St. Paul's is closing but its ministries will live on

December 2018

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.

“Ish” is not Enough

August 2018

 

Perhaps like me, you’ve discovered that “-ish” has become quite a popular expression. I’ve asked someone how they are doing, and gotten a response of “ish.” In other languages it might be “como si, como sa,” “asi asi,” or “metza-metza,” but however you say it, it means, “I’m okay; not terrible, not great.”

But “ish” is spreading. I’ve now seen t-shirts embossed with “adultish,” which I can appreciate, having my own childish moments. Then there is “thirtyish,” a stretch for someone like me who ought to wear “fiftyish.” My favorite is a t-shirt with the word “fitish,” followed by “someone who likes the idea of being fit, but also really likes food.” A t-shirt that fits me to a T!

It is no wonder, then, that a book has been published entitled Christianish. In it, Mark Steele challenges Christians to examine their relationship with Jesus Christ, asking if we satisfied with being “Christianish.” That is, sort of Christian.

To help us answer that, Steele offers several questions for Christians to ask themselves, which for the broader readership of The Morning Call I will broaden. “Which takes priority: being the kind of believer others think I should be, or actually following the One in whom I believe?” Next, “Have I divided up my life so that my faith affects part of my life, but leaves other areas untouched?” And, “Does my feeling of being a faithful believer largely depend upon completing a checklist of rules and regulations?”

The author observes that many Christians talk about certain big, bad sins, but overlook other sins. You may not commit adultery, but gossip and pride are okay. You may consider homosexuality a sin, but not greed and lying. Abortion may be unforgivable in your eyes, but ignoring the poor is acceptable.

All of which leaves this Christian wondering about the “faithfulish” of any religion who are able to overlook all manner of behavior in favor of what they see as “a greater good.” And, as a proponent of the separation of church and state, I am saddened by about how “Americanish” this nation has become.

What is “sort of American”? If we condone leaders and officials who use their office to pad their own nest, that is Americanish. When the freedom of speech that allows us to sing the national anthem is denied to those who would kneel during that same anthem, that is Americanish. If actions are taken that restrict certain people’s ability to vote or exercise their rights, that is Americanish. And this country’s ideals say that we are better than that.

Just as Christians confess that we always fall short of the glory of God, any honest American must realize that this country has not lived up to its ideals. For too long “all men are created equal” really meant only men. And even now “all” doesn’t really mean all. We aspire to these national ideals, even if we still have a lot of work ahead to achieve them.

For people of faith and for people of this nation, honesty and humility demand that we admit to continually falling short of our ideals. And yet confession, repentance, and change for the better are possible because of those same higher callings.

Quoting Scripture or carrying a Bible doesn’t make anyone a Christian; that is a matter of living our faith. Similarly, wearing red, white, and blue and standing for the national anthem does not make anyone an American. Because if my exercise of being an American inhibits someone else’s constitutionally-given rights as an American, then whatever else I am, I am only “Americanish.”

In matters of faith and nation, “ish” is not enough.

Fractals

March 2018

To begin, a little science. Some years ago I became aware of fractals, which are objects in which a part has the same character as the whole, whether they are seen from near or far. It is a strange thing to read or hear about, but we have all experienced them in our lives, from fern leaves to seashells, cauliflower to snowflakes, mountain ranges to galaxies!

A visual example (which is much easier to deal with!), and meaningful for us as Christians, is what a 7-year-old boy described as, “a cross within the cross within the cross within the cross within the cross!” Up close you see just a point, step back a bit and you see the point is the top of a cross, farther back and you see the cross is one of several crosses, until farthest away you see a mass of crosses. And if we go beyond that…a bigger pattern made up of this mass of crosses. Even the largest contains the smallest.

I offer this to suggest that when we are really close to something, we can only see as much as we can see, and that from a distance, we can see even more. And in faith, while we must trust in the vastness of God, we can see Jesus, who is the “image of the invisible God.” And so it is that on Good Friday, we’ll be leaving St. Luke’s on Seventh Street at noon to become more aware of the small crosses and large crosses that crucify people around the world  ̶  just like the image above.

For those of us at St. Paul's, aware of our church’s prognosis, it may be easy to see a cross looming. But it is Jesus who fills our lives, and his life and our lives are not just the cross. Rather, it is his life, death, and resurrection that gives us meaning and hope, even if sometimes the cross is all we can see.

Recently, on hearing of St. Paul's circumstances, a friend of the congregation, the Rev. Karen Moeschberger brought to my attention a hymn entitled, “In the Bulb There is a Flower, which goes:

In the bulb there is a flower,
in the seed, an apple tree,
in cocoons, a hidden promise:
butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter
there's a spring that waits to

   be,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see.

There's a song in every silence,
seeking word and melody;
there's a dawn in every

   darkness,
bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the

   future;
what it holds, a mystery,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see.
In our end is our beginning,
in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing,
in our life, eternity,
in our death, a resurrection,
at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see.

There is what we can see, and there is more than we can see. We have to be responsive to what we is in front of us; as we approach Good Friday, we can’t deny the cross. At the same time, however, we have to be open to what may be revealed to us, bigger than what we could imagine. Resurrected life.

In the bulb, we can imagine a flower. In our doubt, can we believe that there is something ahead of us, “unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see”?

God is all in all,