Trading Survival for Life

During the bishop search process in Lexington, Ginger and I visited several different churches and diocesan ministries.  One of the places we visited was St. Andrew’s Church in Lexington, an African American congregation with a proud history just down the street from the Cathedral.  A small group had gathered in the undercroft to meet the candidates.  There were maybe six or seven people.  Most were women.  All were (how best to put this?) of mature years. 

The conversation was not very upbeat.  They talked about how the congregation was aging and there wouldn’t be any more children to be had and how they, therefore, couldn’t possibly grow.  I expected someone to say, “Will the last person to die please turn out the lights.” 

I listened to what they said and thought about it.  And then I asked one of them, the one who seemed the most pessimistic and also the oldest, but also the ringleader, “Mrs. Smallwood, haven’t you ever heard the story of Sarah?” 

Mrs. Smallwood thought a minute.  Then she started to chuckle, and finally she said, “Yes, I know about Sarah.  But you’re not Abraham.”

A few years later I visited St. Andrew’s.  They gave me a present.  It was two framed photographs of all the children in the congregation.  And there were lots of them.  St. Andrew’s is, for me, a place about hope. 

I know that I am not Abraham.  I also know that whatever happened at St. Andrew’s had nothing to do with me.  But I am sure that the story of St. Andrew’s and all the children one will find there on a Sunday morning now has everything to do with some choices the people of St. Andrew’s made along the way about how they would live.   

Not too long after that first visit, one of the lay leaders of St. Andrew’s had an idea.  It must have seemed like an outrageous idea at first.  It was that that small congregation of mainly older people could take on the ministry of refugee resettlement.  I would not have been surprised if they just thought it was too ridiculous to try.  Instead they worked with Episcopal Migration Ministries and they began to become involved with Congolese refugees.

They helped prepare places for them to live.  They helped with finding jobs.  And they invited the Congolese to church.  They didn’t insist, of course, or link what they were doing to church attendance.  They just invited.

And for those Congolese who accepted the invitation, they provided transportation on Sunday and to other church events.  It wasn’t at all easy for this fairly small group of aging Episcopalians.  Faithfulness rarely is.

And the Congolese had a gift of their own for St. Andrew’s.  They brought a new culture and a new language.  And they brought their children.  St. Andrew’s began to have children again, the first time in many years.  The people of St. Andrew’s remembered the story of Abraham and Sarah.

But it was not the only thing from the Bible they remembered, I think.  I think they also remembered the words of Jesus from today’s gospel:   For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mk. 8:35).  Somehow, the ministry of refugee resettlement offered them to stop worrying about their own survival and instead to find life.  They put their anxiety about what would happen as they aged aside and decided to identify with some of the least in their community, those who had fled from persecution in their homeland and had nothing at all.  And the more the people of St. Andrew’s devoted themselves to the people of the Congo, the more they all thrived.  Life returned, and it returned abundantly, bringing the children with it. 

What they had done was take a risk with survival in order to find life.  “For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”  (v.36)

Peace,