Why People are Leaving the Church

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Fr. Peter

One of the responsibilities of anyone in pastoral leadership is to be able to answer the question of why people are leaving your church. I know this will ruffle some feathers, but sometimes we have to think of the church as a business, and when we do that, we need to pay attention to the trends taking place in society. We might have the best product in the world, and I think eternal salvation is pretty great, but if no one comes through the door then no one will hear the message.

As a church, I believe we have bought into the narrative that the world has become secular, and there is no room for the church. We need someone to blame so we turn to the culture of the day and point the finger at television, video games, etc. while all the while we ignore any role that we, the leaders of the church, might have.

There is no doubt that society has become a more secular place, but this Is not a new trend, in fact, it has been going in this direction since the 1960’s the church has just woken up to the idea. There is no way we are going to complete so we just need to stop trying. We need to realize that Sunday is just another day of the week but that there are six other days.

So where am I going with all of this? Well for starters we as a church need to face up to our past and take responsibility for the role we have played in all of this. We are not passive bystanders we are players and have contributed to where we are today. We need to look, and when I say look I mean take a long hard look, at everything we do and how we do it and then seek answers to questions about what we can do to assist in making things better for our little corner of the world. The mission of the church is a simple one, make disciples, not make converts, and not make cookie cutter people, make disciples. How do we do this? It’s quite simple, and Jesus told us how to love God and love neighbor. We do not love them by screaming at them and telling them they are wrong.

I stumbled across an article recently that puts a fine point on what I am trying to say. “Dear Church Here’s why People are Really Leaving You.” Take a few moments and read the article then come back.

For the longest time, I thought worship was the problem. I was told that traditional worship, where the minister wears a tie and robe, were not right. We have to wear jeans and a t-shirt. We cannot call our churches a sanctuary it is an auditorium. Singing hymns are not good enough we need a rock band with flashing lights and smoke. I’m not saying that any of that is wrong what I am saying is it does not matter what you do if it is not authentic then it’s not going to work. Wear jeans if that’s what you want but if you are committing adultery with your church secretary, it’s not going to work. Have a band and flashing lights, but if the people outside the door of the church are hungry, and you are doing nothing to help them, you are doing it wrong. Some of the biggest hypocrites I know, including myself, are church members.

Here are some questions to ask and these come right from the end of the article. Again, if you have not read it take the few minutes, it takes to read it and reflect on it.

Church, can you love us if we don’t check all the doctrinal boxes and don’t have our theology all figured out? It doesn’t seem so.

Can you love us if we cuss and drink and get tattoos, and God forbid, vote Democrat? We’re doubtful.

Can you love us if we’re not sure how we define love, and marriage, and Heaven, and Hell? It sure doesn’t feel that way.

We need to be able to authentically answer these questions. We do not need answers, but we need to be open to the process of finding the answers.

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Disinterested Charity

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Fr. Peter

Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Luke 14:12-14

This passage requires us to examine on a deep level to consider the motives behind our generosity. There are four reasons why someone gives.

We give from a sense of duty. We may give to God and our fellow human beings in the same was as we might pay our income tax. It is a duty that we cannot escape, and so we give because we feel that we are required to do so under some penalty.
We may give to others from motives of self-interest. We might look upon this as some investment, and we might even regard this giving as an entry on the credit side of our account in the account books that God is supposedly keeping on us. This type of giving is so far from being generous it is called rationalized selfishness.
We may give to feel superior. This sort of giving is a very cruel thing indeed. This type of giving can cause harm to the one that the gift is being given to more than if we just refused to give them something. When we give from this position, it is if we are standing on a high hill looking down upon those we are giving too or looking down our nose at them. We may even accompany the gift with a little lecture or some other corrective stance; it would be much better not to give at all than to give from this position since all we are truly doing is gratifying our vanity and our desire for power.
A person may give to another because we simply cannot help it and this is truly the only way to give. The law of the kingdom is this – that if a person gives to gain reward no compensation will be paid, but if one gives with no thought at all about a reward, then our reward is sure. The only genuine and Christian giving is that which is the uncontrollable outflow of love.

