A Note From the Pastor
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
I once heard a pastor recalling the day that the local movie theater opened on Sunday evening for the very first time. Sunday had always been church day in his small southern town and Sunday night had been strictly reserved for youth-related church activities. On Sunday there truly was no other game in town...until that fateful night in l963, when everything changed. Says this pastor, “Seven of us, regular attenders of the Methodist Youth Fellowship at Buncombe Street Church, made a pact to enter the front door of the church, be seen, then quietly slip out the back door and join John Wayne at the Fox Theater…There would be no more free passes for the church, no more free rides. That night in 1963, the Fox Theater went head to head with the church over who would provide the world view for the young. It won the opening skirmish.”
On Palm Sunday, I thought again of his words. The children had worked for several weeks on a song they would sing with the adult choir, and they were also going to lead a Palm processional into the church at the beginning of worship. But then I received a rather stunning reminder that truly we are not the only game in town. I learned that the local Little League had chosen Palm Sunday morning for all of its Opening Day activities. This included pictures, which meant that if our kids who are in Little League wanted their pictures with the team, they had to be there – and not in church – on Palm Sunday morning. In the blink of an eye, our Palm Sunday worship lost a number of singers and families.
And so I was reminded once again that while the dominant culture of West Sonoma County is not exactly hostile to church life, it really couldn’t care less about church, and certainly is not going to go to any effort to cut us some slack…moving Opening Day to the afternoon, for example. I can imagine the brain-trust of Little League deciding that people are just too busy on Saturday. But Sunday morning? A perfect time!
I have heard it said that there is no modulation of the human voice that can make a whine acceptable. I suspect a written whine isn’t much better. And, yes, I know I am whining at least a little. But maybe the Little League has actually done me a favor. I grow very comfortable with the world as it is, with its values and its stories.
But the events of Palm Sunday, 2007, reminded me that the world of Sebastopol, as pleasant as it is, and the world of the church are not the same. Ours is a different story, and we seek to follow One who walks a different path, a path that might lead to tough choices, even tension in our relationship to the world we know. Palm Sunday reminded me of that. I hope I don’t forget again.
Gene
