Rev Paige's Corner: "How We've Always Done Things?"
At the closing worship service for General Synod, we heard a wonderful sermon from Rev Anthony Coleman. (I am hoping it will be made available to rewatch, but as of now it isn't posted.)
Rev Coleman started out by challenging us to think about a crop that we spend lots of land on in this country - a crop with no food value and no fiber value, a crop that takes lots of fertilizer and water to thrive. The big reveal: the crop is turf grass. It is our lawns. Now in years gone by, I had heard about a movement towards "freedom lawns" with local indigenous plants and the need not to mow - a movement based on environmental needs.
But what was striking to me in the information that Rev Coleman shared with us is how recent a phenomenon lawns actually are! (I just sort of assumed they had always been with us!) In fact, in colonial times, every inch of land was used for farming. They had shown up in the landscaping of medieval castles in Europe and made their way to the US via Thomas Jefferson's Montecello estate. But, according to Coleman, it really wasn't until the 1950's with the invention of the lawn mower and the shift to suburb living that everyone was supposed to have a lawn! (Think about trying to care for a lawn without a lawnmower! Yikes! As the one who tends the yard in our home, I think it is bad enough with a lawnmower.)
Rev Coleman had other points to make in his sermon, but as I have kept pondering this new understanding about the way I thought we always did things, it strikes me the challenge of corporate memory and story telling and the assumptions we make that the normative way to do things is the way we do things here and now.
I have had a number of these discoveries through the years about the life of churches. For instance, I remember when I learned that funding churches with an annual pledge campaign was not "the way we have always done it" in our churches of congregational heritage. In fact, in New England, many of our congregational churches were supported by taxes! And then there was a pew rental system where families rented pews - with the ones up close costing more than the benches in the back.
Or I remember when I learned how new the Sunday School movement actually is - going back to the late 19th century. In fact, in the early 20th century, church Sunday School programs were organized for kids that were working in factories. They weren't about teaching Bible Stories but about offering basics in reading and math to kids who couldn't attend public school. The way we think about Sunday School - largely a model that is sadly dying off in American Churches - was also an invention of the mid-20th century.
I think about these realities in part because they make me curious - and humble about what I think I know. But they also challenge me to have courage and creativity in thinking about how we go about the mission of being Christ's church together. As things have been changing, there is anxiety and grief. But I also hold hope that as those who came before us have done, we will invent new ways of being Church and we can let go of practices that are no longer working well for us without feeling that we are abandoning "how we have always done it."
With blessings!
Rev Paige Besse-Rankin
| 
