September 2014
Sharing Our Gifts

Become What You Receive

Greg Syler

Note: This article is also available in Spanish aquí.  

“…What you see is simply bread and a cup. But your faith demands far subtler insight: the bread is Christ's body, the cup is Christ's blood. My friends, these realities are called sacraments because in them one thing is seen, while another is grasped. It is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord's table. It is your own mystery that you are receiving. You are saying ‘Amen’ to what you are. Be what you see; receive what you are.”

Augustine of Hippo, selections from Sermon No. 272


Around the time I was talking to the search committee at St. George’s, Valley Lee – the parish I serve – I was talking with a number of other congregations. Part of the expectation of my then curacy in the Diocese of Chicago was, they hoped, that I’d be able to stay and help grow another congregation. But many of the churches the diocese put in front of me for consideration didn’t seem particularly ready.

Something about St. George’s stood out, however, and it wasn’t because they were a completely happy lot. They’d been through an arduous decade. Exhaustion was setting in, money was down, numbers were declining, and those on the extremes had gotten so sick of each other that they, too, went their own ways. Remaining were the faithful core, and the God they sought to follow was, they believed, a God inviting them into some profound new hope. They didn’t know what that was, and I wouldn’t say they were necessarily ready for change, but they were more ready than any other congregation I had met to date. They had faced the excruciating pain that comes when you try to run a church as a club for its members or a business for profit. They had fought and lost and what they took away was that, at the end of fighting, everyone, every single person loses.

They were more ready than even they realized to be church. When the call came that night from the vestry, I’ll admit that I, too, was as anxious and uncertain as they were about God’s future for us, but God was already supplying the “yes.”

I’d like to be able to say that congregations can turn into God’s future without having to suffer through the kind of pain St. George’s endured. I’m certain there are plenty of stories of positive turn-arounds. Suffering is not a prerequisite for transformation; it’s just that it’s often a really effective teacher.

No matter how you get there, the lesson is the same: A people must learn to know themselves. These days, communities of faith are called upon to know themselves as the beloved People of God who become, when they gather, the literal Body of Christ. Learning that lesson also implies unlearning others: forsaking that we are, to some, a not-for-profit business or, to others, a family chapel or, to still others, a voluntary membership body. Knowing oneself as the body of Christ requires pastoral leadership, a lot of patience, and leaders who are theologians-on-the-ground, persons who are absolutely committed to living in community not because it’s a job expectation but because that’s the only way all those varied orders of ministers, priests and deacons and lay folk, will come to hear what God has been saying all along.

This is where thinking theologically comes into play. Theology, at its root, isn’t just the language we use to talk about God; rather, it’s the language of God. Thinking theologically, then, is about hearing God and, as necessary, translating God’s presence to those who are still fixated on God’s absence.

The particular ways in which we were invited to think theologically in Valley Lee, Maryland are specific to this place in this time. But there is one thing we’ve practiced that anyone can try and, in fact, everyone should: we’ve treated everything, yes, everything as a learning opportunity. When, for instance, a father and son who were homeless came into our life, seeking help with a hotel room, we commissioned a meeting with other faith-based leaders and social services, a meeting that led to the creation of a countywide overflow homeless sheltering program in our church buildings during the winter months. When St. George’s was invited to be one of the first sheltering sites, our leadership kept the conversation focused on justice and we did a lot of listening and teaching. We took some heat from a few assertive leaders, but we kept praying with one another and we kept inviting God into the process.

When those once-dominant leaders walked away – the direct result of our changing the fundamental charism of outreach ministry from kindness to justice, from giving stuff to them to dissolving the false separation between them and us – we were faced with a new challenge: money. The dominant leaders didn’t necessarily give all that much but they pulled off enough fundraisers to keep the cash flow flowing. The projected lack of fundraiser income led, then, to a conversation about why we do these things in the first place and, as I’ve written before, whether we could live with less income from fundraisers and set out to have fun, instead, to enrich the relationships of this congregation and wider community.

That led us to realize we could live with less income if we budgeted our money in two distinct categories: operations and ministry. We learned we could fund our current operations on the generosity of those who give via regular collections, and doing so would free up ministries to be more Spirit-led and Spirit-driven. That is to say, ministries became less about programs and more about people’s hearts and minds. And the money grew but, more importantly, so did participation and energy and joy. Such is life in community when the Holy Spirit takes the lead.

Budgeting our money in these ways led us, of course, to understand the abundance and gifts of our time and energy. Simply put, we realized that there are a lot more people who are active in our congregation and in the work of the Body of Christ than we actually understand at first glance. They all don’t necessarily fill out the dreaded pledge card but they give, and they give generously with their time and their prayers and their gifts – and to numerous causes. So we opened up our fall stewardship drive this past year by getting rid of pledges. Instead, we sent a letter of invitation and a box of giving envelopes to all the active households in our congregation and invited them to give, and give as generously and as often as God moves their heart so to do. And they have. Total giving to date this year far exceeds total giving at this point last year.

These rather specific things that have presented themselves as learning opportunities for one Christian congregation in one place in St. Mary’s County, Maryland have helped us and, yes, from time to time, challenged us to consider how God is inviting us to be church. Every Sunday, standing at the altar, I’ve added a line to the invitation to Holy Communion. The Prayer Book instructs that the Presider says “The Gifts of God for the People of God,” and instead of adding the optional phrase I insert a line adapted from St. Augustine’s sermon, printed in part above: “Become what you receive; the Body of Christ.” That’s what worship on the Lord’s Day is all about, after all: receiving and becoming Christ’s body. And that’s the only business plan the church, as institution, needs.

Try This:

  1. What is the theology of your church budget? More than just what dollar amount you put next to what line item, what theological realities does that affirm/undermine? Is it centralized and controlled? Decentralized and generous? Optimistic and about new life? What do those numbers say about God? About this Christian community? About human nature?
  2. Do a ‘ministry audit’ of your congregation and, in so doing, think well beyond the walls and programs of the church itself: how much are the People of God doing and giving to the world? How could the institutional church enable more of that generosity and worry less about organizing competing activities?
  3. If everything is a theological learning opportunity, what’s stopping us from learning? And, honestly, what would be the worst thing that would happen if the church’s leadership body stopped doing certain customary things and started to act in different ways?

Greg Syler is the rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in Valley Lee, Maryland, the oldest continuous Anglican parish in Maryland and, today, a vibrant, historic congregation in the Diocese of Washington. Greg has served on Diocesan Council, convenes the Region 6 Clericus, is a member of the Southern Maryland Steering Committee, and a leader in collaborative Episcopal ministries in southern Maryland. He also helped envision and create and, together with others, runs Camp EDOW -- the diocese's first ever summer camp for kids and youth.

Resources

This article is part of the September 2014 Vestry Papers issue on Sharing Our Gifts
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