Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

by Rachel Held Evans

  “What’d you think?” Dan asked as we buckled into the Acclaim after another Sunday under the big top.

  “I wonder if they realize their worship songs include both amillennial and premillennial theology,” I said with a sigh. “Also, what’s this business from the preacher about Moses writing Numbers? I mean, everyone knows Moses didn’t actually write the book of Numbers. It originated from a combination of written and oral tradition and was assembled and edited by Jewish priests sometime during the postexilic period as an exercise in national self-definition. You can look that up on Wikipedia. And, while we’re at it, a bit more Christology applied to the Old Testament text would be nice.”

  “Um, Rach, the sermon today was about humility.”

  Lord, have mercy.

  See, I’ve got this coping mechanism thing where, when I’m feeling frightened or vulnerable or over my head, I intellectualize the situation to try and regain a sense of control. (I’ve read a lot of books on air travel, parenting, and death.) It was scary starting over at a new church and trying to make new friends, so before each visit, I girded myself with a sense of smug detachment wherein I could observe the proceedings from the safety of my intellectual superiority, certain I could do a better job at running the show thanks to my expertise as, you know, a Christian blogger. Oh, I talked a big game about the importance of ecumenicism and the beauty of diversity within the global church, but when I deigned to show up at one of these unsuspecting congregations, I sat in the pew with my arms crossed, mad at the Baptists for not being Methodist enough, the Methodists for not being Anglican enough, the Anglicans for not being evangelical enough, and the evangelicals for not being Catholic enough. I scrutinized the lyrics to every worship song, debated the content of every sermon. I rendered verdicts regarding the frequency of communion and the method of baptism. I checked the bulletins for typos. In some religious traditions, this particular coping mechanism is known as pride.

  I confess I preened it. I scoffed at the idea of being taught or led. Deconstructing was so much safer than trusting, so much easier than letting people in. I knew exactly what type of Christian I didn’t want to be, but I was too frightened, or too rebellious, or too wounded, to imagine what might be next. Like a garish conch shell, my cynicism protected me from disappointment, or so I believed, so I expected the worst and smirked when I found it. So many of our sins begin with fear—fear of disappointment, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of death, fear of obscurity. Cynicism may seem a mild transgression, but it is a patient predator that suffocates hope, slowly, over many years, like the honey mushroom which forces itself between the bark and sapwood of a tree and over decades is strangled to death. When it comes to church, I am well acquainted with cynicism.

  But perhaps the most unsettling thing about a new church is the way the ghost of the old one haunts it. For better or worse, the faith of our youth informs our fears, our nostalgia, our reactions, and our suspicions. My ears perked like an anxious dog’s upon hearing evangelical language from the pulpit. Words like holiness, purity, biblical, and witness will always ring a bit differently for me than they do for someone who grew up Orthodox or Pentecostal or humanist or Sikh. I measured every new experience by what I loved or hated about evangelicalism, which put all these good churches filled with good people in the rather awkward position of the rebound boyfriend. Were it not for Dan’s gentle admonitions, they might never have gotten a word in edgewise.

  Having failed to locate the First Post-Evangelical Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Deconstruction, we settled into something of a church-hopping rhythm wherein we visited more liturgical churches on holy days and more familiar, evangelical churches the rest of the time . . . and by the rest of the time, I mean maybe once a month. We weren’t exactly regulars. It occurred to me one morning as we snuck out of yet another service to avoid yet another awkward coffee hour that somehow, after all those years on fire for God, I’d become a back-row girl. I’d become the type of person for whom I’d prayed for revival. Only now I wasn’t even sure I believed in revival anymore.

  Amanda got married in October, on an unseasonably cold and blustery afternoon. She walked down the aisle of Grace Bible Church with a bouquet of orange and lavender flowers in her hands.

