By now you’ve heard the uproar about the Dorito’s “Crash the Super Bowl” contest
entry that featured a Eucharist of Coke and chips. In the Mennonite
church our communal meals are often treated as Eucharist so I don’t feel
any particular discomfort about Jesus’ body and blood being represented
by something other than wafer and wine. (If anything, my concern issues
from the conviction that where our food comes from and what it does to
our bodies is of profound theological importance.) What’s really
interested me as a potential-future-pastor is the reality of parish
ministry portrayed in the commercial.
The truth is that a lot of churches suffer from low attendance. And
before we start to scoff and sneer at the priest saying the words of
institution over a Cheeto we need to take a step back and remember that
people’s lives depend on the church budget. This is not limited to the
minister’s salary (which as a possible-future-minister I think is vastly
important), and includes funding for mission groups, individual
missionaries, the church’s corporate structure, the lights, the heat and
(ahem) the scholarship funds allocated to seminarians. Maybe Doritos is
not the way we want to go. But let’s be honest enough to say that not
meeting your budget is a serious crisis.
That isn’t the only reality a minister must face. This commercial
could have featured an elderly parishoner waving her fat checkbook
tauntingly over the head over her cowering pastor. It could have
pictured an elder’s council meeting stretching into a third hour as the
discussion about Christmas carols in Advent reaches a fevered pitch.
Parish ministry isn’t always, or maybe ever, just about theological
scruples. It’s about pastoral concern/care meeting theological decision
again and again and again.