In the end, it all comes down to this; God gave to the world because he loved the world and because of this we must also give out of love.

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Some Things I Have Been Reading This Week

Posted on September 11, 2016 by Fr. Peter

Here are a few links to some of the blog posts I have read this past week.

Finding Religion in the American Revolution

Jared Ross Hardesty Lecture and Seminar, 14-15 Sept.

Church Membership Vs. Carrying the Cross

The Sacrament of the Church Rummage Sale

Religious History is Intellectual History, No Qualifications Needed

Congressional Chaplains: Can They Welcome All Religions and No Religion at All?

How Do Americans Decide Where to Worship?

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Song of the Day

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Fr. Peter

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The Story of the Pew

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Fr. Peter

The most common question the Church Educators at The Old North Church are asked is, “what is the deal with the little boxes?’ The most common response is, “well these are box pews and each box was owned by a family. Old North was a closed congregation until 1912 and to worship here you had to own a pew.” It is at this point that most people have an outraged response. “Well that is not very Christian” they might say or “where did the people who could not afford to pay to go to Church?” All good questions but it firsts requires us to stop thinking like a 21st Century person and think like a person from the 18th century. All of history compels us to think as if we were in the particular period we are studying.

It is always good to remember that when one speaks of any topic of history, it needs to be separated from the present way society thinks about things. Religion was much different in the 17th and 18th century compared to today, and the thought process is very different.

Before the 13th century, the church did not have seats except for maybe the King and other dignitaries. The great church of Europe was built without fixed seating. If seats were required, they would be moved to the church and after the service would be removed again. Starting in the 13th century, backless stone benches began to appear in churches first along the walls and then more and more in the nave of the church.

The Protestant Reformation shifted the focus of the service from the altar of the church to the pulpit and placed more of an emphasis on the sermon. With this change came a desire to sit, perhaps the services became longer, but wooden benches started to replace the stone one during the 14th century and by the 15th century they were very common in churches.

Initially, congregants would have installed their bench at their expense then the church came to the realization that it could make money off the sale of the benches. Churches were, and are, in constant need of funds to maintain the buildings so the sales of pews would have assisted in that endeavor. As proof of ownership a pew deed was given by the church and in some instances recorded at the county deed office as an actual real estate transaction.

General seating in churches was not something that was widely available. Pew owners would be towards the front of the church while those without a pew would be situated in the back of the church. I often joke that today that would have to be reversed since no one wants to sit down front.

As the benches were not fixed to the floor at this time, the owners started to lock them in boxes so the benches would not be stolen or used by someone else if they were not in church on a particular Sunday, and this led to what can be seen at Old North today the Box Pew.

Widely used in Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian churches, the practice started to fall out of favor around the middle of the 20th century. At Old North, the practiced ceased with the 1912 renovation although the box pews remain for historical purposes.

To those who might scoff at the idea of selling seats or the box pew system all I can say is historically speaking the practice of selling the Pew has been around much longer than the present system.

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Counting the Cost

Posted on September 5, 2016 by Fr. Peter

Very often in our day to day lives, we want to know what the cost of something is. We go to the supermarket or some other store to buy something, and we are interested in what it is going to cost us. Everything in life has some cost associated with it and what the Scripture is telling us today is that discipleship requires us something.

One of the greatest theologians of the 20th century was Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In 1937 he wrote a book titled The Cost of Discipleship. The Germany of 1937 that Bonhoeffer was writing about had become secularized and was spinning out of control. Now just a point of clarification here, not all secularization is bad and the church of the 21st century needs to learn to live in this new reality much as it did for Bonhoeffer. The time that Bonhoeffer was writing was the dawn of the Second World War.

