(preached
on March 15th for Lent Midweek Worship)
Our
story connections: Share a story of your spiritual renewal. What is
your story from unbelief to belief?
Genesis
12:1-4a
Psalm 121
John 3:1-17
So
one year for Lent, I gave up church.
I
have always been the kind of person who goes to church almost
automatically—it’s probably why I ended up moving across the
street from one! I just can’t help myself. Our family had invested
almost ten years in this particular congregation, both the kids had
been baptized there, and so even though none of us were happy, we
kept showing up, with two little kids who were constitutionally
incapable of sitting quietly with crayons and board books the way all
the other kids at church did. I’m pretty sure the record Queen Mab
set for the number of times she thrashed herself off the pew or out
of our arms and cracked her forehead on the pew in front of us is
still standing. And I disagreed with just about everything anyone
said, and I resented them for saying it, and I resented their version
of God, who seemed so small and petty compared to the massive,
beautiful, and totally messed-up world. I decided that even if that
God was real, which seemed
unlikely at this point,
he wasn’t worth worshiping
and certainly wasn’t
someone I could count on to take care of me—this God was only
interested in his own glory, and everyone else could go to hell—you
know, if that was what would bring him the most glory.
I passed lots of angry notes
to David, and after we got
home I would
gripe all
afternoon.
And
my husband kept asking me, “Well, why don’t you talk to the
pastor about it?” And I would answer, “Because I would just be
telling him why I thought everything they do and believe here is
wrong, and that doesn’t
seem helpful,” “Well, then we could find another church.” “I
mean, we could….but….”
And actually, we did try one Sunday, and we visited a different
church, and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t. I hated church,
especially my church, and
God looked
like nothing
more than
a particularly vindictive authoritarian character that some guys had
invented to keep uppity over-educated women like me in our places who
I wanted nothing to do with,
but I couldn’t quit. I just kept dragging myself back, Sunday after
Sunday, and coming home feeling worse than ever, snarly
and resentful.
My
problem is that I am pathologically law-abiding. If I think
I’m expected to
do something, I can hardly stop myself from doing it. Even when I
don’t believe in the reason for doing it.
One
gray, chilly, damp February day—no snow even—just the worst and
ugliest kind of late winter, I decided I wasn’t going back. I was
going to take a few weeks off and then try the most different church
I could find. I wasn’t ready to quit church altogether, but all I
could pray was “I do believe. Help my unbelief.” and sometimes
even that felt a little over confident. I had never gone to a church
that followed the church calendar beyond maybe Christmas and Easter,
so I only discovered later that it had been Ash Wednesday when I
decided to quit.
I
didn’t tell anyone at church that I wasn’t coming back. I just
ghosted them, even our midweek Bible study attended by my favorite
people at church, who tolerated and sometimes, I think, even welcomed
our pointed questions. That's a thing I regret.
But
that first Sunday morning, waking up and neither scrambling to get
ready for a church service I didn’t want to go to nor feeling
guilty for not going—just laying bed as long as we wanted (or I
guess, as long as our kids let us) and having a lazy breakfast—was
amazing. I felt weightless. I wasn’t constantly arguing in my head
about what God was like—I didn’t even have to bother to worry
about whether or not I actually thought there was
a God. Something
told me that, whatever the
truth was, it was going to be ok.
After
sleeping in for a few Sundays, we went to the Episcopal church down
the street—that was the most different thing I could find to our
old church. They were marking Rose Sunday, which is the halfway point
in Lent, so everything was “rose,” and by rose I mean magenta—the
paraments were magenta, the vestments were magenta—Mab’s eyes
were huge!—she and the priests matched. It was the most flamboyant
Welcome To Our Annual Contemplation of the Sin and Brokenness of the
World that I’ve ever seen.
So
there, in the middle of all this high-level churchy stuff—they had
everything but incense—which was so totally foreign to me in every
way—I wasn’t arguing anymore. Maybe I was just overwhelmed by the
color and pageantry. But we went back the next week, when everything
was now purple, and the next. And the God they described wasn’t
nearly as grouchy and vindictive as the one I had been railing
against for way too long, though while I certainly liked this God
better, I kind of suspected that he might just be wishful thinking on
their part. But now that my brain had sort of quieted itself down and
didn’t feel the need to shout “WRONG!” every few minutes (in my
head, of course, not out loud!), God started whispering in my ear.
Just a little, once in awhile.
Especially
right before communion, and I should point out that we almost never
took communion at our old church, because they only had it quarterly,
on Sunday nights. They were afraid that if you didn’t believe the
right things, you would end up eating and drinking judgment on
yourself, so the elders always wanted to talk to visitors beforehand,
just to be safe, and this was easier to arrange on Sunday nights. But
Sunday nights with our children weren’t really conducive to going
out to a SECOND church service, so we usually skipped. And then I’d
quit believing the right things, so I quit trying. Or rather, I’d
stopped feeling guilty about not trying.
But
now, every Sunday the priest would welcome the congregation to the
table with the same words:
This
is the table, not of the Church, but of God.
It is to be made
ready for those who love God
and who want to love God more.
So,
come, you who have much faith and you who have little,
you who
have been here often and you who have not been for a long time,
you
who have tried to follow and you who have failed.
Come, not
because I invite you: it is God, and it is God’s will
that you
who want God should meet God here.
Hearing
this welcome every Sunday morning, I wasn’t sure if I believed in
God, but I sure did want God. And it was a relief to hear that I
didn’t have to have faith to be welcome. But I wouldn’t get in
line, because the flip side of being the kind of person who is
obsessed with fulfilling obligations and following the rules is being
the kind of person who is paralyzed with terror at trying something
new and breaking some secret unwritten rule that will doom me
forever. I even signed out a book from the little book cart in their
fellowship room that was something like, “How to be a convincing
Episcopalian” and I memorized the section with the little diagrams
about how to take communion.
But
I was still terrified that I didn’t really belong, and that it
wasn’t for me, and it was easier to just observe from our back
corner, instead of gathering up the kids and herding them down the
aisle and through the line—because of course no way were we going
to leave three year old Mab in the pew by herself! I wasn’t
convinced that this thing that might not even really be for me was
worth risking the scene of me doing it wrong or a child breaking free
and crashing the beautiful altar with all the candles and that super
fancy purple tablecloth.
The
Maundy Thursday service, though, was a potluck, because Last Supper,
held in the fellowship room instead of the sanctuary. Everyone filled
plates and sat around big round tables with ordinary, slightly
stained white tablecloths, and all the kids, including Her Highness,
vanished pretty early on to go play. We were with some friends from
grad school, and there was good food, and great conversation, and
then a service while we were still at the tables. Though by the time
we got to communion, the Golden Boy, who was about the Caeterpie’s
age, had gotten squirmy and kind of squawky, so I was pacing around
the edge of the room with him in the carrier. It felt like a good
place to watch without being conspicuous about not getting in line.
And
as people were lining up, I saw, at the front of the line, Queen Mab.
Of course I started to panic, like ya do when you suddenly see your
kid doing the thing that you’re afraid to do yourself. She must
have been watching the priests’ kids she had been tagging along
with, and she put out her hand with total faith that this was hers
and she belonged there and she took that little gluten-free wafer—
so
I got in line too.