  When we’d finally reached the end of the reception, after the rice had been thrown and all the out-of-town guests lingered to talk about old times and help my parents pile presents into the back of their van, I found Brian and Carrie Ward and collapsed into a chair at their table. The room was dimly lit with orange and lavender lanterns, the tables sprinkled with rose petals and baby’s breath. Frank Sinatra and Etta James crooned from the PA. Brian, who had lost a little more hair since our youth group days, looked uncomfortable in his wedding clothes, but before long, he’d loosened his tie and I’d kicked off my heels and we were exchanging stories about the Planet and Camp Maxwell and Chubby Bunny and laughing so loud we drew a crowd of former youth group kids to the table like bugs to a humming light.

  Brian was full of nervous excitement that night, his fingers drumming the table with fury. I knew him well enough to suspect he was sitting on a secret, some bit of exciting news that only Carrie’s kind-but-pointed gaze was keeping under wraps.

  When Dan arrived to the table to see what all the commotion was about, Brian couldn’t keep quiet anymore. He slapped the table and made his announcement.

  “We’re moving back to Dayton to start a new church,” he said, his eyes dancing like a child’s in the candlelight. “And we’re going to need a team. Y’all in?”

  And that’s how a bunch of church dropouts became pastors.

  TWELVE

  Dust

  Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.

  —1 Timothy 1:15

  JESUS WAS NEVER POPULAR AMONG RELIGIOUS LEADERS. The experts on Scripture and purveyors of the law followed the radical rabbi around Judea with suspicion, hoping to trip him up with a theological riddle or catch him in some juicy indiscretion. In one strange story from the gospel of John, a group of Pharisees reacted to Jesus’ healing of a paralytic by chastising the overjoyed man for carrying his freshly retired mat on the Sabbath. Talk about missing the point!

  It seems those most likely to miss God’s work in the world are those most convinced they know exactly what to look for, the ones who expect God to play by the rules.

  Of particular concern to the religious elite was how Jesus associated with sinners. He’d been spotted around town not only in the company of the poor and sick, the outcast and unclean, but also with tax collectors and prostitutes—people brazen enough to economize their transgressions. Word had it he shared meals with them in their homes. Some even said he enjoyed himself.

  Now, this wasn’t simply the sort of colorful company writers and artists tend to romanticize—hookers, drunks, vagrants down on their luck. Jesus broke bread with tax collectors, too, men who exploited the poor and assisted the Roman Empire in its oppressive policies. (Replace tax collector with lobbyist or Wall Street executive and you get the idea.)

  These were the people who wore their brokenness on the outside, people whose indiscretions were so other, so uncommon, their entire personhood was relegated to the category of sinner. They were the people the religious loved to hate, for they provided a convenient sorting mechanism for externalizing sin as something that exists out there, among other people with other problems making other mistakes. It’s the oldest religious shortcut in the book: the easiest way to make oneself righteous is to make someone else a sinner.

  Jesus knew all about this sin-sorting system, so when the religious leaders challenged him about the company he kept, he replied, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). This momentarily assuaged the religious leaders, who, of course, counted themselves among the healthy.

  It’s tough to identify exa
ctly what the first followers of Jesus had in common. The Gospels speak of Jews and Gentiles, soldiers and farmers, men and women, rich and poor, sick and well, religious and nonreligious. No two people interacted with Jesus in exactly the same way, and few engaged in lengthy theological discussions or made a direct profession of faith before dropping their fishing nets, water jars, crutches, and money purses to follow this man who promised forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. It certainly wasn’t shared belief that brought them together. Nowhere do the Gospels speak of converts reciting the “sinner’s prayer” or signing a doctrinal statement or pledging allegiance to a creed. One of the first Christian missionaries, known as the woman at the well, was a Samaritan who sparred with Jesus over the details of when and where the people of God should worship. She was joined by devout Jews, Gentiles, zealots, tax collectors, conservatives, liberals, widows, fishermen, wealthy benefactresses, and impoverished beggars.