The aim of his little book was to call people back to a sense of what it means to be Christian in what is considered to be the modern world. He is suggesting that there is a cost associated with being a follower of Jesus Christ, and in some cases that cost is our very lives. For some, like Bonhoeffer it is their physical life, but for the vast majority of us, it is our spiritual life. I have said this before, and will undoubtedly say it again, to be a follower of Jesus Christ we must change the way we think and act and view the world. We must have a Christian worldview.

The words we heard today were spoken by Jesus while he was on the road to Jerusalem. He knew that he was on his way to the cross, but the people with him thought he was on his way to rule an empire. He spoke to them in vivid terms so there would be no misunderstanding, but like most of the Scriptures, he was not speaking literally. He was telling them that the one who follows him would not be on their way to worldly power and glory, but that they must be ready for loyalty which would call them to sacrifice the dearest things in life in exchange for a suffering which would be like the agony of a person on the cross.

Wait, Jesus is saying that we will have to suffer to be his followers? Will we have to turn our backs on worldly power and possessions? Yes, that is faithful what he is telling us. He is telling us that to be a faithful follower of his we must be willing to sacrifice the things that are the dearest to us and that no love in life can compare to the love we must bear to him.

So we are faced with this question this morning and each and every day. Is it possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple?

Let’s turn for a moment back to Bonhoeffer. He writes about what he calls “cheap grace.” Cheap grace is, “the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”

Sadly the church of his time had fallen into the trap of cheap grace. People wanted religion, but they wanted it on their terms. They wanted to dictate to the church what they will believe, and they will dictate to the church the discipline they are willing to follow. We see much of the same thing happening today. Some have watered the faith down so much that there is not much of what the Apostles taught. There are more than 40,000 Christian denominations today. That boggles my mind. We have taken the basic message of grace and reconciliation and love and turned it on its head. We have taken something so straightforward and made it complicated. By watering down the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we have cheapened it, and in that it has lost all of its meaning.

Faith comes from obedience to something that is outside of us something that exists in spite of everything we do to try and make it go away. We cannot have it both ways; we cannot do what we want to do but still call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ. To be a follower requires obedience to Jesus and His Gospel. And this obliges us to work at it every day.

When Jesus called His Apostles, they had to leave their possessions and their lives to follow Him. We see Peter, the future leader of the Apostles, leaving his fishing nets to go and follow Jesus. Matthew, the tax collector, left his coin box at the gate and followed Jesus. These are concrete examples of how the lives of the followers of Jesus need to change if they are going to be authentic followers.

In the story of the man who comes to Jesus and asks to follow Him but he has to go and bury his father, who has just died, first. Jesus says to him, “let the dead bury the dead.” He tells the rich young man to go and sell everything that he has and follow Him. Lives need to be transformed if we are to be authentic followers of Jesus.

In sharp contrast to “cheap grace” or what I like to call the easy way, Bonhoeffer advocates for “Costly Grace.”

“Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus; it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” ”

Faith comes with obedience and obedience comes with faith. It was not easy for the Apostles to leave all they had behind, and Jesus is not even asking us to do that, He is asking us to think and act in a certain way, to conform our lives to a certain way, and that way is His way the example he left for all of us.

Our world is not much different today than it was in Bonhoeffer’s day. Organized religion has done a terrible job, and for that, we are paying the price. When the leaders go off on a tangent and seem to be more interested in legislation than a transformation of lives, there is a real problem. When the concern is more for the institution of the Church then for people who are the church there is a real problem. When the shepherds forget their job is to protect their sheep and to lay down their lives for them, it is no wonder we see less and less people in the church. If I require you to be an authentic follower of Jesus, then I need to be a genuine follower of Jesus. Otherwise, I should just shut up!

