This
year I’ve been focused on the chronology of the Christian faith. Just days ago,
Christians around the world celebrated Jesus’ birth. In just months, we’ll
begin the journey that ends in his death at age 33, followed weeks later by his
being raised to new life.
So
it is that Christians worship “the God who is, who was and who is to come.”
But
what does that mean for a church like St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Allentown, which after 256 years will close Sunday? For some, this will be just
another chapter in the epic saga of a city’s birth, death and hoped-for
resurrection. But what does this say to those with faithful hearts?
Like
many a venerable institution, one option on St. Paul’s table was to simply keep
going until it couldn’t go anymore. “Last one out, turn off the lights.”
There
are many churches for whom the writing on the wall is simply to be covered with
a new coat of paint and ignored. Instead, St. Paul’s chose to take the road
less traveled, one that we pray will have implications long into the future. It
has hardly been easy. But it has been faithful.
When
we think of self-sacrifice, we might imagine a soldier risking her life to save
comrades in danger, or a firefighter racing into a burning building. Of course,
Christians have our own model of self-sacrifice: Jesus on the cross.
His
witness is that living life to its fullest, to its most faithful, doesn’t have
to mean slowly fading away with old age. That sometimes painful decisions have
to be made in service of others, at cost to ourselves.
That
is the example St. Paul's has chosen to follow.
A
first hope was to preserve this place of beauty and quiet that many worked hard
to maintain, to find someone to make a new home in the building, staving off
the wrecker’s ball and one more parking lot in Allentown. We’re thankful that mission has been accomplished.
But
the building, as important as it is, is only a part of the story. We may have
just celebrated Christmas, but this is really an Easter story, a story of life,
death and resurrection. Because instead of using its newfound monies for
short-term survival, St. Paul’s chose to use its assets not for the one, not
for itself, but for the many.
The
legal road ahead is complicated and beyond our control, so I can only share
what we intend and what we hope. Rather than eking out a few more years, the
church elected to make its assets an ongoing source of support for ministries
that have meant so much to so many for so long, both in church and community.
In
particular, to help the homeless by working through a foundation to make sure
funds will be available to present and future ministries focused on their
behalf.
And
while it may not be heroism worthy of medal or movie, it is no less self-sacrificing.
It is indeed, “laying down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
It
has been an honor to minister to, and with, the members of St. Paul’s,
cooperating with those dedicated to “the least of these” in Allentown. This is
a sad time to be sure, but a faithful one as well, trusting Jesus’ example that
“unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but
if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
In
trusting our God, St. Paul's testifies that though our life together has come
to an end, our commitment to others goes on. Resurrection, the life to come,
will be borne out in a legacy of service lived by others.
We
have seen the One who is and who was. And so we trust in the One who is to
come.
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