We recently enjoyed the classic film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” with our kids. Through the years, certain phrases from the movie have made their way into our family lexicon, such as, “He’s a suitor,” “He’s bona fide,” “I’m a Dapper Dan man,” and my favorite, “I’ll only be eighty-two,” Delmar’s words when he realizes how old he’ll potentially be when released from prison. We’ve also liked “paterfamilias,” the term Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) uses to remind his children that he should still be the father figure in his family, even though he’s been in prison.
As the male head of a family or household, paterfamilias is similar to the term “patriarch.” “Patriarch” describes the men known as the fathers of the Hebrew faith: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. It is sometimes used to describe a man who is the head of a household of faith within a community, and the head of the Orthodox Church is also called “Patriarch.”
This week, Ashland lost one of its own patriarchs in the death of Sanford Mitchell, aka Pastor Mitchell. When he retired in 2015, he had served the congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church for thirty-seven years, with eleven years of service at two previous churches. That’s a lot of marrying and burying. Many of the on-line tributes to Pastor Mitchell noted his involvement in the sacred and sacramental times of the families of the church – the births and deaths, the baptisms, confirmations, and weddings. When a pastor speaks into an individual’s life at a critical moment, we may not be able to quote the words, but our lives are never the same.
Ministers, rabbis, pastors and priests play a vital role in the lives of individuals, in the church, and, as did Pastor Mitchell, in the life of the greater community. My interactions with Pastor Mitchell occurred because of his involvement in that greater community, as he served on the steering committee that brought The Salvation Army’s Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center to life. At one point, there was a possibility that Ashland would lose the project entirely, and I still remember Sandy’s adamant message to the rest of the committee – (paraphrased from a dozen years ago) “we will do what it takes to get this center for our community.”
When Cook’s Field was purchased as the Kroc Center’s building site, The Salvation Army sponsored a series of old-fashioned gospel tent meetings on the grounds. When we asked Sandy if he would participate, he readily agreed. I wondered how a pastor from the Lutheran tradition, rooted in the Reformation and used to the formality of its Sunday morning liturgical format, would do in an evangelistic tent meeting. Any worries I had that night were put to rest as soon as he opened his Bible and began to preach from the book of Jonah. Amen, brother, amen!
Those of us raised in the church may recall the ministers of our early years. The Reverend Donald Roberts served First Presbyterian Church in Tonawanda, New York until he was appointed as the first Protestant chaplain to Moscow in 1962. I was only seven, but I can still picture him, with his wife and young family, and how heartbroken our congregation was as he responded to the call to Russia.
This week, many are remembering the pastor of their childhood, their young adult years, their golden years, who served faithfully at the church on Center Street. Sanford Mitchell was a man who was gifted enough to go out into the world beyond Ashland, but he chose to sink his Lutheran roots deep into the soil of this church, this community. In doing so, he echoed the words of 2ndTimothy 4: he fought the good fight, he finished the race, he kept the faith.
Serving in ministry for more than half a century, Reverend Sanford Mitchell was truly a paterfamilias in the best sense of the word, a father of the family of God. He may not have been a “Dapper Dan Man” like Ulysses Everett McGill, but he was definitely “bona fide,” genuine, real, with good faith. A rich legacy, to be sure.
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