Obedience to not an easy thing for us. We are not designed for it if you will. We have been given free will, but that freedom comes at a cost. We have the ability to choose the narrow way, the way filled with rocks and crooked paths, the way where the bushes grow over the route and where sometimes we cannot see the road in front of us, the way of Christ, or the wide open, easy way, the way of the smooth way with plenty of pit stops, the way of the world. Jesus never promised His followers that life would be easy. Jesus told us, explicitly told us, that we would be persecuted.

In the 15th chapter of the Gospel of St. John, Jesus tells His followers, “If the world hates you, you know it hated me before it hated you.” This fallen world we live in hates everything that Christ stands for and will do everything to destroy it. Evil and hatred exist, but we bring love and compassion to the world, Christ, and His Church, are all about love, that is the simple message of Gospel.

Church let me say this as plain as I can, if the world is hating you for being a Christian then you are doing it right! If you are standing up at a time when people are yelling at you to sit down, you are doing it right. If you feel like you are the lone voice crying in the wilderness, you are doing it right. If you post the love of Jesus Christ for all of the humanity on Facebook and your friends and family unfriend you, you are doing it right!

“Costly Grace” is the call of all of us, me and you, the call to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles and the footsteps of Christ.

But what it is not is a throwing off of whatever we have. Jesus is not calling all of us to sell all we have and give it to the poor. He is not calling all of us to live in a monastery or something like that. No, these are not bad things, things are not bad, it is how we use them, and they use us that is bad. We have been given the capacity to think and to discern those thoughts and beliefs and then we have to choose which way we are to go. There is a cost associated with being a follower and that cost is not being a slave to our passions. The cost is not doing it our way but doing it God’s way. The cost is conforming our lives to what God wants and how God wants us to act. And yes, that requires work, it requires listening, and it compels us to recommit our lives each and every day.

Those who liked in the early days of the church write about how we need to get our passions under control. Anger is a passion. We have all been angry, some of us may be angry right now because I keep going on and on… But anger is a passion, and it can lead us to do some pretty nasty things. Psychologists will tell us that the passions are irrational, all of the passions and we should not make decisions from a passionate point of view. When we are angry, we are not thinking straight, and we might say or do something that is harmful to ourselves or another person.

But is anger always bad? No, anger used in the right way can lead to change. It is all in how we use the passions. Do they control us or do we control them? We should be angry that our faith has been co-opted by some and twisted around, so it is hard to even find the words of Jesus in there. We should be mad that our faith is being used to hurt people and to marginalize people when it should be a faith filled with love and acceptance. Church if you are not angry about this then we are not doing it right.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to obedience to the Gospel of Christ. We are called to obedience to His church, not just the parts we like, but to the whole program. We cannot have a foot in both the church and the world we need to make a choice between the easy way of cheap grace or the difficult way of Costly Grace.

Let us decide right this minute that we will endeavor to be obedient to What Christ is calling us too. Let us decide at this moment that we will endeavor to follow the path of Costly Grace and not that of Cheap Grace. And let is decide, right now, that we will begin anew the process of transformation of our lives. If we are to truly be disciples, true followers of Christ, then the transformation has to begin with us. We need to turn our anger into love, our hatred into love, our fear into love there is no other way.

There was a man from Russia who came to Alaska in the early part of the last century. He came as a missionary to the local population and is an example to me of how to bring the love of Christ to those we minister to. He is known as Herman of Alaska, and he summed up our lives as followers of Christ this with these words, “From this day forth, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and strive to do His holy will.”

Let us make that our prayer this morning and every morning. Amen.

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Church Goers Desire a Quality Sermon

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Fr. Peter

I am not sure how much time each week I spend on sermon preparation. Since moving to the new position at Bethany Congregational Church in Quincy last fall I do not preach every week. I share the pulpit with the Senior Pastor, so I usually preach one maybe two Sundays a month. Regardless of how often I preach my sermon preparation is about the same.

I am a Lectionary preacher and use the Revised Common Lectionary. The Lectionary provides me at least four pericopes to choose from usually on a theme. Sometimes determining that theme is a challenge but most of the time it is evident. In my congregation, we use one of those Scriptures and usually read a Psalm responsively.

