[Magdalen] Small prayer requested

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

I will keep you in my prayers.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 10:32 PM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Tomorrow morning I've been asked to meet with the Senior Warden and one or
> two parishioners of the church where another priest are doing long-term
> supply--we're alternating months.
> It seems that a couple of parishioners didn't like my last two sermons on
> the last two Sundays in January. One woman, on her way out the door on one
> Sunday, said the pulpit wasn't the place to express my political views. I
> replied that I hadn't, but she disagreed. Then a man came out and berated
> me for not speaking up for the unborn! I had no idea where that came from.
> OTOH, several people thanked me for the sermon, and one woman came into
> the office to tell me she really appreciated it.
> So there were mixed opinions, which was not a bad thing, IMO. (Of course,
> my favorite response is for someone to say, "You really gave me something
> to think about.")
> I'm always careful not to talk politics, or parties, nor to tell people
> how they should think or vote. But I believe it is part of our call as
> Christians to speak out when we see injustice or bullying, or blatant
> discrimination, etc. regardless of its source. That was the essence of both
> sermons--one the weekend of the inauguration and the Women's Marches (
> which I never mentioned--and one the weekend of the travel ban.
> I've been preaching for 27 years--with lots of emphasis on social justice
> and always connecting to the lectionary readings--and this is the first
> time I've been called into a meeting because of a sermon. So I guess I
> should be grateful for that! I did get a death threat once because of my
> involvement in racial reconciliation in the community, but that came from
> outside the congregation, and I didn't really take it very seriously.
> The thing is, even though I supply at this church a lot and was with them
> for five months about 11 years ago when they were between rectors, I am
> still just a supply priest with no standing. I told the Senior Warden when
> he called me on Monday that if people were unhappy with my preaching, they
> certainly didn't have to have me back. He got flustered and said he
> certainly didn't want it to come to that. I said I knew that--I just wanted
> to remind him that they did have that option. I'm not actually there this
> month--I go back in March.
>
> Much more detail than I meant to give, but I guess I'm trying to lay
> everything out in preparation for tomorrow. I plan to begin the meeting
> with prayer and then ask what they were upset about and what they mean by
> "political."  At some point I will acknowledge whatever they've told me,
> and then I'll say I have a dilemma, because I've also gotten just the
> opposite feedback. So Which do I listen to? My task is to preach the Gospel
> in whatever way I'm being called to do it, knowing that some will probably
> respond positively and some negatively, and the majority will not share
> their opinion at all.
>
>