Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Sacred Items In Episcopal Church ?-WWJD?

Here is the dilemma---We are a very old Episcopal Church extremely active in shelteing-feeding and other work in an area that's run down. We have 125 year old Tiffany Windows that were donated as memorials to deceased past members...We are struggling financially like most everyone else and our old building needs much work. We are not in a desperate situation to survive but certainly face some pretty big hurdles .Out of the blue a private collector of Tiffany offered 2 million dollars for our windows..We had a professional report done and his offer is right on the money...We were also dismayed to find the windows need some serious work to the tune of $600K...which we probably couldn't raise....We are torn..I draw on Mark 14.3-9 and consider the windows as Sacred as the oil Jesus was anointed with as they are given as memorials to anoint someones loved ones and Jesus does mention the oil being a memorial.. Jesus frequently sold possessions to give the money to the poor------but I can find no mention of him selling things to fix his house or fund his Ministry... If these windows were not Memorials this would be much easier. I think the only logical thing to do is donate our windows to an Episcopal Church that has the funds to maintain them as Memorials and not to put them in the hands of a private collector where most cant view them... I acknowledge that we have been poor Stewards---so please no lectures---and we haven't been able to locate family of the Memorials as most of these old doents were destroyed in a flood years ago....We are torn over this...Opinions based on Gospel are really appreciated.

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