I begin the week by looking at the Lectionary text and begin to circle in on the one I want. This process usually happens rather quickly as the Church office needs my sermon title and Scripture passage on Monday to make the newspaper deadline. So I look at the Scripture passages and then peak at the various commentaries and come up with a working title. Sometimes the title that is published has nothing to do with the final product a week later.

I am a manuscript preacher, so I make notes, pray, and think about the sermon all during the week. I might hear something in the news or come across something on a blog that I throw into the sermon. I rise early on Sunday morning and put the manuscript together; this takes about an hour. Although I have a manuscript very often, I stray from the written text just a little.

So why am I writing this about sermon preparation? Recently the Pew Research Forum released the results of a survey, “Choosing a New Church or House of Worship.” The study shows that what most Protestants are looking for when seeking a new church is the quality of the sermon and a warm welcome when they visit.

I used to think because that is what I was led to believe by the “Mega Church” pastors that we needed to have flashy lights and a rock band to bring people in. I also felt that I needed to throw off the robe and wear jeans a T-shirt to preach. But apparently, if you cannot preach, none of that matters!

There is no doubt that the sermon is the largest part of the service. I have not done the math but I would say a third of the service, for the most part, is the sermon. Our service lasts about an hour, a little longer on a communion Sunday, and of that time I preach twenty to twenty-five minutes. If there is someone better at math than me, please let me know. But with that much of the service devoted to preaching it better be good!

The survey also shows that 85% of people decide after their first visit if they are going to return to the Church or not. It appears that environmental factors such as air conditioning don’t play into the decision rather the warmth of the welcome. I like to call this the user experience, and it begins before they even come through the door.

59% of seekers under 30, our target audience, use online resources to help them find a church. What they find online will determine if they walk through your door. What does your web presence look like? Is it old and run down? Are the pictures out of date or are there any pictures? Is the church address clearly able to be found, you would be surprised how many church websites don’t have the church address listed. Do you have a “What We Believe” section? All of these items are important and need to be tended too. What about social media, do you have a Facebook or Twitter presence? Again, these are important.

The bottom line for me is we can have the brand new building with state of the art lighting, sound, and music. We can have the best programming in the world and Sunday School classes for every age, but if they never come through the door, or never return all of that is just a waste.

Off to spend some time in sermon preparation.

Thanks to Professor John Fea for pointing me towards the study.

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The Grand Army of the Republic in Massachusetts, Part 1, The First Encampment

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Fr. Peter

On September 25, 1866, three veterans, representing the Soldiers and Sailors Union of Massachusetts, traveled to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and were inducted into the newly formed Grand Army of the Republic. General Charles Devens Jr., Major Austin S. Cushman, and Chaplain Alonzo Quint were given the ritual and rules governing the new organization and set off back to Massachusetts to bring together the veterans of the Civil War.

It was agreed upon that General Devens would become the provisional commander until ten posts could be formed. He would not serve long as it was decided that Major Cushman would take on the responsibility to organize what would become the Department of Massachusetts.

Austin S. Cushman First Grand Commander — Austin S. Cushman
First Grand Commander

Upon their return to Massachusetts, Major Cushman organized Post # 1 in the City of New Bedford with a charter date of October 4, 1866. The Charter was issued by National Commander in Chief Stephen Augustus Hurlburt of Illinois. However, a new charter was issued on October 14, 1866, so it could be signed by the new Provisional Department Commander, Austin Cushman.

Over the next several months’ posts were organized all across the Commonwealth and by General Order No. 3 a call went out to hold a Department Encampment on May 7, 1867, at Mechanics Hall on Williams Street in the City of New Bedford. Mechanics Hall was being used by Post #1 as their meeting place at the time.

When the meeting was gaveled in on May 7th at 7 pm, ten of the eleven posts had sent delegates to the meeting. Post #2 from Nantucket was the only post not to be in attendance.