  It wasn’t shared social status or ethnicity that brought Jesus’ followers together either, nor was it total agreement on exactly who this Jesus character was—a prophet? the Messiah? the Son of God? No, if there is one thing that connected all these dissimilar people together it was a shared sense of need: a hunger, a thirst, a longing. It was the certainty that, when Jesus said he came for the sick, this meant Jesus came for me.

  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” Jesus said, “for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

  “Woe to you who are well fed now,” Jesus said, “for you will go hungry” (Luke 6:25).

  When Jesus said he came not for the righteous, but for the sinners, he meant he came for everyone. But only those who know they are sick can be healed. Only those who listen to the rumblings in their belly can be filled. Only those who recognize the extent of their wounds and their wounding can be made well.

  In another story from the book of John, the religious leaders take into custody a woman caught in the act of adultery. Armed with a Bible verse that prescribes the death penalty to adulterers, the scribes and Pharisees bring the woman to Jesus, throw her at his feet, and pose a challenge.

  “The Bible says we should stone this woman. What do you say?”

  It was a test. The religious leaders wanted to see if this controversial rabbi would be tough on sin, so they found themselves a sinner to condemn. They picked a clear-cut transgression with clear-cut consequences and passed around the stones. Surely Jesus would not be so foolish as to contradict God’s Word. Surely he would not risk the integrity of his ministry to show mercy to a sinner.

  In response, Jesus does the strangest thing: he kneels in the dust and starts writing in it with his finger. All eyes divert from the trembling woman to the ground, all the accusatory shouts hush to curious whispers.

  The text leaves the content of his message a mystery. Perhaps it was the name of the woman’s equally guilty partner, or a list of the sins of her accusers. It may have been a reference to Jeremiah 17:3 which declares that the names of those who turn away from God will be written in dust. Or maybe it was a reminder that “for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

  When Jesus finally straightens up and shakes the dust off his hands, he looks at the religious leaders and says, “Let any of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

  The gospel tells us it was the oldest in the crowd who walked away first. The younger ones soon followed suit. Before long, all that was left was a scattering of stones and the mysterious words of Jesus getting carried off by the wind.

  At least for a moment, the religious leaders got it: Jesus hung out with sinners because there were only sinners to hang out with.

  “Where are they?” Jesus asks the woman after they have gone. “Has no one condemned you?”

  “No, sir,” she replies.

  “Then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”33

  We tend to look down our noses at these ancient people with their religious codes regulating everything from the fibers in their clothing to the people they touched. But we have our own religious codes these days. We have our own scapegoats we cast from our communities and surround with Bible-wielding mobs. We have sins we delight in taking seriously, biblical instructions we interpret hyperliterally, issues we protect over-vigilantly because it helps us with our sorting system. It makes us feel righteous.

  “Let’s not forget that Jesus told the woman to go and sin no more,” some like to say when they think the church is getting too soft on other people’s sin.

  To this I am always tempted to respond: So how’s that working out for you? The sinning no more thing? Because it’s not going so well for me.

  I think it’s safe to say we’ve missed the point when, of all the people in this account, we decide we’re the most like Jesus. I think it’s safe to say we’ve missed the point when we use his words to condemn and this story as a stone.

  Billy Graham once said, “It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and my job to love.”

  Perhaps it would be easier for us to love if it were our own sins we saw written in that dust and carried off by the wind.

  PART III

  Holy Orders

  THIRTEEN

  Hands

  I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

  —2 Timothy 1:6

  THERE IS POWER IN TOUCH—A CONNECTIVE ENERGY, A bond. Sweethearts know it in the tender frisson of fingers intertwined, children in the touch of a mama’s lips to a bandaged knee, the grieving in the gentle pressure of steady hands on heaving shoulders. From infancy, we ache for the warmth of one another’s skin. Jesus didn’t have to touch the blind man’s eyes or the leper’s sores, but he did. The Son of God healed with his hands.

