It is sad to watch any institution be forced into selling off its most valuable possessions to stay afloat.
But that is the position that Brattleboro's First Baptist Church found itself in, and that is why its famed Tiffany stained glass window of St. John the Divine was sold to anonymous buyer for $85,000 and will soon be placed in the Halim Time and Glass Museum in Evanston, Ill.
While it is good that the century-old Tiffany window will be in a public place where it can be seen and admired, we think Brattleboro and the church has lost a piece of its history.
But that loss of a piece of history became necessary in the face of the expanded mission of the First Baptist Church. The Gothic brick-and-granite church, built in 1867, is home to the winter overflow homeless shelter, Grace's Kitchen, a pastoral counseling center and as a meeting place for local organizations and support groups.
But the church needs repairs to its leaky slate roof and its heating system, and there simply wasn't enough money to do the work. Both the recession and a dwindling membership have taken a toll on the church's cash reserves. Church members voted to cut back on the hours of their pastor, the Rev. Suzanne Andrews, and lay off sexton George Goulet, but it still wasn't enough to deal with a growing financial crisis.
It was a national story last December when First Baptist Church announced its intention to sell the Tiffany window, and people from across the country sent in donations. There was hope that the window might be able to stay in Brattleboro, and an unnamed foundation made an offer to buy the window while keeping it in the church. In the end, a majority of the church's members chose the higher bid and chose to part with something they loved to support something bigger and more important than themselves.
“No one wants to see this Tiffany go,” Rev. Andrews told the Associated Press last year, “But when it came down to the question of do we sell the Tiffany to keep our doors open for the ministry of God, then the decision became quite clear to all of us, that this Tiffany window - as beautiful as it is - is a material thing.”
That is why the sadness of the loss of a beautiful piece of art is outweighed by the joy of seeing people do what's necessary to help the community in a time of need. Hundreds of people have used the shelter over the last few winters and received a hot meal and a warm place to sleep. When confronted with a choice between material beauty and helping the least of our brothers and sisters, the members of the First Baptist Church chose the latter.
Church members had hoped for a miracle to keep the window. It never came. Instead, the miracle was how the people of the First Baptist Church responded in a time of crisis and the example they set for all of us in the process.