As the first order of business the Provisional Commander, Austin Cushman, put for the purposes and objectives of the new order.

The preservation of those kind and fraternal feelings which have long bound together the soldiers and sailors who have stood together in many battles, sieges, engagements, and marches.
To demonstrate the strength of these ties by works of kindness and material aid to those who need assistance.
To provide as far as it may be possible for the support, care and education of the orphans of soldiers or sailors, and for the maintenance of the widows of soldiers and sailors.
To render protection and assistance to disabled soldiers or sailors, whether disabled by wounds, disease, old age or misfortune.
To establish and defend the rights of the soldiers and sailors lately in the service of the United States, with a view to secure a proper appreciation and recognition of their services and the acknowledgment of their just claims upon the community.
To maintain unswerving allegiance to the United States of America, based upon a paramount respect for and fidelity to the National Constitution and laws, and manifesting itself by discountenancing whatever may tend to weaken loyalty, incite to insurrection, treason or rebellion, or in any manner impair the efficiency and permanency of our free institutions; also to serve as the defenders of universal liberty, equal rights and justice to all men.

After Commander Cushman’s presentation, he called upon Chaplain Alonzo Quit to deliver an address to those assembled. At the close of the

Chaplain’s speech, Commander Cushman dismissed the assembled guests so the business of the day could be accomplished.

A nominating committee was formed, and the following candidates were put forward:

Grand Commander ~ Austin S. Cushman, Post #1 New Bedford

Sr. Vice Grand Commander ~ A. A. Goodell, Post #10 Worcester

Jr. Vice Grand Commander ~ B.A. Bridges, Post #6 Holliston

Assistant Adjutant-General ~ J.T. Lurvey, Post #4 Melrose

Assistant Quartermaster-General ~ Henry A. Hallgreen, Post #7 Boston

Council of Administration:

Alonzo H. Quint, Post #1 New Bedford

S.F. Keyes, Post #7 Boston

Robert Crossman, 2nd, Post #3 Taunton

J.G.B. Adams, Post #5 Lynn

G.H. Long, Post #11 Charlestown

According to the “Early History of the Grand Army of the Republic in Massachusetts,” Commander Cushman “announced that he accepted the office of Grand Commander, to which he had been elected, and thanked the delegates for the trust and confidence thus reposed in him. He pledged himself to do all in his power to promote the growth of the Order, promote harmony and extend the usefulness of the organization.”

After extracts from the rules and regulations prescribing the duties of the several officers of the Department, it was resolved that the headquarters of the department should be in Boston.

With no further business to come before the Department the encampment was closed with the singing of Auld Lang Syne.

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The Registration of Churches in Massachusetts

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Fr. Peter

The church that I am presently serving, Bethany Congregational Church, is opening a preschool this year, and part of the licensing process with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is assembling a variety of documents to include the incorporation of the church. In Massachusetts, churches are considered corporations and therefore must register with the Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division.

The church was established in 1639 as a branch of the Puritan church in Boston. The church existed as such until 1750 when a split became evident, and what is now the First Parish Church, Unitarian was formed. It was not until 1832 when the Evangelical Society of Quincy was formed which would eventually become the current Bethany Congregational Church.

We searched the current records as well as the archives of the church, and the only document we could find was the original covenant that was signed by the founding members in 1832. There was no corporate paperwork anywhere that we could find. A quick search of the corporation’s database at the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s website turned up a reference to the church being organized and pointed to the Acts and Resolves passed by the General Court of Massachusetts of 1887.

During the precolonial and colonial period in Massachusetts, churches were charted by royal decree and then by an act of the Royal Governor. The Charter issued in 1639 passed to the Unitarians with the vote to change their theology. When the new church was organized in 1832, there was no mechanism for a charter from the state, so there was no corporation. The Acts and Resolves of 1887 changed all of that.

