It was three years ago this week that I landed here in Vermont and started my position as Priest-in-Charge for St James and St Peter’s, and I will never forget my first day on the job. Just like this week, it was Thursday before Norman’s Attic—St. James’ biggest fundraiser of the year—when the whole parish comes together in the kitchen and lounge and makes apple pies from scratch. From nine in the morning until after seven at night folks are making dough, cutting apples, making filling, making the pies, and then picking up pies to bake to bring back for Saturday. On the one hand you might say it’s the most non-religious thing you could do as a church—make baked goods. On the other hand, you could say it’s one of the most stereotypical things for a church to do—make baked goods. Either way, it’s one of my fondest memories, and one of the reasons faith communities are more special and unique than any other non-profit. It is community of faith, hope, and love with kingdom-building purpose trying it’s hardest inside a place dedicated to the sacred.
One might argue that the biggest detractors of joining faith communities is other members of those faith communities. At some point in our lives all of us have witnessed people of faith purveying unloving or cringe-worthy attitudes. I recall working at a university and a ‘church group’ was picketing outside the school simply because they had an LGBT support center. Whatever your belief may be about sexual orientation and identity, the image of Christians protesting a school and people simply for existing detracts from the message that all faiths seem to believe—that the divine that we believe in, is good and loving and worthy of devotion.
In stark contrast to the various ways people of faith have given faith organizations a negative image, here on baking day is a large group of folks of drastically different ages and opinions, joyfully doing life together. They were enjoying each other’s company, not in spite of identities or political beliefs, but in celebration that through our coming together we constituted what Jesus calls all of us to be—the kingdom of love and fellowship here on Earth.
Regardless of your emotional proximity to a community of faith, in a world that feels completely different than what we desire it to be; a world that feels so much less loving than we experienced in our youth (no matter what decade you were born); we all long to know that humanity is still deserving and that people are inherently good.
Every year, Norman’s Attic is a reminder to me of just how special faith institutions can be, and just how even a small group of loving folks, doing something seemingly insignificant, can have a powerful impact of meaning, belonging, and purpose.