Inverse proportion
AS A Palestinian-American priest of the Episcopal Church in the United States for 17 years, I have felt that my two vocations exist on separate tracks. On one track is my work, teaching and advocating on behalf of my people; but that calling has never intersected with the parochial — and now diocesan — track of my priesthood, which focuses on the joys and challenges of ministry in small churches. More recently, though, I have discovered a point of connection between these vocations.
My vocation in small churches began unintentionally: since my ordination, I have only ever served small churches, and have found great satisfaction in doing so. Plus, for the past six years, I have worked alongside faithful friends and colleagues in the Small Churches Big Impact Collective to “identify and amplify the beauty and grace of small churches” through our podcast and other offerings.
As the name of our collective reflects, my firm belief is that nothing, in God’s economy, is too small to make a big difference to the mission of Christ in the world. How many times have we heard Jesus’s parable about the mustard seed?
And yet, in the consumer-driven, output-measuring culture in which we live, we tend to forget the parable’s message. We give in to the temptation of seeing size as the way to measure power, capacity, and aptitude.
But my work in small churches has proven the truth of the mustard seed: that small things can make a big impact; that, even when we feel insignificant, we are often still revealing God’s love and glory to the world in powerful ways.
One bread, one body
ONE of my favourite examples of this “mustard-seed” truth is an experience that I had as a parish priest in the early 2010s, as questions about same-sex marriage swirled in the Episcopal Church.
A matriarch of the parish made an appointment to meet me. Although I hadn’t been at the church for long, I already knew Elizabeth well. In her early seventies, she was compassionate and kind and deeply faithful. During our appointment, Elizabeth told me about her reasons for believing that homosexuality was sinful and wrong. I listened to her experiences and assured her that I understood her concerns, but I could not agree with her stance.
Neither of us convinced the other to change our position, but I was sure that she felt listened to: she knew that I knew where she stood. She left my office that day with a hug, and was back in her usual pew the next Sunday — and every Sunday after that, too.
Mere months after that conversation with Elizabeth, our parish gained two new members. A lesbian couple, June and Grace, had been married in an Episcopal church out of state and recently moved to our area, where they joined our church. Not long after that, they announced that they were expecting their first baby.
As the couple continued their involvement in our church community, even taking on some leadership positions, I paid attention to the way in which Elizabeth interacted with them, and was not surprised to discover that she treated them with the respect and kindness that I knew her for. She chatted with them at coffee hour, and attended Sunday school with them.
Like everyone in our close-knit community, they shared in the sacrament together, week in and week out, standing at the altar to receive — and become — the Body of Christ.
Silver service
ONE day, as Grace’s pregnancy drew towards its final months, Elizabeth followed me to my office after the Sunday service. “When are we going to hold the shower?” she asked me as I took off my chasuble. “What shower?” I asked. “The baby shower for Grace and June!” she responded, incredulously. “We always throw a baby shower whenever someone in our church is pregnant.”
Once we had firmed up the date, Elizabeth got to work planning the shower. She organised the food and decorations. She came to church the Saturday before the event to put down tablecloths and set up centrepieces. In the middle of the buffet table, she placed what in America is called a “diaper cake”, with dozens of newborn-sized nappies hand-rolled into cylinders and stuck together to make a three-tiered structure, with a baby’s dummy on top.
She made her famous punch, and gave the couple a baby’s christening gown, with a sterling silver cross on a matching chain. And, when the baby was eventually baptised in that church’s sanctuary, Elizabeth had a front-pew seat. She continued to bestow her love and kindness on the child — and her parents — as we all grew together as one family in Christ.
It was one of the first times that I learned what an enormous impact small, everyday interactions make in our lives and our world. For all I know, to this day Elizabeth thinks that homosexuality is a sin. But, in the end, it didn’t matter what she thought about the general topic. What mattered — what still matters — is how she loved the people God put in her path. And that was shaped entirely by the relationship that she formed with Grace and June.
Over the course of the year, through conversations in the church hall and weekly worship together, Elizabeth, Grace, and June learned to love one another, and that love was transformative: for each of them, for me, and for our whole community.
Chain reaction
AS A Palestinian priest, I am often confronted by other Christians who know little about the history of my people, our traumas and tragedies, our perseverance in the face of persecution. And, in today’s political climate, as news headlines are filled with one horror after another, the plight of Palestinians — occupied and brutalised on their own land — is in danger of dropping out of the global consciousness.
I am no powerful politician, no fierce activist — I don’t even have a TikTok account. How could I possibly make any difference to the flourishing of my people in the face of their staggering suffering? Whenever I find myself, in fury and frustration, asking that question, I remember my learning from years of small-church ministry.
When I worry about my friends in the West Bank — people like Mitri Raheb, and Morgan Cooper, and Stephanie Saldana, and their families — I think, too, of Elizabeth, and Grace, and June, and their families, and of the hundreds of people like them whom I have encountered in this work over the years. I am reminded that, while I may have little control over global politics, I can effect change in the communities around me — and I can remain open to being changed by them, too.
It may seem such a little thing: to share a meal with a new neighbour, or say hello to the stranger on the street; to have a chat after church with that person so different from me, or come to the communion rail with folks from all walks of life; but small churches have taught me that these “little things” are capable of transforming the whole world.
The Revd Leyla King is the Canon for Mission in Small Congregations in the Episcopal diocese of West Texas. She is the author of Daughters of Palestine: A memoir in five generations and a co-founder of Palestinian Anglicans and Clergy Allies and of the Small Churches Big Impact Collective.