  From its earliest days, the church blessed its sick and commissioned its leaders with the laying on of hands, a practice so central to the Christian faith the writer of Hebrews likens it to baptism and repentance (Acts 28:8; Hebrews 6:1–3). Those called to the roles of pastor, deacon, bishop, or priest—named holy orders in some traditions—begin their ministry with the hands of God’s people placed prayerfully upon their shoulders or on their heads.

  “Fill her with grace and power, and make her a priest in your church,” the Anglican bishop prays over a priest at her ordination ceremony, hands resting on her head in dedication. “Make her a faithful pastor, a patient teacher and a wise councilor.”

  There is something about that touch, that act of consecration, which turns a prayer into a pulse that ripples right down to the toes. Just as God comes to us through water and wine, God comes to us through touch, through the holy acts of holy hands.

  The hands of a pastor will baptize babies, type out sermons, and draw crosses of ash over penitent brows. They will break bread, and pour wine, and shelter unwieldy Advent flames. They will grasp the speckled arms of the elderly, the sticky fingers of toddlers, the trembling hands of the sick, the lifeless palms of the dead. And they will rest upon the heads of others so called.

  “Do not neglect your gift,” the New Testaments instructs, “which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you” (1 Timothy 4:14).

  Ultimately, all are commissioned. All are called. All belong to the holy order of God’s beloved. The hands that pass the peace can pass a meal to the man on the street. The hands that cup together to receive Christ in the bread will extend to receive Christ in the immigrant, the refugee, the lonely, or the sick. Hands plant, and uproot, and cook, and caress. They repair, and rewire, and change diapers, and dress wounds. Hands tickle giggling children and wipe away tears. Hands rub heaving bellies of big, ugly dogs. Hands sanctify all sorts of ordinary things and make them holy.

  Through touch, God gave us the power to injure or to heal, to wage war or to wash feet. Let us not forget the gravity of that. Let us not forget the call.

  FOURTEEN

  The Mission

  Grace is no
t so poor a thing that it cannot present itself in any number of ways.

  —Marilynne Robinson

  April 2010

  Our first Easter, we met in the apartment above the funeral home. It’s where we gathered every week, but on that holy evening, as the sun set on Resurrection Day, I was struck by the poetry of it, so I lit the paschal candle on the coffee table and said something about how the same power that raised Christ from the grave will one day raise us, too, right along with Ms. Edith in the embalming room next door. Brian took this as his cue to pull us from the twilight zone into a familiar hymn he strummed on his guitar, and our church of twenty—we called ourselves the Mission—sang.

  It wasn’t exactly the catacombs. One of our members was the daughter of the funeral director and she kept the spacious, well-furnished suite homey and smelling of vanilla candles and clean laundry. Still, I felt like a modern-day Phoebe, renowned first-century deaconess of the house church at Rome, as I led the group through a piecemeal liturgy I’d extracted from The Book of Common Prayer with all the inchoate delight of an evangelical new to its gifts. Whenever Brian referred to me as the Mission’s worship pastor, I flushed with pride.

  We’d stumbled into these roles: I composed the liturgy and wrote whatever needed written. Brian cast the vision and won people over. Dan kept us legal and online. Carrie scouted out community service opportunities while resettling the Ward family in Dayton, Tennessee. Kaley, the funeral director’s daughter, fed and sheltered us. And Matt and Jen, the final pair in what church-planting parlance termed our “core group,” served as the treasurers of our paltry coffers.

  At first, I had feared Brian and Dan might clash, as Brian’s ministry mantra—“I just want to love on people”—remained unchanged from our youth group days, while Dan’s—“Have we filed the necessary paperwork?”—evolved out of necessity. But with a little practice, the two grew to like one other. Dan’s New Jersey grit is of the gentle sort, and I’ve never known anyone to remain uncharmed by Brian’s easy, insouciant wit, which crackles like a bonfire and draws everyone around him into a circle of honesty and ease.