My child, eat honey, for it is good.
The honeycomb is sweet in your mouth.
Know that wisdom is like that for your whole being.
If you find it, there is a future.
Your hope won’t be cut off.
Kitty corner across the street from the town square sits the First Presbyterian Church of Franklin, Kentucky. The beautiful brick building was built in 1886, and it contains a lovely secret.
I was blessed to have the opportunity to preach there a few weeks ago while their pastor was on vacation. I opened the heavy wooden doors,stepped into entrance and the first thing I saw was the rope for the bell. It was all I could do not to grab that rope and start ringing...but I resisted. I'm a sucker for church bells. Always have been. And my love has been fostered by a good dose of BBC. One episode of Midsomer Murders, "Ring Out Your Dead" featured a group of bell ringers practicing for their big competition while trying to avoid getting murdered!
First Franklin features classic stained glass windows, exposed wooden beams and a gently sloping floor. Best of all, the pulpit wasn't too big for me! This is a close knit, and growing community. You could tell how much they care for each other in the passing of the peace and the sharing of joys and concerns.
After worship, I stood at the back of the church to greet people, and after a few minutes there was a lull. I looked around and spotted the leather bound visitor's book. It reminded me of the one that stood in the narthex of the old sanctuary at Second Presbyterian, and I picked up the pencil to sign my name.
The moment my fingers touched the pencil, I flinched a little. The pencil was sticky. Not just a little sticky. Really sticky. But must first thought was that a child had left it that way...There wasn't any point in putting it down since my fingers were already attached to the stickiness, so I signed the book. As I turned around, thinking I should probably let someone know, a woman walked up to me to say hello.
We began talking about the sanctuary, and she said, almost apologetically, "Well, did you notice the streaks on the walls?" At the back corner of the sanctuary there were long streaks coming down the white walls. I would never have noticed them if she hadn't pointed them out.
"That's honey," she said. "We have a beehive in the walls. A beekeeper came and tried to remove the hive, but they came back! Once we had the honey bottled and gave it out to everyone. We called it 'Holy Honey.'"
I held the fingers of my right hand up to my nose, and I could smell it. The beautiful aroma of honey. Honey was literally oozing through the walls of their church. Dripping down on the pencil I had just used.
"That's amazing," I said to her. "Did you know the beehive is a symbol for the church?"
The beehive, filled with bees, each with different tasks to do, each with different gifts, and, for the most part, working harmoniously together. Pollinating, feeding, producing glorious, golden honey.
What a powerful reminder they have with them each week when they gather.
Maybe it was my imagination, but the longer I stood there, the more I was convinced that I could smell the honey in the air.
I love that the bees came back, that they didn't want to leave. They are happy there. Safe there. This is their home, and from this place they can go out into the world to do the work they were made to do.
It is one of the reasons we gather on Sundays, isn't it? Gathered together, we can find our spiritual home. We can remember that we are safe in God's arms. We can be reminded that we are not alone. And then we can go back out into the world to do the work God has called us to do.
