[Magdalen] Small prayer requested

[Charles Wohlers]

Prayers for you, certainly.

I've heard that some parishioners ("8 o'clockers") at a parish we attend 
were upset that the rector attended the local Women's March in collar. That, 
to them, is being political. My sense was that no collar would have been OK. 
(BTW, the bishop was there also, but that apparently was not a concern).

There are a good number of Episcopalians who think that the reason for their 
Christian faith is primarily to get them into heaven - that it's just 
between God and them, and the Church and their faith should be totally 
divorced from the "secular world". I suspect your unhappy parishioners may 
fall into that category. I suspect it won't be easy to get them to 
understand a different point of view.

Good luck!

Chad Wohlers
Woodbury, VT USA
chadwohl at satucket.com



-----Original Message----- 
From: Grace Cangialosi
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2017 10:32 PM
To: Magdalen ; Cantor03 at aol.com
Subject: [Magdalen] Small prayer requested

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.