Mon 8 Mar 2010
With the controversy in our community surrounding the cellular flag pole to be built on a small portion of our property and the attacks made my a tiny, tiny group in our neighborhood against the members of Saint Matthew’s, I was asked last night why haven’t we responded more directly and more harshly.
During the past six weeks, many people here at Saint Matthew’s have reached out to me concerning a letter they received at their homes that not only questioned their Christian faith, but also raised some rather personal issues by a letter writer whom they did not know. They’ve all asked how this unknown person got a hold of their address and how they knew personal information about them and their families. Then they asked me how their church was going to respond. I’ve asked members of the church not to storm over to this person’s home and confront her. Urging restraint and prayer, I am thankfully that we, as a congregation, have acted Christ-like in our response rather than acting as this letter writer did by stooping down into the gutter.
And then, a second letter was mailed to a smaller number of members by another letter writer, a letter that also questioned the Christianity of our church and of our individual members. Then, these same people spearheaded a move to further attack our church by putting up ugly signs against us and the first letter writer wrote a sadly vicious letter to the editor of the weekly newspaper personally attacking our church once again and Saint Matthew’s Voters’ Body president and vice-president. Oh, and yes, she attacked me also, which is nothing new since both of these letter writers have used me as their personal pinata for a while.
Even after these letters were sent and the signs erected, within church I’ve been quiet on the matter, instead stressing the importance of loving your enemies though they hate you.
Yet, many members of our church asked me speak out about the cellular flag pole issue, especially about how their privacy was violated by these letter writers. One even suggested that I had to stand up because I was their pastor and they were being attacked. Therefore, this weekend, I wrote a lengthy “Pastor’s Note” in our weekly bulletin detailing and explaining this matter in as most direct way possible. Yes, I used some rather tough language to describe the letter writers, their actions, the use of an old church directory, and where they possibly received the addresses and information about Saint Matthew’s and the private information that was contained in the letters.
I wrote that the use of a directory by anyone outside of Saint Matthew’s family was in fact the use of a stolen church directory.
I explained that I believed these letter writers’ actions were reprehensible since they used this stolen church directory to attack a our membership.
And I spoke of how Christians, those redeemed by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, respond when hateful people attack you and your church. In my sermon yesterday, I reminded everyone of the good fruit they produce for God and His Kingdom in their own lives, no matter how many times they are maligned and smeared by hateful people. We Christians — we Lutherans — respond not by acting smarmy or putting up signs attacking our enemies.
Instead, we pray for them, we love them though they spit at us.
And that is what we will do.
We know that our actions as a congregation have been dutiful and proper. We didn’t rush into any contract to lease a small portion of our property without proper study and prayer.
For 115 years, Saint Matthew’s has been a strong neighbor to our New Milford, NJ community. We’ve volunteered and served on numerous community boards and organizations throughout our century-plus existence. We’ve helped our neighbors when they’ve been in pain and struggling. We’ve taken our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and have shown in our actions the pronounced love of God as we’ve fed the hungry, clothed the needy, comforted the mourning, and loved the unloved. None of this changes because of the assaults of a tiny, tiny few.