Why do we—some of us anyway—go to church?
Is it for community? For guidance? For grounding, comfort, healing, inspiration? Is it for Eucharist and to get a foretaste of the kingdom come?
There are a myriad of mixed reasons we attend church. And none—well maybe some—are wrong.
One thing I have noticed across the denominational waters I’ve sailed is people talking about church (specifically the Sunday gathering) as a way to revitalize their spiritual life. Whatever other reasons people have for going to church, a common consensus seems to be that church is a place to refresh and recharge their spirits.
As if the spirit is a battery that gets drained by the world.
I’ve noticed that often when people claim this as a major (or even primary) reason for attending a church service, there is usually a secular/spiritual gap in their thinking.
We treat church as the place for spiritual things. Church is where we are fed (spiritually…and physically at church potlucks), where we learn, are challenged, and grow. It helps us grow closer to Jesus and to remember who we are in light of God’s eyes.
But after church? Monday through Saturday, this is secular time. Sure, I may pray and do good works, but these are the exceptions, not the rule. These six days of the week are dedicated to real life: work, groceries, daycare, school, dinners, dates, errands, bills… The list goes on and on of what fills our lives to the breaking point.
So, we get run down. We grow weary and worn and lose the focus and the fire. We need a boost—a fix, perhaps—and when Sunday rolls around, we slide into our familiar pew and get the refreshment and recharge we so desperately need.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Is this all our churches are? Are they the equivalent of spiritual gas stations?
We have this idea that we owe our time to the overlords. We have taken the idea that six days are for work and elevated it to a law written in stone that this work is for the empire of oppression, death, and suffering we are all trapped in. It’s not that we navigate empire; we buy into empire for six days and then try to shift our mindset on the seventh, on the day we are supposed to rest.
Rest from what?
This is the foundational question. What are we resting from?
Are we resting from living in empire, taking part in capitalism? Are we resting from—and this is arguable if we are really resting from it in our white churches—our inherent prejudices that feed white supremacy? Are we taking a break from the patriarchy we have a bias towards? Is Sunday worship really a time we choose to rest from our participation—willing or not—in these things?
Or…
Are we resting in God, acknowledging that the work we do for healing and liberation are grounded in what the divine has already done?
“Six days you have to come and be healed! The Sabbath isn’t a time for work.”
This was the response of the synagogue leader when Jesus blessedly set a woman free from what had bound her physically—not to mention mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—for eighteen years.
Jesus heals.
Leaders worry about respectability.
In first-century Jewish culture, work wasn’t supposed to be done on the Sabbath. It was a day of holy rest, a day given to God. It was a time to remember that in six days God made the world, and on the seventh, there was rest. This was a sacred time, not to be desecrated.
And Jesus miraculously healed woman on the Sabbath.
Was it work?
Was it play?
Whatever it was, it disrupted the normalcy of that particular sabbath day.
I wonder, did others who needed healing begin to crowd around Christ? Did some people run to tell family members and friends, who then packed into the synagogue? Was the place on the verge of a joyous riot and the leader was trying his best at crowd control?
Maybe there was a hush on the crowd, an awe at what had just happened, and in the sacred silence, the synagogue leader sent his scolding words.
However it happened, the liberation of a woman was met with a reprimand by a man in charge.
In a way, he was trying to rebind her, get her back in line, back to the normal way things should be. “You’re crippled. That’s where you belong. You want to be healed, fill out the right forms and we’ll get back to you a week from Tuesday.” This seems to be the undercurrent of his words. Everything needs to be prim and proper, in its place. T’s crossed and I’s dotted.
But Jesus is throwing a party.
Jesus isn’t looking at things as sacred time and secular time. He’s not thinking about work and rest. He’s not even thinking about how this is going to disrupt every life that witnesses this.
Jesus is thinking about liberation.
He sees—really sees—this woman and what keeps her bound. The rules meant to keep her in her place. The stares that remind her that she’s not like everyone else. But when Jesus’ eyes fall on her, he sees hope. He sees faithfulness. He sees liberation.
