20 Years

"I have been with you for twenty years now." Genesis 31:38

When you read Genesis 31, you see that jacob had spent 20 years of his life working for Laban. Laban was the father of both Leah and Rachel. He was an an unscrupulous man. He was deceitful, cunning and unethical and yet at the end of the story we see that he showed signs of generosity. But halfway through the chapter we discover a major conflict between the two men. Their conversation lets you quickly realize that those twenty years have not been real good ones, let alone great ones! Jacob fell in love with Laban's daughter Rachel and he wanted to marry her. Laban said, "if you work for me for, say seven years, you can marry my daughter." So Jacob worked really hard and when the time came, he was ready to marry Rachel. Only Laban pulled a last minute switch and placed Leah in Rachel's place. When the service was over and drape removed, Jacob realized he had been trick and had not married Rachel, but Leah. Laban basically said, "My bad - I thought you wanted to marry Leah. But I'll tel ya what. If you work for me, say another 7 years you can have Rachel too." At the end of the 14th year of working for Laban, Laban kept his word - sort of. Jacob married Rachel. But, because they had no money, he wouldn't let them leave. So now Jacob conns Laban to stay an additional six years so that he can raise enough money to succeed on his own. At the end of the 20 years, reading now between the lines on the page, it sounds like Jacob had endured a twenty year prison sentence before he made his great escape.

I have been in Martins Ferry serving at GRACE Presbyterian Church for twenty years. But unlike Jacob, my twenty years have been great! What a contrast - my twenty years laboring with you at GRACE Church and Jacob's twenty years at work for Laban!

Twenty years. I've been at GRACE Church for twenty years. Twenty wonderful years that has just flown past. It seems like just yesterday we were unpacking and moving into the manse. It seems like just yesterday we were moving in, setting up and gearing up for our ministry at GRACE. But the pictures taken over the past two decades show differently. They have marked time traveled, revealing significant changes in our facility and in the people.

Twenty years ago - that's a long time. When we moved to GRACE Church Matthew (a fresheman at WVU) wasn't born; Rachel, a Junior at Westminster College was only six months old; and Sarah, now in her first year of Law School at Ohio Northern wasn't quite three years old. But my wife has always been 29.

For me, it is easiest way to measure time, isn't with pictures, but with people, especially with the kids. I have baptized infants, children of children which I have baptized and married. In the past twenty years I have married over one hundred couples and baptized 194 people. I have officiated over 350 funerals. Someone once told me, "You know you have been in a church too long when you bury friends and not parishoners." I have not buried a parishoner in many, many years.

On any given Sunday I can look out from the pulpt and see great, old friends. Some of them are sitting in the pews, greeting at the door, assisting in worship. Others are floating around in my memory. They remain forever sitting in their seat, or walking around, assisting and helping around the church in one way or another. I see them, as the author of the Book of Hebrews reminds us, "as a great cloud of witnesses." The cloud of witnesses surrounding GRACE Church constantly remind us of those who have come before us. They recall for us past, historic events. Those who have come before us; those who stood at the pulpit or sat in the pews made decisions, grew in grace, and grew Grace Presbyterian Church. They worked in unity enlarging the Kingdom of God. Looking back after 20 years at GRACE Church, I see that we are continuing in the rich tradition of our ancestors as we actively grow the Kingdom of GOD.