Chapter 404 Section 1: Any church now existing or that may be hereafter organized in this Commonwealth, may be incorporated according to the provisions of this act.

Chapter 404 Section 5 stated that all churches shall be incorporated in like manner to other corporations in the Commonwealth and have the same rights and responsibilities.

The result was that we had no articles of incorporation other than the original covenant of 1832 and the bylaws of the Church.

Thankfully we were able to obtain a statement from the Secretary of the Commonwealth stating that we were, in fact, a corporation and thus able to file the appropriate paperwork with the Department of Education.

I find it interesting that before 1887 the General Court of Massachusetts granted permission to organize churches in the Commonwealth. Apparently, from what I learned from the Secretary of State’s Office, there were so many churches being organized and it was taking up valuable legislative time, so it was decided by the Acts and Resolves of 1887, to transfer that responsibility to the Secretary of State.

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Healing Hands

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Fr. Peter

that all may be one

I would like to start with a little story this morning. As many of you know, I am involved in disaster relief work. In the past, the Church has deployed me to various locations after some disaster has struck. I have been to Newtown, Connecticut, and Blacksburg, Virginia after the tragic school shootings ripped through both communities. But the most impactful deployment I have been on was to New Orleans. Actually, we were deployed to Baton Rouge after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

First, let me clear something up, I do not believe, nor does Scripture hold, that God sends storms to wipe people off the face of the earth. God made a covenant with Noah and a covenant with all of the humanity when he sent his Son Jesus Christ for us. God is the God of love and compassion, and no God I worship does this.

I bring up the deployment to Louisiana as it is green in our minds with the recent devastation that has befallen that state. I arrived in Baton Rouge shortly after the winds stopped blowing. When I left, I had no idea where I was staying when I got there. All I knew was I had a rental car, so if needed I could sleep in that I guess.

We are usually deployed in teams of three or four people with various skills and we coordinate our activities with and through the local church. On this particular deployment, we worked very closely with Catholic Charities. Another thing you quickly learn after something like a hurricane happens is that all of this nonsense about who is and who is not a Christian simply fall away in the trash heap they belong in. All of the stupidity that divides denominations does not seem to matter when you are all pulling people out of the water and plucking them off rooftops.

So we set out on our work making sure supplies arrived at where they needed to get to aid the people they intended to aid. This was not an easy task, as you can imagine, truckloads of supplies and people were arriving in record numbers, and it all needed to go somewhere. The group I worked with was tasked with putting all of the pieces together.

Shortly after our work began, a man came into the area we were working out of and asked if there was any way we could help support the shelter that had been established at a local church right around the corner from where we were. We quickly drove over there to find the church filled to overflowing capacity with people who had walked from New Orleans and were now living in the shelter. They had no food and water was quickly running out. We did what we could for them on the spot and arranged for others to take over. While there we heard about another group of people that was hold up at the airport.

So we worked out the network of people and ended up at the state command center to gather info about whom and how many where there and what we could do to bring them, aide. We were told no one was there, that everyone had been evacuated from the airport. We were told this by local, state, and federal officials that were, in fact, true. But the people we had spoken with had just been there and saw all of the people.

A decision was made to attempt to get to the airport and see for ourselves. We made arrangements with the folks running the shelter at Louisiana State University for buses and security. Keep in mind the military had taken over control of the streets in New Orleans, and it was not a safe place to be. We needed a permit to enter the city from State, and Federal health officials and since they denied anyone was there, they were not going to give us the necessary permit.

We thought all hope was lost, and our mission was going to be a failure. We thought if we just went they would let us in. Then I saw, sitting on a desk nearby, a permit. Doing what needed to be done I “borrowed” the permit and we quickly exited the building. That night we set off on our journey.

If you have ever been to New Orleans or any large city for that matter, you will understand when I saw how creepy it is to have no one on the roads leading into our out of the city, but that is what it was like. Various checkpoints were set up along the path. We stopped at each one secure in the knowledge that the “borrowed” permit had been reported, and we were all going to get locked up.

