RELEVANCE

I have a confession of sorts to make. I am a M*A*S*H junkie. I have watched every episode of this old TV series, set in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (M*A*S*H) during the Korean War, repeatedly. One of my favorite characters, as you might guess, is Father Mulcahy, the unit chaplain.

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In one episode that takes place around Christmas time, Father Mulcahy is found in the chapel/mess tent writing to his sister, the sister (a nun). He tells her that he is writing as he waits for the 10 AM ecumenical service to start on a Sunday morning – it is now 11:30. He is alone, and once again, no one will show up. As he writes the letter and tries to talk to his comrades in arms, he confides that he is unsure he makes any difference at all in this world. No one comes to confession, no one asks for spiritual guidance, no one shows up to hear his sermons. He feels irrelevant.

I must admit that I feel his frustration and feelings of uselessness. M*A*S*H was a show coming on the leading edge of secularism. It testified to the very real collapse of faith and trust in God and the institutions dedicated to God. Today it is more advanced than ever as generations progressively reject the church, clergy, and everything else that is of the Spirit it seems. People don’t even bother to bury the dead anymore. I, like Father Francis Mulcahy can feel useless and irrelevant on any given day.

Throughout the episode, however, there is evidence of something else going on. Mulcahy bravely volunteers to act as a living counterbalance on a helicopter that needs to transport one, lone, patient to safety. At the unity Christmas Party gifts are exchanged. There is a package for the terminally grumpy and horribly cynical Major Winchester. Inside is a simple wool stocking cap from his boyhood days tobogganing in Boston. It seems Father Mulcahy has noted his sour holiday disposition and written to his family to provide some token of home that might cheer him up. Overwhelmed with emotion, Winchester, the ultimate snobby WASP, declares to the priest, “Father, you have saved me.”

Hawkeye then rises to make a toast and targets the priest. He says that in a place made indecent by war, there is one man whose simple humility and decency brings decency to them all – Father Francis Mulcahy.

Relevance is not granted to the church by the culture around us. It is a God given gift that shines in the night through the simplest acts of kindness, bravery, humility, and decency. In a world of violence and hateful speech, we speak words of love and care. In a world made indecent by so much, we act decently to all people and every creature. When someone hurts, we care. When someone is lost, we walk with them. In those moments, spoken or not, eyes meet and say, “Father (sister, brother, pastor, friend), you saved me. And there it is, the relevance of the reign of God.

Pax Christi,
Tim Olson – Lead Pastor