Homecoming and Coming of Age

Today was the end of our third year of Ambassador visits. We stayed home and had worship, followed by a party. (68 church visits, BTW)

It was an especially joyous day as one of members was home from nine months overseas. It was good to be reunited.

We actually saw each other several times this week, bumping into each other just like the old days. It was especially good to see our young people trying to reconnect.

SEPA Synod’s view of Redeemer was that we were a bunch of old ladies who would be dead soon enough. We wouldn’t have the energy to resist. Need money? Easy pickings in East Falls.

But Redeemer’s demographics were actually the youngest of any Lutheran church our Ambassadors have visited. It was not unusual for children to outnumber adults on Sunday morning. We had very few people who could be considered old.

A lot had changed in the eight years since Bishop Almquist nurtured that indelible impression and during which SEPA Synod ignored us.

And then another six years passed while Bishop Burkat tried to destroy Redeemer one way or another.

A funny thing happens in eight years, followed by six years (two thirds of the history of SEPA Synod). Our children grew up.

Since 2007. Redeemer’s cradle role members are now in first and second grade. Redeemer’s grade school kids are now entering high school. Redeemer’s high school youth are now entering graduate school or the work force.

Synod has been so focused on destroying the adults that they never stopped to think about how their actions in East Falls affect the children. Land and money remains their only consideration.

I’ll never forget the Sunday after Bishop Burkat followed four months of silence with a letter announcing she was closing Redeemer. Our last meeting with her had been all about working with Synod. She broke every promise made to us without a word.

Of course, when all this ugliness was going on, we did our best to protect our children. On this Sunday, following the edict (don’t believe the “mutual discernment” nonsense), two synod representatives appeared at worship. Rev. Patricia Davenport and the Rev. Lee Miller were sitting right beside the children as they gathered for the children’s sermon.

The children came forward wanting to talk. We usually let them talk during the children’s sermon. We typically asked them what was going on in their lives before we settled in for a message. This week they were upset. You see they had seen their parents crying.  “Daddy got a letter and was crying,” one six-year-old said.

They were probably surprised and confused that on this morning, when they needed to talk more than usual, their concerns were deflected.

The sight of a parent crying, especially a father, is troubling to a child. We should have talked it through with the children right then and there. But then the people responsible for the family’s pain were sitting within arms’ reach. The word “smugly” comes to mind. They seemed clueless to what they were witnessing.

Awkward moments in worship.

But today the children are older. As we talk now, we make no attempt to hide anything from the young adults. At one point, I invited them to go off and enjoy kid talk.

“Nothing doing,” one boy said. “I’ve heard bits and pieces of this over the years, but this is the first time I’ve heard all this. This is really interesting.” And so we shared our story with a new generation — now old enough to vote in the church.

As the father told the son, I always thought that if our story were told, any reasonable person would side with Redeemer.

Lack of dialog has characterized this entire conflict. Reason has held little sway.

Redeemer is not closed. We are locked out of God’s House by SEPA Synod.

Our children still care about Redeemer. They will always know what it feels like to be shunned by their church leaders, excluded from the church that had once welcomed them in baptism, and how their parents were attacked in court for five long years.

We learned what they are doing. The young man who often helped lead Redeemer’s children’s sermons now holds a home Bible study. (Redeemer had no shortage of leaders and was grooming a new generation.) Another boy attends church with a school friend. Most remain unchurched as is typical of the membership of closed churches. Another falls back on his Quaker school upbringing. (A good number of Redeemer kids attended Quaker schools.)

Several families that were united at Redeemer are divided in exile.

Bishop Burkat was quite up front with her insistence that the memory of Redeemer be allowed to die. The church’s version of scorched earth policy. If the church was to reopen it had to have a new trendy name. The members of Redeemer could not play a leadership role in any “resurrection.” They would remain dead while SEPA searched for more compliant East Fallsers (good luck!) or shipped in outsiders.

She thought the death process would take six months. That was five years ago.

And now we know.

Redeemer’s spirit will live for another generation.

Let’s hope a resolution is reached that will restore our children’s faith in Christian community—for everyone’s sake. It’s high time.

Praise God for this special day.