No Vacation from Church
FROM THE RECTOR
Last Sunday, my family and I worshipped at the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Murphy, North Carolina. We were visiting my parents, and, despite being on vacation and it being New Year’s Day, I asked my family to come with me to church. Some of them were willing participants. Others came along less cheerfully. For me, the whole experience of convincing, cajoling, and, ultimately, commanding was an exercise in theology—of exploring the reasons we go to church in the first place. Funny enough, no one in my family was excited to hear me lay out a foundation for the primacy of worship, but, as I struggled to sway the unenthusiastic among us, I discovered a few things about church that I had not realized, and they give me renewed focus as I return to St. Paul’s.
For starters, we do not go to church because we are supposed to. Just as my children summarily dismiss any attempt to convince them that we should go to church out of obligation, I trust that none of us drawn in by the stern warning of judgment—whether it comes from God, our priest, our parents, or anyone else. We believe in a God of grace. We believe that, in Christ Jesus, God has already reconciled us to Godself without any need for our performance or self-justification. To say otherwise is fundamentally unchristian.
Because of God’s radical love, there is no “ought” that brings us closer to God. In fact, anytime we hear someone condition our relationship with God upon our own actions, it actually pushes us further away. Don’t you know this to be true in your own life? Whenever someone tells us that we must do something “or else,” rather than strengthen our relationship with that person, it challenges the bond that holds us together by predicating it upon our acquiescence to their demand. Jesus teaches us that God does not work like that. How can we proclaim our faith in a God who loves us no matter what and then imply that God’s love somehow hinges upon whether we show up on Sunday morning? If we are looking for a reason to go to church, we need to look somewhere else.
Ironically, I think the best reason to go to church is that we don’t have to go in the first place. Where else in the world do we encounter a community or organization that will reward us fully without asking anything of us in return? Where else can we learn what it means to be loved without limit, without condition, and without expectation? Often our families serve as images of that sort of love—of unconditional belonging—yet even the most generous and loving family has its theoretical limits. But not God.
We go to church because church is the only place where we discover that we are loved in truly unbreakable ways. There is nothing we can do or say or think that can threaten that. Sometimes I hear people say that they do not need to go to church to be a good person, and they are absolutely right. But what they may not realize is that we do not go to church in order to be good people but to hear God say that we are loved even when we are not good people—even when we miss the mark, even when we fail. The gospel of grace means that you belong to God whether you go to church or not. Within that freedom we become our fullest, truest selves.
That is why we go to church—to remember that we are loved in ways that the world cannot show us. Everything we do in church is a response to that love. Worship is the act of ascribing ultimate meaning and value to something or someone. As the source of all life and all love, God alone is worthy of our worship, and, by worshipping the one who gives us that love as a free and limitless gift, we learn not to fear reprisals for our inadequacy but to trust in the abundance of God’s mercy. Is there any more important lesson to learn in this life?
By devoting ourselves to the one who loves us and the whole world completely, we are shaped by that radical love until we learn to love others in the same way. “Forgive us our trespasses,” we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgiveness is just another word for love. We are loved despite our imperfections, and being loved like that makes it possible for us to love and forgive others, too. When we encounter God’s love for us, we discover within ourselves a capacity for unconditional love that we never knew was there.
Church is the place where we practice what it means to be loved unconditionally until that love takes hold in our hearts. I can find moments of peace and beauty walking in the woods. I can find rest and refreshment drinking coffee on my porch. But I can think of no other place in the world besides church that fills us with unconditional love. Even in my own family, as my struggle to get our children to go to church proves, love comes with at least a small hint of qualification. Of course, I will love my children whether they go to church or not, but, in the throes of their defiance, I have a hard time showing them that. I wish I knew even more fully the power of God’s limitless love so that I might model it even in my toughest moments, which I suppose is why I keep going to church, especially when I am on vacation.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan D. Garner