LEST WE FORGET

If the truth were told, we clergy would reluctantly admit that when the church is not full or as full as we would like it to be, we take it personally. There seems to be this defective gene in us that somehow believes that people come to church just to hear us preach and celebrate. Thus, when there is low attendance, we take it as a personal affront. It’s an ego thing, you see.

Now I will grant, as I have always maintained when Vestry conversations get around to talking about evangelism, as they do on a regular basis, and how we can get more people to join our church, that I point out that I cannot – no priest can – bring people to church. However, I can drive them away. Even more, and probably even worse, if some join a church because of the priest, the clergy person, they are joining for the wrong reason, a very wrong reason.

When attendance is low, especially on those occasions when it should not be because of the religious and liturgical significance of the service – Holy Week, for instance – there is always a feeling of discouragement on the part of the clergy. We know the religious and theological – and even and especially the personal – import of those days and occasions. We are thus somewhat at a loss as to why most of our parishioners do not, or at least do not take them as important as we do.

We clergy do have to keep in mind that we, as clergy, come to Holy Week, for example, from a different mindset than that of the people we serve. Were we to ask ourselves that if the shoe on the other foot, were we laypeople, parishioners, would our feet take us to church or take us somewhere else? We honestly do not know the answer to that question. “Church” is part of who we are and it is impossible for us to disconnect that part of us in order to understand those for whom it is not such a part, certainly not as much a part of their being as it is a part of ours. This is in no way a judgment. It is simply a fact.

That said, it is still discouraging when the services on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil are so sparse that one wants to ask, “Why bother?” But, then, we must lest we forget. It is akin to asking why I have to tell my wife that I love her on a regular basis when she already knows that I do. I say it lest I forget even though I mean it in no less a way. I say it not out of obligation but simply because I must.

I think that is why we will never cease celebrating the days of Holy Week even were we clergy the only ones present. We would do so not out of any obligation but simply because we must. We would do so lest the people forget if we do not. We do so always with the hope that more and more of our parishioners would come to understand the meaning and personal importance of these days and not because it would make us feel better because the church is fuller, even as it certainly would.

Maybe next year’s Holy Week services will be better attended. Maybe not. But they will be observed lest we forget why they are so very important in our personal life of faith and in the life of the church as well.