Jesus spoke and touched her, and just like that she was free.
No more doctors’ visits. No resignation to living this way. Nothing but joy.
When the protests come from the leader, when the system begins to rear its head and take that joy away, Jesus reminds everyone of this woman’s God-given, rightful dignity she has been created with. A dignity she had before the healing, and a dignity that is only more revealed in her healing. This is a woman, one of God’s chosen people. It is good and right that she was healed, even if the Sabbath rules and regulations had been bent.
On the day of rest, this woman was restored.
And God saw that it was very good.
So, what is our Sabbath? Is it that time of spiritual renewal, a good fill ‘er up of holiness? Is our Sabbath just a time we choose to disengage with empire because Sabbath is sacred, but the rest of the week is secular, so we have to do what we must to survive?
We hypocrites.
You and I and all of us are bent low and bound by patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism. These are the spirits that cripple us for a lifetime of years. Six days of the week are not secular, not ruled by empire, not a time for us to capitulate and be governed by the systems of suffering and oppression. No, every moment of every day is God’s sabbath, a time of rest we are invited into. Every day is the day of liberation, and every moment we are invited to become part of that liberation.
This is why we come to church. Not for a spiritual pick me up, but so we can receive the grace we need to be in the world, not of it. Here, together, we receive at the table. The bread is broken and shared. The wine is poured and passed around. And then we go, not in hopes of surviving another week. No, we go with a commission: to love and serve the Lord, seeing Christ in all people because we are all suffering.
God is found in the broken, in the suffering because God suffered with us, on the cross, identifying with those of us—all of us—who are crushed by the empire of oppression.
But here’s the good news: we are meant to be broken.
We receive the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation in our community. And then we go to the world, becoming what we have received: a means of God’s grace to make itself manifest in the world that desperately needs the bread and wine.
We go out, not to struggle to remain whole in a world that wants to tear us apart but to be freely broken, shared, passed around as we love our neighbors and offer them the hope of liberation.
None of us a destined to be in this system forever, and empire doesn’t get the last word.
But, and here’s the hard truth, no one gets out alive.
And.
We belong to each other; that’s how we get out of this.
Both of these statements are true.
And both of these statements tie us together.
When we become ungovernable by the systems of suffering and oppression, when we let the joy of liberation break into our lives just as we are broken for each other, just as Christ was broken for us, we disrupt the time the empire thinks is it’s.
There is no secular.
It’s all sacred.
We can reclaim it.
Every and any moment can be sabbath when we dedicate ourselves to recognizing the dignity of humanity in our neighbor.
ICE and a militarized police force want to deny basic rights to people deemed the enemy. What would it look like for us to protest that these people have dignity and rights?
Fundamentalists and Christian nationalists want to take the rights away from trans people because they view trans—indeed all queer people—as abominations that need to be discarded. So, how can we affirm the humanity and rights of our trans siblings to exist, thrive, and flourish?
The list could go on, unfortunately. But the basic truth remains: we are responsible for protecting the dignity of each other against an empire that would make us nothing more than a cog in the machine that will grind us down so we can be replaced by another nameless bit.
We can’t survive that.
Not even with a church pick me up once or twice a week.
We are not meant to survive it.
We are meant to be free of it.
Dignity and hope: these are the gifts we give each other as we offer our broken bodies to each other. Be that broken bread. Be that spilled wine. Invite people to come to the table because they belong, because they are human.
I am in the process of becoming a community chaplin with The Order of St. Hildegard. This program is designed to help form people into spiritual leaders that lead from the margins and serve the margins. It’s for the people who don’t quite fit with the traditional church because of trauma, disability, or identity. If you, as my community, would like to help me fulfill the financial obligation this chaplaincy program has, you can give at the link below. Thank you for the myriad ways you support me.
interestingly, i've been wrestling with the fact that not even going to church on Sundays is edifying for me. perhaps it is the incongruence between what I see and perceive at church and what is going on around us.