Well, it finally happened. Hamilton’s coming to San Francisco, and I managed to score some tickets for my birthday. Excited is a bit of an understatement.
The other day, I was listening to the Hamilton soundtrack (essential preparation, of course). Flicking through my Facebook feed, I found an article about church decline. I was frustrated by yet another set of depressing statistics. Not for the first time, I wished I’d been alive in the golden age of the church. You know, those days when the pews filled effortlessly and there were 40 women in the altar guild? When there was a children’s choir and a youth choir and the adult choir and a bell choir? Sometimes it feels like I was born in the wrong generation to be a pastor.
And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’ve listened to pastors worry about maintaining the same programs on fewer and fewer pledges. I’ve heard their fear every time the roof begins to leak or the AC breaks. And on social media, I see buzz from lay leaders who point out attendance problems that are only getting worse.
And then, while I was still musing about church decline, the Schuyler Sisters came on. For those of you not yet acquainted with Hamilton, the Schuyler sisters are three, real-life women. They’re the daughters of a wealthy politician and later a general in the Revolutionary War. Against their father’s orders, the sisters sneak out to downtown Manhattan to people-watch. The city is in a frenzy; the War of Independence is imminent, and revolutionary ideals are tearing through the city.
At that point, the sisters have everything to lose. A British victory was all but certain. Their father was looking likely to lose his status and his money, if not his life. Their homes and cities might be destroyed in the process. It’s no wonder, as they stand in the bustle of the pre-war city, that one of the sisters starts to complain about the violent upheaval taking place around them. “It’s bad enough Daddy wants to go to war. There are people shouting in the square. It’s bad enough there’ll be violence on our shores!”
But the oldest sister, Angelica, sees something different in the chaos and uncertainty: a chance to shape a changing world. “Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now,” she sings. “History is happening in Manhattan and we just happen to be here.”
And it struck me: maybe I had the wrong attitude. If Reformations only happen once every 500 years, what are the chances I would be born in the right time and place? I am in the midst of history as it’s happening–we all are. And if we want, we all get to help shape it.
I’m not going to pretend I don’t have any qualms about being Christian in America right now. There are some days I wonder if I’ve lost my mind by going to seminary and casting in my lot with institutional religion. And no Hamilton song can negate the tricky realities pastors are facing right now.
But the next time I’m faced with a grim statistic or sit in a church with emptying pews, I’m not going to think that I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most of the time, when history is happening, I’m average and irrelevant. I’m hardly ever in the room where it happens. But in shaping the future of our church, maybe for the next 500 years, here I am. Here we all are. How lucky we are, indeed, to be alive right now.