If you feel untethered this Easter Sunday
Regardless of if you're sitting in a church or not, these three things remain
Over this past holy week, the feeling of being untethered has been rising to the surface. After years of serving and participating in traditional church ministry, this current season feels a bit empty. And maybe empty isn’t the right word, perhaps open, free, but certainly untethered.
I remember the last Good Friday service I attended like it was yesterday. Two lovely women stood on stage and read from the scriptures concerning Jesus’s arrest and crucifixion. They did a marvelous job. You could tell they read those scriptures over and over to share them with us. Then the sound effects came on. At first, I thought there was a noisy crowd in the back but then during the crucifixion passages, I heard it: the hammering of nails. At this point, I stopped listening to the scriptures and could only hear the dramatic audible reenactment of Jesus’s death over the loudspeakers and I was pissed. Why do evangelicals have to do this? Why do we have to dress up the scriptures? Can they not speak for themselves?! Right in the middle of Jesus’ famous sayings from the cross, I left to hang out in an empty lobby. I found a few faithful volunteers ready to welcome any latecomers and enjoyed a genuine conversation on various topics. This was the beginning of the end for me with traditional ministry.
This will be my second Easter not sitting in church, surrounded by cheery faces and repeating the words He has risen. The nostalgia of leaving traditional church has worn off but now a feeling of my untethering has sunk in. This, however, I have yet to determine is a negative thing because what I was tethered to wasn’t necessarily God. It was the infrastructure and the loose community that came with traditional church. It was the busyness and calendar-filling activities that now removed, have freed up my weekly schedule. And yet, we are not without these things, they have simply taken a different form altogether.
But this feeling of untethering begs the question: What am I tethered to now? When all the helps of infrastructure are gone, what remains?
I believe these three things remain.
Communion with the Divine
As much as I have loved and still do love facilitating spiritual communities, when we leave the gathering, we take the Divine with us. God dwells in us, through us, and as us. We are now little Christs, as Martin Luther would say. We remain temples of holiness and divinity. As St. Teresa of Avila would encourage, God is much more accessible than we realize, dwelling in our innermost being. For St. Teresa, it is as simple as turning inward with a posture of prayer to enter our soul’s interior castle and find the Beloved there waiting for us.
Communion with the Saints
Though we may not be sitting in church this morning, we will still be sitting around a table of friends eating and drinking, and celebrating together. Today, we will roast a 3 lb lamb and drink some of our best bottles of red wine. Children will run around us laughing as they search for eggs and our traditional adult easter egg hunt will bring even more laughter. We may not see these people weekly in a formal gathering but we are not without community. Community, when allowed, can take a multitude of shapes and sizes. It can be formal, informal, and everything in between. There is no right way to come together nor is there a certain formula that makes one gathering more sacred than another. It is all sacred. It is all fellowship. When two or more are gathered there you will find the communion of saints.
Communion with Sacred Creation
The sunrise service we will attend today will be an actual sunrise. We will drive down the Columbia Gorge, bundle up for our morning hike, and welcome the rising of the sun as we acknowledge the rising of God’s son. Ingrid will run gleefully through the water and I will take deep breaths, smelling the sacred smells of earth. Though it will be just Josh and I, I will feel compelled to read my favorite resurrection passage from John 20 where Mary didn’t recognize Jesus until he said her name. We will pause and watch the sun ascend into the morning sky warming our bones, reminding us of the hope we carry with us. We are never without a sanctuary when we realize we live and breathe within God’s original sanctuary that is not built with boards and bolts but with towering trees and a carpet of moss.
So regardless of whether you are sitting in church this morning or not, know this: You are never without the presence of God, his Church, or outside the sanctuary. Ever. If you feel untethered, see it as a pilgrimage to seek out the true Tether our souls need.
And if you find yourself sitting in the lobby because you simply can’t endure another polished service, know that God is in the lobby too.
Have a happy and blessed Easter, friends.
Beautiful, just beautiful. And needed. Thank you friend, so glad we are tethered to each other. 😘