During this past summer, I presided over a wedding. Like many weddings that happen within the Church, the couple were a “come from away,: or rather, a “come back home” couple—they came home so that they could get married. I encouraged them, like I encourage all couples who do not live within my parish, to do their marriage preparation with the local church within the community in which they reside. The couple, graciously invited me to the reception, so I went.
Of course, it was your typical wedding reception, with people having to do a certain trick in order for the couple to kiss during their first meal as a married couple, messages from family members who could not make it, and of course the couple giving their thank you speech. What I heard left me thinking a lot of things. It was said, and I quote verbatim: “We would like to thank our vendors: Rev’d Petten and [the local congregation] for hosting and providing for our wedding.” My first reaction in my mind was: “I’m a vendor?”
Sadly, the world we live in at this point time operates with a transactional point of view: I ask you to do something for me, and then because that it all that is needed, we are finished. The Church has never been, nor should it ever be transactional. The Church, as it has always been, is called to be not transactional but relational. The Church was, and is, and should be about relationships—about getting to know people. Because I believe in this, I always try to be able to call every person who I greet on a Sunday morning by their first name, because I want to know them. To know them is to be in a relationship with them. As a priest, I believe I am called to be in relationship with people—to know them, to love them, to be with and for them. So, to think that I was called a vendor left me thinking: if I had been with them during their time of preparation, would I still have been classified as a vendor?
Well, if we do become like a vending machine, may the product that we give be a sweet treat that people are not expecting. May the thing that we give be the thing that people are really looking for: the love of God, the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God. These are the things that are needed and, not a transactional relationship with an institution that is looked at as being something that merely provides a service. May we not be seen as a place of transaction, but as a place of wholesome relationship.