We came to the final checkpoint, this one was military, and they were not at all impressed either with my collar or the permit from the Louisiana Health Office. The soldier, just doing his job, was told no one could get into the city no matter who they were or what permit they had with them. We had come this far we were not going to let this get in the way.

As I mentioned, we had security from LSU with us. These were not the mall cop types there were fully armed and kitted out in riot gear police and the one guy, assigned to protect me, not sure why I needed individual protection but I was glad he was there on several occasions, went toe to toe with the military and I thought for sure we were going to jail. After a few tense moments of “negotiation,” we were allowed to pass.

The next part of this story needs to come with one of those TV disclaimers about what you are about to see, but I need you to understand, as best as I can tell it, what we experienced so the story will make sense.

We arrived at the airport and were directed around to the back of the terminal building; this is where the luggage comes in off of the planes that have arrived. We were escorted into, what we had been told was an empty building, to find it filled, and then some, with people. The first thing we saw was a pile of bodies stacked like cord wood, right inside the door. We next encountered a doctor who ran up to me, I was wearing the clerical collar, so I was easy to identify as clergy, and he grabbed me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes and was shouting “tell me I did the right thing.”

It seems this doctor was the one who had to decide who got to live and who had to die. They were running out of supplies, and with the denial of the government, they were not getting more. I will never forget the look in this poor soul’s eyes, I cannot remember what I said to him, but after a few moments he calmed down and was able to take us around.

All services had broken down, and basic human functions were just that, basic. The rest of the team set off on a needs assessment; this is basically what we do when we first arrive to determine what needs to be done and make a priority list and start to move services into the area. I was taken, with the doctor, and my ever-watchful security detail, to another part of the airport. I was taken into what is called the black ward. This is the place where people are taken who are not expected to survive, the place they go to die and where they are made as comfortable as possible.

I talked with the staff and thanked them for everything they had done, and we prayed together. They asked me to pray for each person; there were sixty-five men and women in cots around the room. I knelt beside each person, prayed with them, and anointed them. Just as an aside I was harshly criticized for doing this as the prayer I read was technically the “last rights” and those prayers are only for people of the church I used to belong too. Anyway, went to the room and prayer with each one. I can still see those faces in my mind’s eye as clear as if it were yesterday.

I left there, and we had determined to take as many with us as the busses would hold. We worked with the medical personnel to decide who needed to go. First, we loaded the buses, and we left. We brought them back to the shelter at LSU, and they were treated and found a place to sleep that night. The next day we had the task of trying to convince the government that there were, in fact, people there. We knew they knew this because the medical folks at the airport were all military.

Why do I tell you this story? Because it fits in with the scripture passage, we heard this morning.

A woman who had been crippled for eighteen years approached Jesus and asked him to heal her. He did just that, and he was criticized by the authorities for doing so. You see he healed this poor woman on the Sabbath, and you know rules are rules. This is not, nor will it be the last time, that Jesus was criticized for healing on the Sabbath.

Jesus answered them, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”

I did what I had to do, the security guy did what he had to do, the doctor did what he had to do, and Jesus did what he had to do, take care of the people right in front of him regardless of the law, the consequences, or the worthiness of the person.

You see our job is to help people no matter what. Our job is not to judge if they are worthy or if they deserve our help. Our job is not to call them sinners and scream at them, our job to bring them healing of whatever it is that ails them and in the end, our job is to simply love them.

Did the people lying on the floor that I prayed with an anointed know I was there? I do not know most of them were not even conscious. Did it help the medical staff, knowing I had prayed with them, I believe it did and it made their job a little easier. I mentioned I was criticized for doing what I did and I would do it again.

What Jesus is saying to us this morning is that we have to do what we have to do regardless of the consequences when it comes to helping people. This is what loving your neighbor means.