Sometimes I am asked, “do you think we will actually get this done?” My response usually goes something like, “Well, we are in the miracle business.” A religious sociologist I love, named Ryan Burge, recently had an article stating more than 70% of Christian pastors believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ.* Uh, yeah! I preached a sermon recently about a guy who, around 2000 years ago, had followers all over Jerusalem and the surrounding area, was proclaiming a new world, and upset the authorities so he was crucified. His name was Thaddeus (not our Thaddeus in the Bible). The difference between Thaddeus and Jesus is the Resurrection – and their teachings and works while on earth, of course.
We believe in new life. We believe in rebirth. We believe in resurrection. THE Resurrection. We just don’t like the whole dying part that goes with it. One of the beautiful things about the Episcopal Church is how we spend time at the cross on Good Friday. We don’t just jump from Palm Sunday’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and then don fancy hats for Easter Sunday. We have a whole week where we enter, slowly and deliberately, into the death of Christ on the cross.
In the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada, we are embracing our Resurrection theology. While most of you don’t experience first hand the dying of a church or congregation, some of us do. When Nevada was a missionary diocese, the Episcopal Church planted congregations everywhere there was a town practically. And, to their credit, bishops of all kinds tried to help churches thrive (and then survive) with programs like Total Ministry. But the weight of the world sometimes becomes more than we can bear.
This week in our Diocesan Cycle of Prayer, we lift up St. Mark in Tonopah. The irony is, your Standing Committee (on Monday, April 28) voted to close St. Mark and sell the beautiful little church building there to a growing congregation who, thanks be to God, has been renting the building for their services for years. Please pray for Rev. Tina Snyder. She still lives in Tonopah but is unable to lead services. And pray for Bonni – our last faithful member still living in Tonopah and helping us finalize these last months.
This work isn’t easy. For anyone. But we keep at it. Being in a diocese that knows the gifts of farming, ranching, and mining remind us what hard work looks like and that life and death are two sides of the same coin. And we give thanks to God to be able to share our resources of land and buildings with others who will spread the Good News. In the case of St. Stephen in Reno – which will be sold on Friday, May 2 – we get the chance to offer much, much needed rental housing to folks trying to live in the communities where they work: teachers, nurses, fire fighters, police officers. How luck are we our land gets to bring about the Kingdom of God in new and exciting ways.
We believe in new life. We believe in rebirth. We believe in resurrection. But we know our theology requires us die first. Please pray for those who are letting go so others might live.
Faithfully,
Bishop Elizabeth
