The “So What” of Holy Week. . .and Church Speak

A number of years ago, while I was a seminarian at Virginia Seminary, I was in a homiletics (preaching) practicum with about five or six other students. One of them is now the Bishop of Atlanta, the Rt. Rev. Robert Wright. But back then, he was just Rob, another student, bright, attentive, engaged, just as the rest of us were. I remember that I preached a sermon for this “lab.” While I have no memory of the scripture passage or the words I preached, what I do remember vividly is Rob’s reaction. When I finished, and my peers were helpfully critiquing what worked and what didn’t with my sermon, Rob leaned forward. He said, “Well, sister, that was a good sermon. But here’s the question: what does that mean for me on Wednesday?” Dead silence in the room.

 In other words, I could preach a very fine sermon—well structured, exegetically researched (exegesis means digging deep into a piece of scripture to figure out what it really means—so it means being critical of superficial meanings, being thoughtful about its overall meaning), or well delivered in a rhetorical sense. Yet if the average person who is sitting in a church pew on Sunday hears no real connection to their life as they go about their everyday business of work, school, family, etc., then so what?  Who cares? (Stage whisper here: NO ONE.)

 I have kept this “So what?” and this “Who cares?” in mind through the years as I have prepared sermons and preached. 

 This week, Holy Week, I am not preaching for the first time in lots of years. I have not planned the Holy Week liturgies (liturgies = a form in which worship is conducted)—alone or with a Worship Committee. I will not be celebrating Holy Communion. I will (sadly) not be singing the Exultet, an ancient solo prayer/chant that opens the Easter Vigil in candlelight. No. I have “retired.” (Note: I put that in quotes, because I have agreed to start soon to do a long-term supply in a small parish not too far from here, but that is another story. . .)

 This means that this week, I sit in a pew, just like a bunch of other regular people. I listen (carefully) to the sermon. I go forward when it’s my turn, to have communion. I safely say “the peace of the Lord be with you” at exactly the right time.

 But maybe because I am not “up front and in charge” right now, I find myself wondering “so what?” 

 Now I was raised in church. My father was a Southern Baptist minister. My family lived in parsonages next to whatever church he was pastoring. I was in church A LOT. God is in my bones. Church has been like water to a fish—I swam around in it, mostly not noticing that what I was in, was water. It was my milieu (still is, frankly), one in which I have always been comfortable. I lived, breathed, ate church. I have sung in church choirs. I’ve served in lots of lay leadership positions. I know about church folks—the good, the bad, and the very ugly. I know about parking lot conversations and hypocrites who say all the right stuff, then leave miserly tips for hard-working restaurant servers or pass righteous judgement on “them” because they aren’t “us.” Meaning “right.” But never mind about that. That, too, is for another day.

 This week, though, as I’ve scanned my Facebook page, I wonder. So what? People are posting about their Holy Week services, or their (inevitable) copier issues, or the choir music they’re going to offer, or who is serving in what capacity, or the Easter Egg hunt wedged between all the services, etc. 

 It is finally warm (okay, near Washington, DC,  that is true today. Tomorrow may be different. . .) Flowers are blooming. Lawns are getting green. The birds are singing and shoving each other off the bird feeder outside. 

 But when I pay close attention, I see and hear craziness and conflict in this world. Hunger. Homelessness. I see a hospice nurse leaving one of my neighbor’s homes and feel sad about what’s comi. I see huge contrasts—for example, in this morning’s news, Elon Musk has offered what amounts to $43 billion to buy Twitter. On the other hand, if you’re not Elon Musk, you’re wondering how you can afford some decent housing. A man who attacked people in a Brooklyn subway was finally caught and now is being held without bail, pending trial. This Covid virus continues to shape-shift, and no one seems to be able to figure out what we should treat and what we should learn to live with. Masks? No masks? Shoulder shrug. We Americans may well be headed for a recession. Ordinary human beings from Ukraine are either dodging missiles, hearing alarms at all hours, or are being sheltered far from their homes. Ukranian refugee mamas (many of the husbands at war, thank you) wonder how in the world they will feed their children or find work or maybe. . .just maybe. . .go home again. Except home has been obliterated by a crazy man in a neighboring country making power-obsessed decisions.

 Meanwhile, we church types (I am among them, still) plan liturgy, make church spaces beautiful, get bulletins (programs) ready for all the people who may well show up this Sunday. Ordinary people who hope for, and truly need, glimpse of hope and new life. God knows we need us some hope—especially after the past 2 years. 

 But I wonder. Who cares? I wonder what relevance we in the institutional Church have in this 21st century racist culture where the rich seem to get richer and the poor poorer. Two years ago, we had to close and lock church doors. No one could come in. (Big question: did anyone really notice in YOUR neighborhood? Just asking for a friend. . .)

 If you were spiritually hungry, you could join a faith community on Zoom—assuming you knew the link. It wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing. You could show your coffee cup, but you couldn’t sit with your buddies at Coffee Hour and catch up. You could not get hugs, except from your family members. And if you were single, and your children did not live nearby, you got no physical, loving contact at all. Not good, people. Not a great way to live, in this kind of isolated bubble.

