Combating the Competitors

We continue to read and meditate on the Parable (or is it Allegory?) of the Vineyard in Matthew 21:33-46.

I am re-reading Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church, because at our Thursday morning adult study, we are reading and discussing her book, An Altar in the World.  In Leaving Church, Taylor writes,

Where church growth has eclipsed church depth, it is possible to hear very little about the world except as a rival for the human resources needed by the church for her own survival (page 221).

I find resonance here with the Parable, especially as it leads us to think our life as church.  I don't think the rivalry for resources is limited to the human dimension.  Yes, we offer our facility to community groups for use.  But what if we need the space for our own growing and expanding programs and ministries and projects?  There is usually little thought about the issue.  The congregation owns the building, so that's that.

By the way, I am speaking generically and not making a particular comment on the place where I serve.

As a pastor, I communicate that church activities should outweigh and even trump activities out in the "world." Lay people know how to act and even feel appropriately guilty when they or their loved ones choose "secular" activities over "sacred" ones.  And I typically don't even know how my parishioners might be serving out in the world--especially if that serving keeps them from attending classes and committees, meetings and morning worship.  It's off my radar most of the time.

By the way, this is not a generic comment but a chagrined self-reflection.

Our people belong to us, after all.  How dare the world lay claims on them!  There is only so much people power to go around, especially in a smaller congregation.  Why can't people get their priorities straight and put the church first?

We who are tenants in vineyard long to keep the produce for ourselves and our purposes.  So we begin to see the world as competition rather than as a place to exercise compassion.  And our allies, the good church folks around us, reward that perspective on a daily or weekly basis.

But what if the produce is for other purposes...