32/52 - Why are you here? Why Does the Church matter?

This past Sunday, Trinity Herndon repeated an experiment they tried a few years ago. After a short introduction, the pastor broke off the sermon and posed two questions -- "Why are you here?” and “Why does the church matter?" She then asked the assembled Frozen Chosen to break into small groups to discuss the questions.

Without even considering the challenging nature of the questions themselves, just the process of turning a sermon into a participatory activity is not without risks. We've been a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church for 40 years. I remember a time when the introduction of the Sign of Peace was a revolutionary act. Growing up Catholic, my siblings and I used to try and fake Mary Glenn Mancini out during Christmas masses about exactly when "The Peace" would take place by going into fake handshake mode at random intervals in search of a “gotcha.” Things have evolved at Trinity, and they now need to play music to remind everyone to sit down and stop wandering around and Peace-ing everyone. And on the Sunday of The Participatory Sermon in question, did I mention there was a jazz quintet? The mind reels.

The more observant readers will likely now ask, "Wait. Didn't you leave Herndon, VA, nearly two years ago? Were you visiting on The Sunday of The Participatory Sermon? Why didn't you stop by and see us?"

At least one answer to the "Why are you here?" question likely lies in the answer to the above questions. Truthfully, we haven't quite been able to leave Trinity behind. Our love affair with the community at Trinity is still very much at the top of my mind. We watch on YouTube; before you judge, it's more normal than it sounds. One byproduct of COVID is that "remote church" took a giant leap forward. Streamed on the big TV and with the benefit of some excellent behind-the-scenes technicians, it's almost like being there.

Well almost. The Sign of Peace is now just the two of us. When we broke into subgroups for The Sunday of the Participatory Sermon, our subgroup was MG and me. And Rosie, our grand dog. However, Rosie didn't participate much. She raised a paw for the Peace, so I might sell her short.

As you can see, I am dodging the two central questions because publicly addressing questions like these is something I have yet to be comfortable with. But even in our group of two plus a canine, we had good conservation, with MG being much more forthcoming than me. I like to think that's because I'm a good listener, but she might beg to differ.

So, overcoming my closet introvert nature, here are my answers, with a confession that I've lost track of my ideas and MGs. But it is more than likely that the good ones were hers.

“Why are you here?” and “Why does the church matter?”

First, we love our Trinity Family and are not ready to say goodbye. This is a family with whom we have shared some of the saddest and most joyful times of our lives. This is a set of memories and experiences that persists even in the transition to HTDV participation.

I enjoy the connection to a community of people with a core set of shared beliefs but with enough humility to resist assuming they have a monopoly on truth. I can think of many conversations at Trinity that have not only crossed Christian denomination lines (really, that ought to be easier than some would like to make it) but have also extended this outreach into other faiths. I like that. I also like the openness to those in the LGBTQ+ community. The older I get, the clearer it becomes that love is love, and there just isn't enough of it in this tired world.

Given the choice between those who imagine a world created with the presence of God and those who believe that the universe “just happened,” I’ve never had any doubt that I land in the first camp. But within those two extremes lies a lot of gray area. Trinity has been a place that has allowed me to think about these gray areas. I realize that some are more confident in asserting that they have absolute explanations for these gray spaces and can pick out Bible verses to "prove" their case. That’s OK, but that’s not me.

I’ve always had a hard time with the Prosperity Gospel and the idea of God as a dispenser of magic favors, mainly because I know so many who seem to have wound up on the short end of that stick through no fault of their own. When my Dad was in a coma shortly before William was born, I remember stumbling across Harold Kushner’s “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” in the catacombs of Penn Station in NYC. Confronted by the tensions between God's all-powerful and all-loving natures, Kushner concludes that God does not control everything that happens in the world. Instead, God is limited in intervening in human affairs and preventing suffering. He maintains that yes, God is all-loving and suffers with us when we experience pain and loss. But for free will to exist meaningfully, God cannot intervene to prevent the consequences of human choices, even when those choices lead to suffering. I've always taken comfort from this.

I do worry about the role of the Church moving forward. Looking down at Trinity from my HDTV weekly perch, I see LOTs of people with hair color and/or lack of hair similar to my own. That's OK at face value. But somehow, we've missed passing along the comfort of belief and Church to the next generation. I also worry about the many times in history the Church has found itself on the wrong side of the Caesar/God rendering equation, the hijacking of many Christian churches in the service of Trump being the most recent example.

OK, I better stop. That’s WAY more than this closet introvert EVER intended to reveal to the world.

But that’s what happens when you wander into the weird world of Participatory Sermons and Jazz Quintets.

What about you?

Other posts in my New Year’s Resolution series can be found here - https://www.searchformygrandparents.com/