Rediscovering Baptist in The Baptist Church of Beaufort
Charles Street – Discovering Our Story
Luke 4:16-30
Page 1 – Jesus begins at home.
Imagine for moment that you are in the small synagogue in Nazareth. Nazareth remains a small village of about 150 people terraced onto the side of a mountain. Not much has changed in the town since many of its residents returned from the Roman census many years ago. This day is different.
The synagogue serves several purposes – both for religious purposes and community gatherings. Today is both. Everyone is here. Jesus is returning to our small town. We all know the stories by now - The gossiped news of the engagement between Mary and Joseph; the stories from Bethlehem about Kings from the East coming to present wealthy gifts to the family, the years in exile in Egypt, and then the year Jesus was left at the temple.
Things have settled down for quite a few years. Until recently, Jesus has worked with Joseph in the family carpentry business. There have been no more strange stories. He has been just one of us. Joseph’s son. By this time, we have come to simply think that all of the stories that surround the early years of the family – were just that – stories.
Today is different. Jesus has been gone and the stories have begun again. We’ve heard of his baptism by the preacher John at the river. We’ve heard he has returned to Galilee and has been teaching in the village synagogues. We’ve even heard stories – miraculous stories – of Jesus healing sick and maimed people. We’ve come today to see and hear what Jesus is saying. We want to root him on. We want someone famous to come from our town.
We start with the normal routines of worship – we recite the Shema confession, then there’s the reading from the Torah. When it’s time for the reading from the prophets, Jesus stands. The assistant hands Jesus a scroll. Jesus reads the words from Isaiah 61in Hebrew and then translates it into Aramaic for everyone to understand.
8"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."[e]
Everyone in the congregation – all of the town folk – sit transfixed on Jesus. What will he say? What do these words mean? Jesus sits down to teach as was the custom of the rabbis. Then he says these words:
“"Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
The Message says: "You've just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place."
The world has waited for this moment. The Messiah has been born. He has been affirmed as God’s son during his baptism at the river. Now – it’s time to begin. All the hope, all of the expectations – everything that has been dreams about – it’s time. Jesus tells everyone in his small village – “All of the stories you’ve heard, all of the talking you done about our family, It’s all true. I am the Messiah. You are witnessing history right now.”
At first, everyone is amazed at his words. The Bible says that they spoke well of him. They can’t believe it’s true. But then, they begin to doubt – “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Isn’t this the carpenter, the one we say grow up? How can he be the Messiah?”
Jesus doesn’t stop there. He begins to challenge – from the very start – his community’s understanding of Messiah. The Messiah won’t be just for the Jews. The Messiah will reach out to the Gentiles, the Messiah will release those who are in bondage, bring good news to the poor, bring hope for everyone!
The thought of this – of this young man, Joseph’s son – challenging all o f the community’s expectations – makes the community mad. Who is Jesus to be God’s decisive agent? He’s just a local boy. The crowd gets so mad; they drive him out of town up the mountain to throw him from the cliff. In a way we’ll never understand, Jesus miraculously – slips through the crowd and goes on his way -
Question: How would you have responded to Jesus that day in the synagogue?
Page 2 – Our Charles Street Story begins in Maine
Our Biblical passage today helps us begin the process of understanding our identity as The Baptist Church of Beaufort. During this sermon series, we are looking at who we are as Baptist in Beaufort, SC, in order to understand where God is leading us as Baptists in the future.
In this passage, Jesus challenges his community’s understanding of his identity. They see him, not as the Messiah, but as “Joseph’s Son,” the carpenter who worked on my home, the boy who was left at the temple. They have their own expectations of who the Messiah will be and it definitely didn’t include Jesus or any talk about including the Gentiles. The Messiah was for Israel.
Being Baptist can mean many different things in today’s world. Because of the congregational nature of who we are – Baptists include many different worship styles, political stripes and ways to be church. The question we have to answer as a church during our time of interim is what does it mean for us – The Baptist Church of Beaufort to be Baptist. Who are we?
Because of the age of our congregation, we can trace our Baptist story to Maine in the 1600’s. In the mid-1600’s being Baptist was still not an acceptable way to worship Jesus. A Baptist pastor by the name of William Screven fled England in hopes of a place to worship. He gathered a small grouping of Baptist believers in Kittery Maine in 1681, but even there they faced persecution from other believers. By 1696, the group made a fateful decision in our history – the entire Baptist church in Kittery migrated to Charleston, SC where they became the first Baptist church in the South – and eventually would be called First Baptist Church, Charleston, SC.
This church made a foothold in the South in a colony where the Church of England was still the official church of the people. By 1726 they helped start a new church on Edisto Island called Euhaw Baptist Church. Eventually, this group of Baptists left the island and traveled up Boyd’s Creek into what an area near present day Ridgeland. You can still see the present sanctuary of this church when you visit – right off of Hwy 336 on Bee’s Creek Road.
By the late 1790’s our country was going through much transition. We had won our independence from Britain, we established our constitution and in 1791 – an eventful year for our church – the states also passed the first 10 amendments to the Constitution – the Bill of Rights. The first amendment changed our community. There was not longer a state religion – we were free – as a newly freed country – to worship on our own. The days of dissenters having to flee to follow God were over.
These new freedoms allowed Rev. Henry Holcombe, a veteran of the revolution and pastor of Euhaw Baptist Church to begin traveling by horseback across the Port Royal Ferry to the small groupings of Baptists in Beaufort. When the travel began to impact the health of the large man, Holcomb asked for permission from the Euhaw Church to move to Beaufort and build a small sanctuary on Charles Street.
