Archive of Letters to My Friends: Mission? Yeah, we've got that

  

Undertaker's smile ... underwriter's frown

October 2004

By the Rev. Jon Rieley-Goddard

Dear friends,

    I’m tempted to say that that undertaker’s smile that I wrote to you about last month has morphed into an underwriter’s frown.

    But then I don’t want to give away our power unnecessarily, so I won’t say that ... .

    Colleagues in ministry continue to ask after you, in varying degrees of kindness and concern. Since the news continues to be grim, in terms of the future here, the responses in some cases are taking on that frowning quality of one who counts the cost of the perceived failure of others.

    Translation: If we close, the property becomes the concern of the Trustees of the Presbytery of Western New York; that frightens a lot of people.

    I don’t need to see frowns right now, so public times such as meetings of Presbytery pose me a sharp challenge. It’s hard and painful to talk about our situation with colleagues. Indeed, it feels shameful ­ even though I tell myself that it is not ­ to have to own that we are up against the wall of financial distress. I beat myself up for not being a better minister, and I imagine that you, too, have times of self-doubt and self-criticism. I remember just in time that though I could be a much better Savior, I am an adequate pastor.

***

    This is not a mistake that we are in the midst of, you and I. No, this is what God’s love and grace look like, right now and right here. A prudent person would not be in this place, but we are not prudent persons, but fools, for Christ.

    Other colleagues, fools one and all, for Chirst, keep trotting out the Life Support metaphor. The use of this metaphor implies that anything that I do from now on, with you and for you, will be branded and even dismissed as Life Support. Does that mean that we call in the theological undertakers and have that really good funeral? Should we see becoming like single drops of rain as a good and desirable outcome?

    Are you angry yet? I am. I’m furious, mainly with myself for giving other fools, for Christ, so much power over me. Often I get angry when I’m really feeling scared, as a sort of substitute feeling that is easier to bear. I’m not talking about that, though. This is the real thing, and this sort of anger is both a blessing and a curse, because it gives me a tremendous amount of energy but also feeds a kind of banal, everyday sort of suspiciousness that I don’t really need to be dealing with right now. And after all, what does it really matter what others think about our situation if their thoughts are not bracketed with love and charity? To worry about reactions, and to imagine some sort of fixed or focused opposition, is another way of giving other fools, for Christ, too much power over me and over you. The thoughtful among them would resent such a giving away of power, and so would we.

***

    If we survive, it will be because of our own efforts, God willing. This is as it should be. I would not value an outcome that was not of our own making, in God’s time and in God’s good pleasure.

    If I had a business with you-all as its workers and executives, I would expect to have a profitable business that could easily cover our present shortfall. Is that Life Support? I call it fighting for the call that God places on my heart, and the call that I believe that God has placed upon yours, too. If our church were dying, I would tell you, and I would do the funeral myself. Instead, I hear God calling us to use our common gifts to make some money, for Christ’s sake.

    It’s finally become amusing to me that I worry about these Letters that I write to you each month. As we have gotten further into our financial crisis, the comments and attitudes from the outside have led me to say some sharp things, in print and in person. I want to make myself generally agreeable and approachable, and at the same time I will not muzzle myself. God has given me a sharp pen and mind, and I will use them for our survival. Still, if you are a friend of this church and feel that I have offended you, I am truly sorry. We need friends, and we need assistance, from brothers and sisters and friends and neighbors.

    The One Who Makes Us Foolish said that anyone who is not against us is for us.

***

    We do not need Life Support, and it would be a good idea to put that particular metaphor to rest. There was a concrete-mixer delivery truck in the cemetery next to Hyde Park when I drove by today on the way to the church. I don’t know what the truck was doing there, but there is a particular sort of final rest that I wish on that metaphor of Life Support. That particular metaphor is tired and worn out from too many fools, for Christ, using it too many times for far too many situations. We can let that metaphor go, and bury it in concrete.

    Let us not talk about our effort to survive in terms that demean or diminish our efforts, and let us not allow others to even appear to do so without loving challenge.

    A year from now, we can talk about such things as whether I am giving you Life Support, but not now. Now is the time to talk about how we can leverage our combined fear, anger, cunning, grace, forgiveness, and business sense into an enterprise that answers God’s call by making money, for the Kingdom, in this place.

    Where others see tubes and wires, I see courage and energy.

    Where others worry about our church building as a liability that they will inherit, I say knock it down if it has no value for you, if it comes to that. Your liability will be sharply curtailed, and you can muse on the message that you are sending to the city and those who live on our street.

    We, on the other hand, see our big building as a towering legacy right in the middle of the city. Just as you, and I, are stronger in the broken places, so too we have an opportunity to answer God’s call in new and exciting ways where others might be seeing a big problem.

    Where some might see a weird, time-worn rummage sale thing going on, I see a creative and theological response, actual and virtual (the eBay edge) to a theological problem, since life and theology are not separate things for me.

***

    During the summer, a caller initiated a conversation with me, where the caller offered the opinion that our building would not sell on the open market. Big problem.

    That caller may be right. And that is OK, because our building is not for sale.

    Renting or sharing is another question, though. We can talk.

Blessings and peace

Pastor Jon