lives, we can be silenced and dismayed, but thank God, there is a spiritual foundry where we can find a new beginning for our lives. May this bell and the bell up in our Meetinghouse spire be a perpetual reminder of that truth. In one of his longer poems, Alfred Lord Tennyson laments the loss, the death of a very close friend. He spares us none of his despair, but lays it out for all to see, but I love the spiritual triumph with which he concludes this poem, and he compares his renaissance of spirit, his regeneration with a bell that has finally found its voice, a bell the refuses to be undone by human cruelty, a bell that refuses to be silenced by grief or despair, and so he says to that bell what he is really saying to himself: Ring out, wild bells, to the
wild sky, Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring happy bells across the snow! The year is going, let it go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps
the mind, Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth
and right; Ring in the valiant, (brave)
and free, Ring in the Christ that is to be.
Amen. David W. Good Old Lyme, Connecticut
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