He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom. - Luke 4:16
I have been thinking about "church" quite often lately which surprisingly has connected me to my own church journey. I grew up in the South where church, famously, was part of the culture. Churches, by far most of them in the Protestant tradition, were on every corner it seemed with church steeples creating a forest if one were to look up.
My family attended Wesley Memorial Church in downtown High Point, North Carolina where I was baptized as an infant. The building was clothed in red brick, aged to a darker hue as I recall. I loved the stained-glass windows. After church we would sometimes go to the Chinese restaurant down the street where my grandfather introduced me to egg-rolls. I have been an addict ever since.
Early on I was also exposed to the Episcopal tradition, the church of my mother’s youth in Rochester, NY. She enrolled me in the choir of the local Episcopal church, St. Mary's, where a great aunt on my dad's side was the choir director. She was Moravian. I wore a black choir robe frock and a white blouse to sing. One Sunday, most of the choir headed to the communion rail for the weekly celebration of the Eucharist and I jumped in line to kneel at the rail. The priest, Dr. Price, noticed me and came over to ask if I had been confirmed in the church, knowing I was well below the age. I shook my head "No", not knowing what that meant. I do not know if I received a substitute blessing. That experience, I believe, was the beginning of a romance with the sacrament which remained hidden for years but became a singular passion in response to the actuality of Jesus' simple words and actions: This is my body broken for you. Eat this. This is my blood shed for you. Drink this. And I love the freedom and invitation in his "as often as you will."
I experienced Sunday school, Scouts, and youth group at Wesley Memorial. Eventually, a new church facility was erected farther out from downtown, not far from the country club. Huge, cathedral-like, and very beautiful if not somewhat imposing, we called it the Vatican. I learned the great hymns there and earned my God and Country award and Eagle rank in Scouts. My dad was an Eagle and now I was as well, all through the church. When my dad died, the enormous sanctuary was filled to overflowing.
For two summers in high school, I was a lifeguard at a mountain retreat property owned by the Methodist Church of North Carolina. Many pastors and church members summered there, enjoying the mountains and the lake in the center of the property, Lake Junaluska. Every Sunday I worshiped in the great assembly hall and then dashed off to rock hop the mountain streams with my friends. I celebrated my 16th birthday there, discovered youthful romance and great friendships. In addition, Duke University, my alma mater for both undergraduate and law, has had a long association with the Methodist Church. There is a famous and very beautiful Gothic cathedral in the center of the campus, the Duke Chapel. The divinity school is next door. Periodically I would attend service at the Chapel as an undergrad and hardly ever as a law student. Over the years since then, we have loved the presentation of the Messiah which we have attended many times in the Chapel.
In the summer before my third year of law school, I married a Duke coed whom I had dated through college. She was Catholic so we were married in a Catholic church in her hometown of Yardley, Pennsylvania. I asked a Methodist pastor, a family friend, to join in the ceremony. We did not go to church during eight years of marriage or pursue a relationship with Jesus. We were busy professionals in Washington DC. The marriage ended, childless, in divorce.
I returned to North Carolina, joining a large law firm in Greensboro. It seemed everyone in Greensboro went to church. Several of my colleagues’ families attended First Presbyterian Church, so I went there. It was a good and spacious place for re-entry. Over the course of that first year, I kept bumping into folks who liked Jesus and they kept bumping into me. The brokenness in my life began to open my heart. One night, alone in my condo, I wept all night. Jesus met me there. When the sun came up, there was a different quality to the light. I knew it.
Almost a year later, I married Laurie in First Presbyterian Church, her family church. Our first three children were dedicated there, and we were part of a vibrant, adult Sunday school class. We bought a home across from the church. During this season, we were introduced to several streams of evangelical outreach and para-church organizations which connected us relationally to many friends and began our grounding in the Scriptures. We began hosting a gathering of friends in our home for worship, fellowship and prayer. This eventually evolved into the formation of Grace Community Church, our home church for 30 years.
Six years ago, my journey took me to a Catholic parish. There were many encounters along the way that led me there. It is a place of rest for me, a place each Sunday to receive after giving out so much to others, and a place of community worship dynamic in sacramental reality. The blessing of the parish school to our three grandchildren who live with us, to us and to their mom, has been profound. The Boy Scout troop is dynamic and led by men and women who are as trustworthy and committed as they come. My grandson is hopefully on his way to Eagle. Coaches of the athletic teams are exemplary and encouraging. The church, pastor and staff have remarkable vision and leadership. I am grateful.
As I was finishing these reflections, I came across a commentary on Jesus' instructions to his followers as he is ascending. He instructs them to return to the city, Jerusalem, and wait. Fr. Rolheiser comments:
The Upper Room is not glamorous, not a Leonardo da Vinci painting. It always looks like the meeting in your local church. But it is there that Pentecost happened and will continue to happen. And so Jesus' advice to today's struggling believer is still the same as it was to a group of uncertain and shaky disciples at the time of his Ascension: return to the city and wait in the Upper Room. Or, as Peter Maurin put it: 'When you don't know what else to do, keep going to meetings because Pentecost happened at a meeting.' (Sacred Fire, p. 133)
And we correspondingly add this exhortation from Scripture:
And let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds, not giving up meeting
together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see
the Day approaching. - Hebrews 10:24, 25
Throughout our year, there are many gatherings that we are part of apart from the Sabbath but connected in the Spirit… These are meetings that the Spirit visits in powerful ways year after year. Every Wednesday morning six of us men meet as a small group which has been together for fellowship, friendship, prayer, and Scripture for 30 years. Directed solitude retreats with other pilgrims seeking the discipline of silence are a staple in our spiritual journey. The Windy Gap Men's Retreat gathers over 300 men from throughout the Southeast in the spirit of Jesus. Marvelous and transformational encounters, amid vigorous worship, occur every year, now for over 40 years. Our Verbena gatherings bring the anointing each time as we meet annually with our intercessor team and annually also in a larger group called a Verbena Gathering in alternating cities each year.
In these Upper Rooms we experience community as a devotional body, in the unity and celebration of the kingdom, happening now. We celebrate the Eucharist. Something like this is at work we hope:
And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. - Acts 2:42
This past Sunday, I went to church. We sang a particular hymn which reminded me that it is the Lord who gathers us and so we pray in song:
Gather your people, O Lord; Gather your people,
O Lord. One bread, one body, one spirit of love.
Gather your people, O Lord.
Draw us forth to the table of life, brothers and sisters,
each of us called to walk in your light.
Gather your people, O Lord; Gather your people, O
Lord. One bread, one body, one spirit of love. Gather
your people, O Lord.
We are parts of the body of Christ, needing each other,
each of the gifts the Spirit provides. Gather your people,
Gather your people, O Lord. One bread, one body, one
spirit of love. Gather your people, O Lord.
Blessings, trip and laurie