A Legacy of Re-Creation

A sermon delivered the Rev. Richard Otterness,
Albany Synod Executive,
at Chapel by the Lake.
October 13, 2003:
A special session of the Synod of Albany
launching a year of celebration of Fowler Camp and Retreat Center's 50th Anniversary
and unveiling a Master Plan for Fowler's future

Isaiah 55:6-13

You shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

I wonder how a fundamentalist--a biblical literalist--would ever make sense of this passage. Trees don't clap their hands! Mountains and hills don't sing!

Or do they?

Sometimes, when life seems mundane,
or when pressures squeeze in on us,
when we wonder if the future holds any new possibilities,
that's when we most need artists, poets, and musicians to speak not to our heads but to fill our hearts with a truth, a promise, a vision so powerful it cannot be contained by words alone. That's when we feel the thunder of trees clapping, hear the ecstasy of mountains bursting into song. That's when the reality of our small, finite, sometime frustrated and sometimes wonder-filled lives gets caught up in a reality so much bigger than ourselves: a reality of which we are a part; a cosmic thing that reminds us that
truth and beauty,
creation and re-creation,
memory and hope
are every bit as real as the reality of the present moment--whatever that present moment might be.

And that is what makes Fowler Camp and Retreat Center so invaluable.--so precious.

How else do you explain the willingness and drive of Jim Benes, Casey Dykhuizen, Chester Chilton, and one or two others who got in a car one cold February day to drive up into the mountains as far as Moffitt's Beach--and--in the words of Ernie Crounse:

That was as near as we could get to the property itself. So we parked the car off the road and started down through the snowdrifts, just about as high as a man could walk through without snowshoes, without skis, without dogsled, without a snowmobile such as we have today…The wind was blowing a gale, through the woods, across the lake piling the drifts higher. The winds were bitterly cold that day and we treked down through the woods of Mr. Olmstead at the time and came to the caretakers cottage which was nearest to Moffitt's Beach. There we found the haven of a warm fire--[and] getting out of the cold, [we] began to warm up a bit and to appraise the property… As I remember (Rev Crounse recalled), we went on foot to some of the buildings on the property--I believe there were five buildings in all. We looked at them--thought about our situation--talked it over and started back… We were quite impressed even though it was February. We were impressed with the fact that this could make a nice campground in the summer time… I would even go further to say that we fell in love with the place…

You shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Can you hear them?

Dorothy Jenner was the one who first suggested the place might be for sale. She thought the synod might be able to get it for $60,000. This was back in the beginning of the 1950's. That was a lot of money. This place had been the summer home of Mr. and Mrs. Graham Olmstead--built in the 1920's by Anthony Brady Farrell, and now it was up for sale.

A woman in St. Johnsville got wind of Albany Synod's interest in the camp. Her husband had recently died. At the time of his death in 1951, Mr. Louis Fowler had been engaged in the textile industry in St. Johnsville. He was so highly regarded by his associates in the industry that a generous foundation had been established in his memory. Knowing how her husband, who had grown up in nearby Piseco, loved this, his home territory--and sharing his great love for children and young people--and for the Reformed Church in America, Mrs. Fowler decided this was the place to establish her husband's memorial. A gift of $35,000 was made.

Now a place that had once been a private summer estate would become a summer camp for hundreds of girls and boys, teenagers, and volunteers--where Christ would be the welcoming host.

Now children and youth would go out to this place in joy, and be led back in peace.

And the mountains and hills before them burst into song,

And all the trees of the fields clapped their hands.

That was fifty years ago.

Thanks be to God for the vision and the faith and the generosity and hard work that took a piece of God's good creation, and re-created it into something even more wonderful than it had been.

Fifty years ago.

That was a different time than now.

That was a time when American Christendom was gearing up for it's last great hurrah!

When our churches were larger--and we had more of them--and the Sunday schools were strong, and Church camp was an extension of them… when in some ways it was easy to be Christian, and in some ways no big deal, because nearly everybody was--or at least so it seemed.

Now we are in exile…or at least moving in that direction. Now we are more of a remnant. Christendom--that state of affairs where churches dominated community life--and where the American way of life was presumed to be a Christian way--Christendom has gasped its last breath.

We are social, cultural, religious exiles. “God's peculiar people, ” scripture calls us. Refugees of faith trying to find our way in a world far more complex, far more confused and confusing,--a world filled with many more options in life--at least for some.

We are, in this regard, not so very different from the people of faith--the exile people--to whom Isaiah the prophet was speaking when he first uttered the words of our scripture passage from the book of Isaiah:

The people of Israel had been in bondage--in captivity in a foreign land. The good old days were long gone, when life had been peaceable and pleasant, when it had been easy to believe in a God who loved and cared for them, when the culture around them was comfortable, because it was so compatible with their faith as a people. Those good old days were but a faint memory.

Now they were a remnant--a shadow of the great populace who'd gone before them--exiles in Babylon--trying to figure out how to sing the Lord's song in a foreign land.

At best, life seemed mundane, strange pressures squeezed in on them, they wondered if the future held any new possibilities, and they dared not dream it might.

Into this discouraging and fatalistic time a hopeful, compelling voice called out,

"Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon God while God is near!
Change your ways! Change your thinking!
God is not through with you yet--
No! You are, in fact, on the threshold of such an incredible future,
You can't even begin to imagine all that God has in store for you!" Isaiah cried out [paraphrased].

"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth [says the Lord],
it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

And then in a promise of incredible hope and assurance for the exiles in Babylon who yearned so much to be in a better place, God said this:

"For you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you will burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands…!"

If you do not remember the rest of the story let me assure you that the promise was fulfilled. The faithful sojourners were re-created into a new people, returning to a re-created homeland, and with a new heart.

That is what makes this--the Lewis M. Fowler Memorial Camp and Retreat Center--a most precious and necessary place.

A place to which and from which people may go in joy,
A place to which--and from which--they may be led back in peace,
Re-created just a little more fully as children of God
Created--and re-created--in the Image of God.

How do we learn to sing the Lord's song in a foreign land--and share that song with others who have never heard it before--in the times in which we are living?

We come to camp.

How do we remember who we are, and whose we are?

We come to Fowler.

How do we let go of some of the stuff that's been holding us back?

How do we catch a glimpse of a new vision of life in all its beauty, its goodness, and its glory?

We spend time at Fowler.

How do we discover--or re-discover--all that we are capable of being, and doing?

How do we get connected--or reconnected--with some of God's other peculiar people?

Some of the most peculiar--and wonderful, and gifted, and challenging, and loving, and confrontational, and reaffirming people you will ever meet--- are here at Fowler!

Sisters and brothers, a legacy has been left to us. The baton has been past to us.

How do we honor the vision and commitment, the generosity and tenacity of those first visitors to this place who cam trudging through deep snow in gale force winds?

We do it by paying attention to the visions that God may be placing before us today.

We do it through our new commitments, and generosity, and tenacity.

We do it not be trying to recreate something of the past,

but by asking the same question of God today that has been asked over and over again in one form or another during the last half century:

What are you calling us to be, and to do, as your faithful people, O God,
right here…right now…
for our sake.
for the sake of the generations who will follow us,
and most of all, for Christ's sake?

If we seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he in near,
The we shall go out in joy,
We will be led back in peace.

And the mountains and the hills will burst into a new song.
The trees of the field will clap their hands.

And all God's people will say,
"Amen!"