 Many people—even faithful church attenders—found that hey, being home in your pajamas with your cup of coffee, in front of a Zoom screen—that wasn’t so bad after all. And if you missed the actual service, well, it was recorded. Or if the sermon was long, rambling, boring, and this Sunday soliloquy did not connect with your Wednesday life, well, you just walked away from your computer. We all limped along—church leaders and church members alike. The world continued all around us, with its scariness and loneliness.

 Now, some are finding it difficult to get back to church. They got used to being at home and comfortable on Sunday. Maybe, on some deep level, they are asking “So what?” What difference does going to church really mean? Maybe they’ve decided that jockeying around for “their” pew just isn’t worth it. Maybe they would rather go camping, because that’s outside and safer. Maybe they can make a better cup of coffee at home than we make at church. Who knows?

 To make it worse, we in the Church delight in what is often called “churchspeak.” In the Episcopal Church, we use words and terms that the average bear does not use, does not understand, and most times, reluctant to ask about. Don’t want to look dumb, you see. So as my friend and colleague Elizabeth Kaeton points out, words like “crucifer” and “acolyte” and “altar guild” and “usher” (okay, you get ushers at the live theatre, so maybe you know that one) and “sacristy” and “liturgy” and all those various liturgical colors of “vestments” happen. In the Episcopal Church, some stand. Some kneel. There’s all this “up and down” business. And strangers are fearful they will say or do the wrong thing. Then if they venture to volunteer to do one of these official things, they fear they are not worthy (again, thank you, Elizabeth Kaeton, for that reminder.)

 Worse, most parishes proclaim that they are WELCOMING. That’s funny, right there. Truth be told, most of us guard our particular seat like a proverbial bulldog, we all want to sit on the aisle and NOT MOVE OVER to leave room for a newcomer, we all hog the back pews WHERE A NEWCOMER MIGHT WANT TO SLIP IN AT THE LAST MINUTE TO SIT. At the end of the service, as soon as we are dismissed, we practically run to coffee hour to catch up with our buddies. Never mind the stranger who has been brave enough to walk across a big room called “the parish hall” to get their coffee. Now, ignored, they pretend to study the bulletin board near the coffee urn, hope someone will speak to them or invite them to sit at a table with them, but no. We’re too busy catching up.

 Too many newcomers leave quietly, never to return. Maybe church really wasn’t the place to come, after all. Maybe Starbucks or Panera or some local coffee shop is more welcoming and hospitable. Besides, learning all that churchspeak was going to be more than a notion.

 Meanwhile, there’s still this gnawing space inside a person that yearns for companionship, for recognition that as Ram Dass put it, we are all just walking each other home. All on a journey, all looking for a place where we are welcomed with open arms. A place where we’ll glimpse a little hope, get a warm smile, get a perfect stranger to ask how we are doing, then really to listen to us. Nobody really does that much anymore, do they? Everybody is too busy checking their phones or curating our lives for Instagram. 

 Also. . .outside (and sometimes inside) church walls, people argue, ignore each other because their phones are more interesting. They dig themselves into political trenches, shout their political positions, gaslight women and people of color, shoot each other (too often in the name of “justice” and, I suspect, make the Almighty wonder why S/He created us in the first place. Miserable offenders, we are.

 So how do we act when a stranger shows up? Here’s a truth:  If I am a stranger to church, and I walk in—either for the first time or for the first time in many years—here is what I don’t want: I don’t want church folks to swoop down like vultures, saying “You should join ______” (choir, altar guild, the group that feeds the homeless. . .pick a thing here) without taking time to find out just why I showed up to begin with.  Maybe I just want to be spiritually fed. To have some quiet. To get the lay of the land, so to speak. Maybe I was just checking to see if “the Episcopal Church Welcomes You” has any real meaning, after all. Or if what I experience in this place with stained glass windows connects to my everyday life.

 Bottom line: we in the Church should understand that when a stranger comes through the door, they are there for some reason. They are hungry for spiritual nourishment. They would love to have some companionship on the way of life. They may well want to offer their gifts to something larger than themselves—at the right time. And maybe they want to be taught what things and people mean inside our churches that have some, or any, effect on the world. That includes our insider language.

 Maybe inside the Church, we would do better if we learned how to translate the love of Christ in actions, not churchspeak. Forget asking “What would Jesus do?” Instead, just go walk like Jesus, talk like Jesus, listen like Jesus, and do what Jesus did: have supper with people no one else would have supper with. Be a healing presence for someone. Give to a legitimate relief effort. Listen—really listen (put down your phone for a while—no, really). Have a listening presence and offer an open heart for someone else’s gifts—even if that means it’s time for you to stop doing something in the Church and mentor someone else, then be willing to step aside. “There is a time, and a purpose for everything under heaven . .” said the writer of Ecclesiastes centuries ago. Even a time to hit the pause button and think about doing something new.

 We are definitely in some new season. So if you’re a church type, think about how we might open ourselves to new ways of being. Thank about the folks who are out there, hungry for something, who might consider—or re-consider—looking to us for community, for engaging in stuff that matters, in a world that so needs both.

 God loves you. God loves me. There is hope. Really, there is. 

 As for me, from my pew, I hope and pray that during this week where three major faith traditions honor their holy times (Ramadan, Passover, Holy Week), you and I can learn how better to be this hope to the people we see—not on Sunday, but on Wednesday.  My goal is to be part of this hope. I will be thinking about how I can do what Jesus did—in a whole new way now. Maybe you’ll see me on the Way. If you do, please smile and say hello.