Oh, that I might know where I might find him.

What makes Clover Hill, Clover Hill?

Last week I answered that question by pointing to the children as the models that Christ gave us of what our faith life was meant to be: honest, curious, emotional, spiritual, joyous and always certain of God’s presence, God’s love and God’s fairness.

When I first visited Clover Hill it was 35 years ago right about now, I was a first semester seminarian. We visited, as a class, a number of NJ & NY Churches that fall, meeting with clergy and lay leaders, studying the programs and ministries and then going back to New Brunswick to dissect them with the educated ignorance of, well, first year seminarians.

And it was the collective and overwhelming opinion of that group of young experts that Clover Hill, and churches like her, had 5 or maybe 10 years left before either making dramatic and sweeping changes in building, parking and finances or going belly-up due to ever-increasing costs for maintenance, utilities and staff salaries.

And we had pity for the person who would be the next minister and preside over the Church’s funeral, a fact which several classmates would remind of in the years that followed.

But we didn’t know much about the history, the DNA, of Clover Hill.

We didn’t know how unlikely, how impossible, this venture of God’s was and has always been and, I suspect, always will be. We didn’t know that the building was built before they even decided what kind of Church they wanted to be.

We didn’t know that after the building was dedicated in October of 1834 they would offer the position of Pastor to two ministers who both said “no” before Gerritt Schanck finally accepted the call and was installed on November 25, 1835, 13 months after the building was finished, two and a half years after the first meeting to establish a Church.

We didn’t know that Pastor Schanck only lasted 16 months before he accepted a call as Pastor of the 1st Reformed Church of Pompton Plains in April of 1837! This started another pastoral search that lasted 13 months and concluded with the installation of William Demerest in May of 1838, but by April of 1840 the Reverend Demerest, whose son would become President of Rutgers College and NBTS, had left Clover Hill and we were entering into a joint ministry relationship with the 1st Presbyterian Church of Amwell. A relationship that would involve one minister leading worship every other Sunday at each Church, and that would go on for 22 years.

So for the first 6 years of our Church life we had two ministers for a today of 3 years and 3 months! And then we had a shared half-minister for the next 22 years! And the struggles with the building and the budget where there in the beginning and have never gone away.

We don’t have patron saints in our tradition, but if we did surely we would be the Reformed Church of Job!

The trials of this congregation, to the present day, are only matched by the perseverance of the saints who have worshiped here and only exceeded by the faithfulness of the God who created us.

That’s what we didn’t know about. We were training to be ministers so we couldn’t see all that God was doing with Elders and Deacons and men and women and children in this place.

This has been Mission Impossible for 175 years.

And we’re not done yet!

I still get told, by denominational experts, that Churches like ours are doomed and I smile, because I now know what I didn’t 35 years ago, I know you and those who came before you and those who will follow you. I know now that none of us are essential, we’ve seen people come and go, people whom we were sure we could not get by without and we’re still here, none of us are essential and all of us are important. I know now that what is impossible for us is just another moment of faithfulness for God. “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Job’s problem in today’s story is that he can’t find God.

Oh, that I might know where I might find him.

Or let me put it better: Job can’t find the God he is looking for. Isn’t that a familiar problem?

I think a lot of us have that problem.

We go looking for a God who will give us a winning lottery ticket or job security or a clean bill of health or victory in a game and that God doesn’t exist.

Or we look for a God who lives in in tangible things – buildings and artifacts – but he is always beyond the things that we can hold and own and manipulate.

And sometimes we intentionally don’t look for him in the places where we are afraid he might be: there is a war going on and young men and women are dying and Christ says he is the Prince of Peace and we try not to think about those things at the same time; that rich man wasn’t looking for Jesus to go prying into his finances, he was offering his soul, but Jesus went there anyway and the rich man couldn’t see him there.

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said “You lack one thing: go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Now I’ve said this before and it remains true: this is the only person to whom Jesus made this drastic demand.

And there were plenty of other rich folks who crossed his path, many who would sit and eat and talk with him.

So what was it about this guy?

Well, I think that there are two things and the first is hidden there in the beginning of the text: Jesus, looking at him, loved him

It is from those whom we love that we demand the most, isn’t it?

It is in those whom we love that we can see the flaws, isn’t it?

It is with those whom we love that we can be the most honest, isn’t it?

So it was with this exchange.

Jesus, out of love, saw what it was that was keeping this man from living a full and rewarding life, it was his wealth. He no longer owned his possessions, they owned him, they kept him from being the person that he was created to be. And the eyes of love revealed that to Jesus.

Job was complaining because he couldn’t find God, the Rich Man was thinking that Job was the lucky one.

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said “You lack one thing: go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

And Jesus loves you and me and each of us, just as he loved that rich man.

He loves your family and mine.

He loves this Church.

Just as he loved that rich man.

And when he looks at us and loves us, what does he see?

And when he says to us “you lack one thing . . .” what is it? How do you finish that sentence?

Is it forgiveness that you lack? Or the ability to seek and receive forgiveness?

Is it humility? Or is it the pride that it takes to do a job right?

Is it generosity? Or the wisdom to know where and when to give?

Is it compassion? Is it honesty? Is it enthusiasm? Is it gratitude?

When God’s eyes of love come to rest on our lives and he measures our calendars and checkbooks to see where our priorities really lie, what does he tell us that we lack?

How do we finish that sentence?

You see our God – the one who has, does and will continue to do the impossible – is not waiting for us to find him, he is out there seeking us, calling us, leading us back to him.

He is here with us in worship, he is with us in fellowship and service, he is there on the days of gray sorrow when the heavens weep with us, he is there on the days of sunshine and reunion when we are together with the people that he has given us in life. And perhaps when we stop desperately seeking the God who doesn’t exist, we will be found by and we will find the God who does exist, the God who created us and saved us and loves us, the God who doesn’t hide but reveals himself to us.

Tolstoy writes about Martin the Cobbler who lives in a tiny basement room with a single window to the street.

He hears a voice, as he lays in bed, “Look for me tomorrow, for I shall surely come.”

The next day, no one comes.

Oh, there is a soldier clearing away the snow and a mother with a shivering child and Martin opens the door and invites them in to drink tea and sit by the fire.

And in the afternoon there is an apple woman and Martin sees a ragged beggar boy who steals an apple from her, but not quickly enough for she grabs him and is shouting for the police. So Martin goes out and pays for the apple and kneels in the snow with the boy who, through his tears, apologizes and offers to push her cart home.

So Martin goes back inside as the dusk creeps across the streets and, in the dim lamp light he flips his Bible open and reads: “I was hungry and you fed me.”

And he hears the voice again: “Look for me tomorrow, for I shall surely come.”

Each day, for 175 years, God has come to the people of this Church.

Each day, for every one of your years, God has come to you, revealing more and more of himself.

Are you ready to be found by him today?

Or will you stubbornly join Job in the foolish search for the God who is already and always right here?

Oh, that I might know where I might find him.

Clover Hill Reformed Church 1834-2009 A 175 Day Scriptural Companion Dear Friends, As we progress through our Anniversary Year, I invite you to join together in a shared reading of scripture. I have selected 175 passages, from Genesis through Revelation, that have had special meaning in our Congregational life. Go Here