The Service of Our Living Tradition, Sunday, January 6, 2008
Kirk Denton, our organist, for whom we are celebrating twenty-five years of service today, loaned me the book The Recollections and Reflections of Seth R. Brooks and Corrine H. Brooks. It is a series of interviews conducted by our minister emeritus Dr. William Fox with Dr. Brooks and his wife.
It is an excellent map to what sociologists call “our church culture.” Some of us have studied organizational behavior. If not in a class, then through reading perhaps through our own observations of human nature. It has proven time after time in studies, that even when the current organization does not consciously remember or even know their past culture, it is always there, influencing and affecting the present culture.
Today’s service is a long one, we expect one that honors our own living tradition to be full, and so, my goal is to share with you some of the Brooks’ comments. When we hear them, we can “see” our church from a historical perspective. Like in Isaiah’s words from today’s reading, the story of human relationships with God and each other is an eternal, on-going story, and we are but a part of that story for only a part of the time.
I promise to do more research and to preach a historical sermon on Dr. Brooks’ ministry in the future.
I’ll begin these recollections with something from Mrs. Brooks.
What … activities in the … [church] were of concern to you?
All churches need someone to work in the Sunday School. I imagine that would be true of every church. I did some work with the choir, not that I have a voice, but I could try and I knew music a little bit.
Was [the choir] … still the National Capital Choir …?
Yes, that was [something] … that made this church different. I didn’t think to mention it … earlier … We didn’t even have our own choir. It was something individually operated and although very good was not an integral part of the church.
What in your judgment have been some … accomplishments here at Universalist National Memorial Church … How would you summarize them?
Well I think the transformation of the church: Let’s start with the building. I think that this room we are sitting in was just a bare, perhaps storage room when we came here. It is now a beautiful library … well furnished because of the kindness of Mr. Henry C. Morris.
She also talked about the sanctuary, she said it was bare when they came and they did not add the altar, pulpit, lectern, and chapel cloths and draperies until after they came.
I continue in her words.
I think the church is worshipful. Those who come always say so; they feel that. I think that is the right feeling for a church. I wish we had more children but we are not a parish of children or the young people nor could you expect young people to come, say in the evening, to the city anymore. I have a good feeling about what we have here and hope it can last. … I think the people of this church would do almost anything for each other in the form of help. I think they truly enjoy being together and worshipping together. Our parish is so small [now] that those who have time for vacations or such, are greatly missed. … I still have a good feeling about it because I have faith in th[is] church.
Dr. Fox asked Dr. Brooks to tell him about the church when he came and what he found here in Washington, DC.
When I came here we probably had including the people not in residence [he means those not living in Washington, DC] perhaps 500 people. It was a small Sunday School of perhaps thirty or thirty-five. There was a young people’s group … She brought her high school friends; there must have been thirty or forty of them, who met every Sunday night. … there were only two or three who were from our church. We had Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists. … They did have religious services. They were not a secular group by any means.
The parish was, of course, not large although we had a fine women’s association that was doing great things for this church and for the … [Universalist Church of America]. We had many outstanding things going here. I was surprised. For example, we had the Audubon Society meetings, a French Club, the Huguenot Society, a Players Group, a Shakespearean group … We were having once a month Sunday afternoon “Musical at Homes” … It was active. It had a hard-core of loyal people; some of them had grown up in it and had parents, even grandparents, in it. … This was a fine church but the congregations were shockingly small to me because we had filled our church in Malden almost every Sunday. Again, there was a reason here. People lived long distances away and many of them had positions that didn’t make it possible for them to come on Sunday.
…
You might be interested, Dr. Fox, to know … [m]y predecessor, Dr. Perkins, … was a scholar, a thinker, a careful preacher. He had this staggering problem of holding a congregation together for three years while it met in a theatre on Columbia Road. He had the building of this church. He put every thought he had into the details of it, into the execution of it. I know something about it form him, from John van Schaick and from others. He had one terrible time with the Universalist Church of America. You see, it was a joint project but the Universalist Church of America went out across the country and raised the money to build this church and it was problem … [raising money] among our people the amount that was needed.
What do you recall was the goal set for the building of this church?
$375,000. To my knowledge, that total amount was never raised. I sought to get figures because I had felt a moral obligation to pay that amount off but there are things I don’t understand about figures and about bookkeeping matters of that kind, but I do know that at the time I came here they were still talking about needing $79,000 or $80,000. I do know that we raised some money after I came here. We sold memorial windows. We sold some pews. Then the Universalist Church of America dropped the whole project. They did nothing more, and I understand that they took some of the free funds that they had and paid off the total obligation. The… [church] never went into debt owing a bank or somebody at all …
People were coming great distances and the thing that bothered me most was that we had young people, quite a few weddings in those days. These young people would continue until they had their first baby… [p. 67] [then they would find a church in the suburbs and join there.]
… [their moves to the] suburbs moved me to set a goal of having two more churches. I talked to the Board of Management about it. I said, “Let’s have a church in Virginia; one in Maryland.” … [my secretary] Hope Dixon made a list of ninety people we had in these outlying areas and I hold the list in my hand of those in the Silver Springs and Bethesda areas. … I took this up with the Universalist Church of America. They wouldn’t answer letters, I couldn’t get any commitment, I couldn’t get anything. Finally, our church went ahead and out of its meager funds – we were having a hard time financially – put up $3,000. The Universalist Church of America matched that and we started a movement in Silver Spring. … We started a movement in Virginia – we met in a home over there several Sunday afternoons – we finally formed a committee that was to go ahead with that Virginia church. I don’t know whatever happened, but it withered. … [69]
Dr. Fox then asked, if this was before All Souls Unitarian and their minister A. Powell Davis began to establish churches around the Beltway, and Dr. Brooks said, “Yes.”
In the book Dr. Brooks talks a while about the architecture of the church, most of which we can read in his sermon on the windows.
Then Dr. Fox asks him to talk about the future of the church.
I will have no fears or worries about this church provided the right person comes here to take over, or persons. Now, I have been in ... church over fifty years and I have watched it carefully. I would not say anything that sounded arrogant. I have seen churches pass out of existence and I know that many could not possibly exist with the chang[ing demographics]. I realize that. I don’t want to be assertive in what I am going to say, but no end of churches has passed out of existence when they didn’t have to. We are far from passing out of existence. We are strong. We have people, loyal people. We have funds. We have something to give this city. We have a witness that is very important … we have a tremendous witness to give. …
If a man comes in and does what he is supposed to do, conduct services of worship that are reasonable … if he will take an interest in opening the church, keeping it open, if he will take an interest in serving people, caring for the sick, caring for the aged, getting into the community and not shocking people, he doesn’t have to accept everything in the community … There can be things he does not admire and cannot support but he does not have to take the attitude that he is going to purify or reform the city. He must not make an ass of himself in this regard. I think there is a wonderful future …
This is a middle-of-the-road church. It is a church with sensible men, sensible men and women. It is a church for people who want to come and worship, who want to believe in God, who want to understand as much as they can of the influence of Jesus, who want to enjoy the beauty and power of the scriptures and prayer … I think it has a great future.
There is a poem that says we worship in a house built by hands other than our own, we continue to survive and thrive on gifts from generations past. They knew nothing worth doing is completed in one lifetime. They knew what is true and beautiful and good is rarely understood in its own time. They knew hope. Let us know hope. Let us be true to our faith; let us be true to the promises of God’s universal, unconditional love.
Posted by UNMC Office at January 6, 2008 10:20 AM