Archive of Letters to My Friends: The news of our demise is greatly exaggerated

  

The news of our demise is greatly exaggerated

August 2004

By the Rev. Jon Rieley-Goddard

Dear friends,

     Lately, from some colleagues in ministry, I have been getting firm handshakes followed by what could only be described as an undertaker’s smile.

    This happens even after I have said, borrowing a page from the satirist Mark Twain, that the news of our demise here at Pierce Avenue church has been greatly exaggerated.

    I sound harsh in my own ears, and I mean to be otherwise.

    I have committed every act that I identify in the paragraphs that follow.

***

    The closer to home, the better the support, I find. I have nothing but love, praise, and appreciation for my Niagara brothers and sisters. We work together to find common and holy ground, and my boldness is but a reflection of our common spirit.

    Those who know me know better than to give me that undertaker’s smile.

***

    A few Sundays ago, the Epistle reading was the first 14 verses of Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. As I read the simple, friendly words, I realized that here was the tone and substance of the message that I long for from brothers and sisters further afield:

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

    I cannot begin to express the tangled and strong feelings that dog me as I long for this kind of understanding and support from those who should know better than to play it safe and stand by while brothers and sisters swim against a current that is licking at their own toes.

    I long to hear, rather, something like this:

     ... we have not ceased praying for you.

***

    I am not a prudent man. I am a fool, living among a foolish people, full of foolish ideas of the sort that children learn in Sunday School. So many colleagues of good will seem bent upon continuing to do what they always have done, blind to the assurance that the same-old same-old will get them the same-old outcomes – death with prejudice, with no hope of resurrection.

    We raise baby Christians to expect better outcomes than that.

    My choices in ministry at times puzzle those who assume certain things about work in the church – a comfortable living seasoned with deference; the best seats and the best cuts of meat at table; and a raise in pay each year.

    This from persons who follow a man who died in infamy with holes in his hands and side.

    Seeing these as pharisees, I make myself one, as well.

    Time for me to stop, then go in a new direction.

***

    Those who love me ask questions such as “what’s going on at Pierce? I hear that you are having a hard time.” Those who don’t seem to give a rip one way or the other say things like “I hear that you’re closing.”

    Those who ask what they can do to help sometimes seem most unable to do so.

    Those who say that they want to help sometimes end up sounding like job interviewers skilled in the art of crafting and asking stress-questions that finally begin to sound like “when did you take leave of your senses?”

***

    I live in an urban neighborhood in Buffalo where the homes cost less than the SUVs that carry the upper-level drug dealers and pimps up and down the streets. I serve a church in a neighborhood in Niagara Falls that has much the same potential.

    I have never found ministry to be more stimulating and fulfilling than it has been in the past six months.

    I told you that I was a fool.

***

    There is an old saying that there is nothing more frightening than a Calvinist convinced that he is doing the will of God.

    I am one such, and you are another. Let us go forth, together, seeking ways to be faithful while we heed our Lord’s advice to be wise as serpents and gentle as lambs.

    There is something frightening in a congregation that continues to prosper at the edge of a red-hot volcano, and no one is more frightened than we are, I’m sure. Or having more fun. The folk at Pierce Avenue have not stopped laughing in the simple joy of one another’s presence. This is part of why I love you!

    Along the way, let us find time and energy to love those who follow the same Lord. We have time to send Paul’s loving message of esteem and prayerfulness to those who sometimes disappoint us:

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. ... we have not ceased praying for you.

***

    I do have, and you also have, love for all the saints. Otherwise, how could they disappoint us by being careful and human in the face of our only-too-human financial challenges?

    If you make it, we’ll throw a party, is an attitude that I and the Session have encountered.

    Let us be the first to resolve to give more than such encouragement when we encounter other parts of the body of Christ struggling in waters too deep for their safety and happiness.

    Any church’s death diminishes us all. Why would we stand and watch from higher ground while others flail about, too polite to yell out for a life line and too jaded to believe that there are any life lines left or any persons with the strength or will to fling a life line into harm’s way.

    If God puts us on higher ground, God does so that we might work our tails off for self and others. A Calvinist does not seek any other interpretation of God’s mercy and grace, nor seek any other blessing.

    Jesus puts it this way:

    From those who have received much, much is expected.

    Rather than being merely satisfied with saving ourselves while the world watches in mute, blank interest, let us resolve to rise and fall as one body of Christ, not resting until all are safe and dry.

    To do other than this is to make our God small and frail. And we will make ourselves safe, but sorry.

    Since it is not the strength of our legs that will throw us over the bar, but the strong right hand of God, let us set the bar in the heavens, on the edge of sight, and go about our work on earth, in courage and in faith, and in joy – and in fear and trembling.

    My gift is to exhort and motivate the people of God to live into the faith that we are sitting on – to stand on the faith that we would much rather sit upon and recline upon at our ease.

***

    In words of one syllable, here is the situation. Giving is holding up, and we have not had to dip into reserves since early spring. We have identified ways to save on expenses and have identified strategies to establish a better financial footing. If we can make it through the next year, we can continue for the time that God wills for us. Our zeal and our faith will be of great importance, and how we define the problems that we face will have a lot to do with the way in which we solve those problems.

    This is the problem: All rise or fall together.

    This is the solution: Let us do all that we can do, in courage and in faith, mindful that others are watching, and perhaps learning.

Blessings and peace!

Pastor Jon