Nothing can raise my ire faster than some of the church signs out there - especially if they represent a congregation that I have some connection to. While I sometimes have to cogitate a bit as to why some of them annoy me, that didn’t happen with this one!
‘All our seats come with a first class service.’
First of all, it was false advertising. How often do we see that in society? Something is always being touted as the best, world class, ground-breaking, when in fact it is only mediocre compared to others in the same field. I am familiar with this church and while the service is fine, it is not first class. The music is not first class, the physical plant is not first class, the preaching is not first class. This is not denigrating these things. While the congregation finds them acceptable or even better then acceptable, they can’t begin to compare to what can be found elsewhere in larger, more affluent churches. That designation of a ‘first class service’ might be given to other Anglican churches, such as the cathedral as well as larger churches in Toronto, but not to this one. While it has a devoted congregation and a long history in the community, it frankly lacks the finances and the people needed to produce a first class service.
So why did they feel the need to advertise themselves as having a first class service? That is really the question here. They could be advertising their weekly evening dedicated to families struggling with gender issues, or their help for those families who ares struggling financially, with their food bank and clothing depot or their opportunities for community service in visiting homes in the surrounding area for seniors and others. Why do they even feel that advertising a ‘first class service’ is a good or necessary thing?
Unfortunately most of us who have grown up white in North America have grown up with an ethos that has instilled in us the feeling that we deserve only ‘the best’. And that anything less that the best is unworthy of our attention.
But is that actually what the church should be telling? Didn’t Jesus say, according to Matthew, at the conclusion of his parable about the Labourers in the Vineyard ‘So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’ That doesn’t seem to encourage one to pursue first class service… And what about the other quote that is ascribed to Jesus in Luke 6:20 ‘‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”. Nowhere was it written by these early Christians or ‘god-fearers’, that you have to achieve a first class status. That idea probably entered in to Christianity during the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine, the Great (306–337 AD) at which time Christianity began to transition to the dominant religion of the Roman empire.
And so the sign bothered me ~ because it simply shows how far this church in particular, and indeed all churches today, have travelled from the founding ethos of Christianity. An ethos that taught that a life lived according to the teachings of Jesus, would see value in being one with the meek and the lowly, the shepherd and the tax collector, the prostitutes and the unclean.
"In the act of letting go and choosing to become servants, community can at last be possible. The illusory state of privilege just gets in the way of neighbouring and basic human friendship." Richard Rohr in 'The Invisible Character of White Privilege', November 17, 2017
"In the act of letting go and choosing to become servants, community can at last be possible. The illusory state of privilege just gets in the way of neighbouring and basic human friendship." Richard Rohr in 'The Invisible Character of White Privilege', November 17, 2017
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