By Ed Thompson

I was impressed by the talk from Diane Moffett – as well as the sermon by Dawn Adamy – at this past Saturday’s presbytery meeting. I found myself wishing that we had recorded them so that I could listen to them again. While I’m sure that Rev. Moffett has given that talk before to other presbyteries, that did not make it any less powerful or any less challenging. I started to wonder whether we should sign on to become a Matthew 25 presbytery and whether we should encourage our churches to become Matthew 25 churches.

To be honest, I have some mixed feelings. I don’t want to do this just so that we can keep up with the “cool” presbyteries, to be able to check off this box, to be able to say that we support anything and everything that our denomination does (although I probably do that anyway, and I suppose that’s not necessarily a bad thing).

I think back to a time earlier in my ministry when I pushed the church I served and the presbytery I was in to sign on to the Commitment to Peacemaking. That was important to me. I made calls, wrote letters, and used the time they allowed me on the floor of presbytery to encourage churches to support this effort and make this commitment. Even though it was a fairly conservative – or maybe a very conservative – presbytery, they did decide to endorse the Commitment to Peacemaking, and they even came up with some funds so that we could join with two other presbyteries to hire a Peacemaking Enabler. (In hindsight, it has occurred to me that maybe they took these steps just to shut me up and make each presbytery meeting a little shorter.)

I was proud of what we did. It certainly influenced my ministry. What I read, what I preached, how I prayed became more intentional as I tried to reflect the peace of Christ and how we might live that out in practical ways.

I also remember how I planned an educational event on the Nuclear Freeze for my church – and nobody showed up. Yes, the session voted to give me permission to do that, but none of them bothered to come. It was important to me. It obviously wasn’t important to them. I was deflated for weeks, maybe months by that. Still it was an important lesson, one that I still occasionally reflect on. I’ve told people that I kept a blank Personal Information Form on the corner of my desk for many years, but I was never angry enough long enough to fill it out and send it in. That incident wasn’t the tipping point, but I think I probably wrote a rough draft for most of the narrative questions after that happened.

Looking back, I’m not sure signing on to the Commitment to Peacemaking made much of a difference for the churches that took that step. But maybe it did. Maybe it made more of a difference than I realize.

If it’s not going to make a difference, if we’re not going to do anything about it, why should we bother? But maybe taking this step will encourage us to think, to study this passage. Maybe it will inspire some of us to do more and at least inspire others to at least try something. At this point, some churches just seem to be focused on their own survival. Maybe that’s all they can think about. But maybe being a Matthew 25 church and a Matthew 25 presbytery, though, would help shift our focus outward beyond ourselves.

Building congregational vitality – That’s an area in which we all need help and encouragement. Most of the time, it feels like we’re just wringing our hands and then doing nothing. This might give us some things to read, some things to do. We can probably find reasons why the ideas they suggest wouldn’t work in West Virginia or work in our church, but I suspect that we can also find ways to tweak a few of these ideas so that they can work here, even in smaller churches.             

Eradicating systemic poverty – That’s going to take more than just having a bigger and better food bank. Not that’s there’s anything wrong with having a bigger and better food bank. If we did just that, it would be a step in the right direction. I think, though, that working on eradicating systemic poverty is going to take becoming involved in public policy and working in partnership with other churches and other denominations,as well as other secular groups. This will make some people uncomfortable. Yet maybe we’ve become too focused on making people feel comfortable, and maybe we need to start thinking more about what Jesus would want us to do. Matthew 25 does have something to say about that.

Then, there’s dismantling structural racism. If you think eradicating systemic poverty is going to make some people uncomfortable, this is going to send others over the top. It’s all too easy to say it’s not really a problem for us because of the demographics of our state, but maybe the demographics of our state expose how big a problem this is.

Any one of these three presents a daunting challenge. All three of them together seem overwhelming. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try, though. That doesn’t mean the struggle isn’t going to be helpful or change us in good ways. That doesn’t mean this isn’t what Jesus is calling us to do. What do you think? What are you willing to do? Perhaps more importantly, what do you think Jesus is calling you to do?