More Church Stuff

At the church we go to, which is an Episcopal church, the sermon was given by a Deacon, as the pastor is on vacation. While I am very fond of the regular pastor's sermons, as well as the sermons given by the other regular Deacon, I was interested in how someone who is not really "ordained" views scripture, and am so am always curious to hear what they have to say. The sermon revolved around the Gospel of Matthew, and essentially talked about how Jesus hung around with the "riffraff" instead of the higher ups in the community. While this clearly displeased the higher ups, it was right up Jesus' alley.

My basic view of Christianity involves the idea that we should find ways to spend our time that would please God. This would translate into living our lives in a way as close to treating others the way we would like to be treated as possible.

Which brings me to why we left our church. When our new pastor came to town, after two years of interims, supply pastors and Sundays where we were on our own, some people took an instant dislike to her. Oddly, some of the people who took this instant dislike to her were members of the Pastor Nominating Committee, and thus had brought her here, so one wonders what was going on with that whole issue. Nevertheless, when these bigoted and small-minded people decided to get rid of her, they did so in a way that was most un-Chrisatianlike, holding meetings where they denigrated everything she said, questioning her ordination and beliefs, telling her and all of the rest of us that there was a way to worship and a way to pray, and basically behaving like the Sadducees, those guys who think they are right, and everyone else is wrong. There was a long and hotly contested period in the church when Presbytery came in to do their mollifying effort, but that actually only served to fully engulf the embers. My husband I talked this situation over, and decided that if our pastor was forced to leave, we too would leave the church. This was difficult, as we had spent many years there as a loving family, but it was clearly evident that the majority of the people had totally lost their minds. So, when the inevitable happened, we, too left.

We are very fond of Pastor Deb. In her, we found a kinship, a friendship, and a spiritual connection. Through her sermons, and in her personal life, we felt that what we were doing, as Christians, was the right way to live. To take scripture and to apply it to our modern lives, while not always easy, was made more evident. Her knowledge of the bible astonishes me, and her Christian spirit, while seriously tested, remained intact, in spite of all the agony she was forced to undergo. Jobless for months, she has finally found a church home in a town about 15 minutes away from the one in which we live. Interstingly enough, the church she is now at had a pastor that they were not too fond of. Their response to this situation was to suggest to him that he find another job, and that he would remain their pastor until he did so. That, I think is the Christian way to behave.

As for my husband and I, we no longer consider ourselves Presbyterians, though we have no particular affiliation just yet. We see our former church family of course, and while I ignore some of them (yes, I know Jesus wouldn't like that), many are still friendly to us in a superficial sort of way, and we back to them.

It is not an ideal religious world for us, but we have a great friend.