I have lived in my current home for more than seven years now. It’s in a quiet neighborhood that’s been around awhile, and the homes here don’t turn over often. Our biggest complaint is the guy next door starting his diesel truck at 4:30 am every weekday (sort of our neighborhood snooze alarm), and the rare black bear that wanders through on the way up the mountain and stops to destroy bird feeders while trying to get at the birdseed. We keep to ourselves, and we don’t have any crime.
For more than three years now, I have walked my dog every day, rain or shine, at about 2:00 pm. We follow the same route because he is a creature of habit and likes his routine. On the Saturday before Easter, we went out for our walk, and I immediately noticed the incredibly beautiful yard down the street. There were pink tulips and yellow daffodils blooming everywhere. A large decorative flag that said Welcome! hung by the door. A little further down by the mailbox, there were even more pink tulips and yellow daffodils and another, smaller garden flag that also said Welcome! The mailbox itself was wrapped in a decorative fabric that said, you guessed it, Welcome!
I stopped briefly to appreciate the beauty of the yard and then noticed the woman who lives there standing on the porch. “Oh!” I said, “Hello! What a beautiful yard!” She looked at me and tried and failed to smile. She lifted her hand slightly as if to wave, then thought better of it.
I guess the Welcome! flags weren’t meant for me.
My dog and I continued on our walk and encountered another neighbor. She and I talked about Easter plans - neither of us had any, and then she told me how, when she lived in a big city before she came here to retire, she looked for a church to attend. For a long time she looked for a church because she wanted one, and then later she looked more desperately for a church because she felt she needed one. Most of the churches she visited, she said, had pastors who were preaching the Prosperity Gospel. The Prosperity Gospel says if you do what god wants you to do, you will receive blessings - and by blessings, they mean material wealth. Failing to achieve material wealth means god isn’t pleased with you. Consequently, the pastors of these churches lived in large luxurious homes, drove luxury cars, and at least one had a private jet. The churches she visited that weren’t preaching the Prosperity Gospel were led by “untrained” (her word) pastors whose sermons were either the repetitive fire-and-brimstone type or self-help-light with a Bible verse tacked on. None of the churches she visited had a hands-on interest in helping their own communities or promoting social justice. I’m sure her search was limited by her own preferences, but still, all she wanted was a well-considered, scripture-based sermon with a side order of working with other members of the church to help people in need in the community.
I returned home, picked up my phone, as you do, and looked at our town’s Facebook page. It was chock-full of invitations to a particular church in town. “Come and celebrate Easter with us!” the ads said. “Everyone welcome!” But I know that church, I know the pastor, and I know the congregation, and I know that just isn’t true. Everyone isn’t welcome, unless you’re ready to rush to the altar, admit how messed up your sorry self is, and beg for forgiveness from god, yes, but mostly from the righteous pew sitters who will let you know, thank you very much, when your penance is acceptable to them. (Note: Be sure to dress appropriately.) And if you can’t get yourself on the straight and narrow pretty damn quick, you’ll be run off and labeled with the ugly names those pew sitters feel you deserve to be called. Don’t let the door hit you on the backside on the way out, and oh by the way, we’ll pray for you.
I have years of excellent theological training from one of the finest seminaries in the world. I mention this to you only so that you will know that I have given a not inconsequential portion of my life to learning to read and understand scripture and to putting that knowledge to use by attempting to help myself and others live a jlife of faith together. Yet it would take more than both hands for me to count the number of times someone has heard me speak, then taken me aside to tell me they know just the book/website/tv show that will help me learn to pray and read scripture correctly, to help me have a “real” relationship with god.
To be fair, perhaps they’re sensing when I’m speaking that I’m holding something back. Telling the whole truth would mean pointing out their own misguided efforts to pray and read scripture without taking into account their 21st Century bias. It would mean shining a light on their misunderstanding of what it means to take the plank out of their own eye before complaining about the speck of sawdust in their sister’s or brother’s eye. It would mean turning over the money-changing tables in the narthex. It would mean telling them how lacking they truly are in welcoming the stranger.
And for some reason, I never had that in me.
Even when I saw people blocking God’s will to puff up their already-inflated egos and solidly unchristian sense of righteous privilege.
Even when they did it because they held all the power and could wield it without challenge.
Even when they did it just because they enjoyed being cruel.
After all these years, I can still see their faces and recall their names.
I bet god can too.
So no, I’m not in church any Sunday of the year, let alone Easter, and neither is my neighbor. As for the lady with the beautiful yard, who knows? What I do know is that while fewer and fewer people attend church, more and more people I talk to are desperately seeking something more to nourish their stressed out, isolated souls. Whether Christianity can fill that void remains to be seen, but what is clear is that the people I talk to have enough self-awareness to know that the Prosperity Gospel, Christian Nationalism, and/or the threat of hellfire and damnation won’t fill what’s missing in their lives.
Only love can do that.
The kind of love where Welcome! is not just a slogan on a garden flag.
This is so good! Those of us who have spent many years in church know first-hand that the “all are welcome” often does come with an *.