Holcomb’s first days in Beaufort weren’t very easy. He struggled with people’s expectations of Baptists. While the folks in Beaufort were polite and cultured, they were “strangers to true religion” as it called it and very prejudice against Baptists. Town folks ridiculed his enthusiastic preaching style and someone even stole his Bible. Soon, Holcomb led two widows to accept Jesus and experience believer’s baptism. The whole town showed up at the waterfront to witness the town’s first baptism by immersion.
From the start – The Baptist Church of Beaufort has attempted to be the presence of Jesus in this community. We challenged our community’s expectation of what it means to follow Jesus as we have sought to be a different expression of church in this community.
Question: Where do you see God working in our early story as The Baptist Church of Beaufort? [2 lines]]
Page 3 - Jesus transforms his community’s expectation of Messiah.
When Jesus stood to read from Isaiah in the small synagogue in Nazareth something extraordinary happens. We can’t be over exaggerated. These words from Isaiah 61 with an allusion to Isaiah 58:6. The Gospel writer Luke uses these words to proclaim Jesus as the fulfillment of scripture and the hopes of Israel through Jesus’ ministry as the Son of God. Look at what these words say about Jesus in v.18:
1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Jesus – All that he does –his teaching, his healing, his leadership – all comes to him from Spirit.
2. Jesus has come to bring Good News to the poor. This is specific to Luke. He leaves out the word “Brokenhearted” which Matthew and Mark include. The theme of God’s love and protection of those who live in physically poverty is found throughout Luke Gospel – from Jesus’ birth in a stable to Jesus’ pronouncement of “blessed are the poor.”
3. Jesus comes to bring release from those living in bondage – captives. This release comes from that poverty, for those living with physical limitations as well as for those living in spiritual bondage.
4. Jesus comes to bring sight to the blind and let the oppressed go free. Jesus shows here that he will bring salvation to all people as Isaiah foretold. Jesus brings salvation to you, to me, and to all nations – for everyone living in darkness.
Can you imagine being there in the small room, listening to the Messiah – the long awaited one – speaking these words and saying – you are now witnessing history. These words have now happened. I am the Messiah. What a powerful moment in history.
The question – from that moment till today – is what will we do with these words? What will we do with Jesus, the Messiah? He brings Good News. He brings hope. He brings healing. He brings salvation. But he also always breaks our expectations. God is larger than we can ever imagine
That day, Jesus friends, those he grew up with, those he worked for, the ones who knew Mary and Joseph, who remembered Mary’s parents and grandparents – those who knew him best – were so incensed by his identity as the Messiah and what it meant – that they tried to kill him.
Question: How is Jesus as the Messiah different than what his community expected?
Page 4 – Jesus transforms us as a community
As believers in Jesus today – we still have to answer the same question as the town folks in Nazareth - Who do we say that Jesus is? How do we understand Jesus as the Messiah? How will we live out these words of the Messiah in our lives?
Jesus transforms us as followers. When we encounter Jesus, Jesus will not leave us the same. We are always being shaped into the image of Jesus.
As we look at our history as The Baptist Church of Beaufort since those days over 200 years ago, we see that Jesus has continually been transforming us as a community as well.
Being Baptist for us has meant that we have attempted to follow Jesus in this community. God has transformed us as we have listened to the words of the Bible and followed the leadership of some of the great names in Baptist life.
Look at some of the ways God has transformed us and transformed our community as we have taken the words and life of Jesus seriously in our history.
1. During the horror of antebellum slavery days, God used Pastor Richard Fuller to minister too many of our slave members who would sit in the balcony. Through ministry both here and on the islands, people saw God’s love in this man. When he returned after the war, our newly freed slave brothers and sisters welcomed Dr. Fuller as their old pastor. They understood Jesus’ words “release of the captives in a profoundly personal way. We see God still seeking to transform our racial divides today as we work together in Operation Good Neighbor with churches which formed after the Civil War from former members of this church
2. Dr. Warren Seay, pastor in the 1930’s and 40’s led the church to remember Jesus spoke of release of both Jews and Gentiles. Dr. Seay spoke Hebrew, wrote on the subject of Jewish and Christian relationships and developed a deep friendship with the local rabbi during his time of ministry in Beaufort.
3. During the 1950’s and 60’s when Dr. George Jones came to lead our church as pastor – we see how our church has sought to tell our community about Jesus. A firm believer in evangelism and Bible study, Dr. Jones led our church to bring the Good News of Jesus throughout our community through ministry to migrants, summers filled with VBS, and even a Children Enrichment Center.
4. Throughout this time – we have seen God transform our community as our church as said, “The story of the Kingdom of God is larger than Charles Street.” For decades our church has sought to proclaim the year of the Lord through Church Multiplication. Over the years our church has started 8 different churches in this community. If we were all meeting here together today we would need a sanctuary to seat over 1,700 people. –It’s not been about BCOB, it’s been about God’s kingdom.
Through over 210 years God has been working through Baptists in Beaufort to transform this community. Today we stand at the beginning of another new year – a transition year, an interim time.
In these days of transition, we hear the words of Jesus again:
8"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."[e]
The question for us as individuals and as a church is:
Question: How will Jesus transform our community year?
It will not happen without us – as individuals and as a church – stepping forward to follow Jesus wherever he leads. Let us follow together!
