By Susan Carter
It is painful to watch the transitions taking place here in Michigan, the Mitten State, the once proud home of America’s automotive prowess. The parishioners in our pews are facing challenges they never thought they would confront. A number encounter regular furlough days, or have had salaries reduced, or – worse – have lost their jobs. The cans and boxes of food they once brought to our food pantries they now take home with them.
And thus, we are broke. Or almost, so it seems. Detroit, once hailed as the “Paris of the Midwest” has seen its housing stock gutted, its jobs evaporate, and its people searching for a future different from the present. Michigan, as a state, lost more than 150,000 service, construction, and manufacturing jobs in 2009 alone. Of all the American manufacturing jobs that were exported or eliminated during the past decade, fully one-quarter of them were in Michigan.
Many are affected and seeing their lives or their landscape changed. Twenty-percent of our children, in both peninsulas, live in poverty. Flint – once the heartbeat of American automobile production – is looking to turn vacant lots back to farmland. Even the Episcopal Church is hurting. Staff cuts have hit all four Michigan dioceses, the Cathedral in Detroit is stressed to remain viable, and the majority of parishes seeking priests cannot afford full time clergy. Are we the canary in the mine or, we hope, the vision in the rearview mirror?
Yet we are rich in ways not measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the latest Consumer Confidence Index. Research from Michigan State University reveals that nine out of ten people have continued to give to charities, though admittedly in smaller amounts. Further, virtually one-half of Michiganians volunteer, a percentage that remains steady. (Notably, women are volunteering at higher rates than men, and that gap is widening.)
In our own churches, vestries are working hard to implement balanced budgets. In many parishes pledges have remained fairly steady, driven down principally when congregants lose their jobs or depart to find work elsewhere. We are managing.
In this confusing and jumbled time of transition, when a recession feels like a depression, God is giving us an opportunity to change, to step away from the Seven Last Words: “We Have Always Done It This Way.” It is apparent that if we, as Episcopalians, hunker down in a bunker mentality, we are not fully hearing God’s call to love one another – really love one another – and proclaim the Gospel.
It is true that, as people of faith, we can hang on to what we have, improving at the margins, but not manifestly moving forward. Or, we can look to Paul and his experience with the Jerusalem Council. In Galatians 2 Paul, in his own words, lays out his encounter with the leaders in Jerusalem. He had taken the radical move of fully accepting the uncircumcised; they were different and not eligible to join, according to the rules. We are told in Acts that some from Judea even held that the uncircumcised could not be saved. The circle was narrowed, not widened.
Paul, along with Peter, wisely and bravely fought against the distinctions, instead trusting that salvation comes through grace and not blind obedience to rules. In so doing, these early leaders threw off the yoke of intransigence and flung wide the doors to all. There was no longer a Dr. Seuss differentiation between those with stars on their bellies, and those with none.
In Michigan, we are given the marvelous gift of being a laboratory, a modern Council of Jerusalem nearly two-thousand years later. We are called to meet the needs not only of those who look like us, share common background with us, or even worship with us. Rather, we are being asked by our loving God to meet God’s people where they are, not only inside our churches but, more especially, on the other side of our Red Doors. We are asked to feed the sheep, tend the sheep, to feed the lambs. All of the lambs.
If you feed them, I believe, they will come. And when they arrive, let’s fully open our arms so that those who come may experience Christ’s love.
The Rev. Susan Carter is rector of St. John’s, Howell, Mich. She teaches journalism at Michigan State University.