Story: The 2 churches

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An “inward anthropologist” – one lost in study of her sect and self – might have discerned 2 churches co-existing in one building, one time and space, even one creed more or less, yet the 2 churches clearly had little in common.

There was first of all the church that was functioning properly and that met for a short period every Sunday. Well dressed families would drive up to the building, socialize quietly, worship in due order, socialize a bit more then drive away. All was well both with them and the institution that served them. The moms who were the driving force in this effort definitely saw themselves (and I am in no position to say “saw themselves wrongly”) as good Christians whose lives in general harmonized with the hour they gave to the gospel every week. There was no conflict there. The rest of the week consisted in working and raising children. Church neither helped them nor hindered them in these other activities nor did they seem to expect it to help or hinder. It was simply church. They did not make a big deal of it, make a big deal of going, they didn’t pretend to be profoundly moved. But they did attend, as often as they could.

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The other church was more ragtag. It was harder to see because its members tried to avoid any display, not out of humility, more as a matter of low self-esteem or shame or just the unwillingness to be "seen". This was the church of the broken. In some communities it consisted of one person, in some communities none at all. In some places it might be the broken who filled all the pews. there were even some communities in which the true congregation was the one that stood outside, afraid to come in, unsure if invited, unsure if welcome.

Some of this 2nd church's members had never in fact been inside the church. Or not for a very long time

Of the collection of the broken there were some who had tried to step outside but hadn't quite been able. Matt the carpenter had once been absurdly eager for communion. Tasting Jesus was more powerful than any form of sex, it was like the joy of unwrapping an endless present. It got him through the week. But one Sunday morning after he'd had to work on an emergency job, he got to church just as people were homing in on the rail, and plunged in without waiting. He was dirty and smelled like the worker he was. The children stared at him and a young matron took the trouble to speak with him after the sacrament. That was the day he discovered which church he was really a member of. And after that, the taste of God was filtered through a mixture of resentment and shame. You couldn't pretend it didn't matter who was standing next to you.

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So that it turned out that for the church of the broken everything about the church was also broken. When hymns were intense the broken needed them to be more intense still. When the music was bland they twisted with pain. When the theology was strict they felt constricted, when beliefs grew loose they felt themselves cast loose. Nothing was allowed to just fit and be fitting. It was as though a God that was critical of them was the only God they could have. And there was no amount of God that could have possibly been enough for them. As things were, they seemed unable to be happy. Their incomes were low, their clothes rather out of date. Their presence tended to be ignored in capital campaigns. The kiss of peace somehow slipped off their faces. Even the most generous moms found themselves backing away. It's not personal, they insisted, yet were inwardly certain that it was.

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In America, everywhere that you looked for the Body of Christ you would find it torn into several pieces, yet this couldn't be the final truth, or even the semi-final one. Nobody wished it to be this way. No Christian actively sought schism.

Yet things held in their dysfunctional patter as if indefinitely. People rarely crossed the aisle or straddled a doorway. If there was relief it was only that -- as Elise noticed -- now and then a mom would cross the room, drop to her knees, cross herself and quickly pray. Perhaps for an hour without stopping. Often it was a "newborn" single mom whose guy had just given into the urge not to be married anymore. He became as if dead to the community and the wife's eyes swollen with hectic tears. She had joined the church of the broken without a shiver of hesitation, while her children watched in astonishment. She would begin praying and doing good works as though there were no tomorrow. The flock of the abandoned would stand around her timidly, hoping to absorb from her proximity the secret of how to become this entity they had longed to be for ever so many years and with such limited success: an honest to God practicing Christian.

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