THE RECTOR'S CORNER

                                   GOO, G’JOOB

The following is from Garrison Keillor’s book, Leaving Home. It is humorous yet poignant. I think it is an analogy of the Episcopal Church and our ministerial focus over the past generation.
It points to one reason our Church has declined in membership significantly since the 1960’s.

Larry the Sad Boy was there, who was saved twelve times in the Lutheran church, an all-time record. Between 1953 and 1961, he
threw himself weeping and contrite on God’s throne of grace on twelve separate occasions--- --and this is in a Lutheran church that wasn’t evangelical, had no altar call, no organist playing Am Without One Plea” while a choir hummed and a guy with shiny hair took
hold of your heartstrings and played you like a cheap guitar-----this is the Lutheran church, not a bunch of hillbillies---these are Scandinavians, and they repent in the same way they sin: discreetly, tastefully, at the proper time, and bring Jell-O salad for afterward. Larry Sorenson came forward weeping buckets and crumpled up at the communion rail, to the amazement of
the minister, who had delivered a dry sermon about stewardship, and who now had to put his arm around this limp soggy individual and pray with him and see if he had a ride home. Twelve times.

Even we fundamentalists got tired of him. Granted, we’re born in original sin and are worthless and vile, but twelve conversions is
too many. God didn’t mean us to feel guilt all our lives. There comes a point when you should dry your tears and join the building
committee and start grappling with the problems of the church furnace and the church roof and make church coffee and be of use, but Larry kept on repenting and repenting.

Is there a ceiling to our patience for Larry the Sad Boy who

continues to weep and weep? Is there a point that tending to the one lost sheep over and over neglects the other 99 of the flock? Is existentialism…..Nietzche on target? Has the Church in its advocacy for the one lost sheep over the past forty years caused us to drive away the remaining 99 to the point our flock is now comprised of one? I think so. It is time to move on to something new, progressive and fresh. It is time for Tony Orlando, Che Guevara shirts, neo-platonism, Jane Fonda, and “peace and justice” to step aside for new
thought and new theology. The walrus is dead! Goo, goo, g’joob,g’goo, goo, g’joob.