Playing Hooky

I played hooky from our church last Sunday.

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Whether it's reasonable or not, I have lots of issues with this pastor's wife concept (that I totally saw through rose colored glasses before we were married). I have issues that I don't get to choose where I worship, (or where I live, but that's a whole other issue) and that I can't just be a "normal" congregant (a divinity school education generally screws up one's possibilities of being a normal congregant anyway, but again, that's a whole other issue). No matter how much my involvement matches other congregants' on paper, there will always be something different about me, and that is that I come and go with the pastor.

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I am not a permanent fixture in this church. I did not start attending at the invitation of a friend or because of a flyer in the mail. I did not attend for months or years before deciding to become a member--I joined somewhat by default on my very first Sunday there. This feels especially odd in retrospect (enough that I may think twice about joining right away at our next church) because Matt is not a member of this church. Pastors in the UMC are members of their conference, not the local congregation, further enhancing the bizarre limbo status of the pastor's spouse as "in but not of" the congregation. I am a member and go to Sunday school and sit in the pews like other congregants, but I am "in bed" with the pastor--figuratively and literally--and know the inner workings of the church, the struggles of its people, and the thoughts and dreams of my husband that his parishioners do not know. I am reminded that he and I are a separate entity from the congregation, and that we are something of a commodity, one day moving on to be in but not of a different congregation.

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I didn't intend to share all that, but I'm glad I did. It's rare that I can talk about it calmly and rationally. I didn't play hooky out of anger or anything last weekend, though. It was the church retreat, and about a quarter of the usual Sunday attendance was gone on that. Matt went for one of the two nights, coming back Saturday night so he could lead worship on Sunday. It seemed the perfect opportunity to inconspicuously take a Sunday off--those on the retreat would think I was at church, and those at church would think I was on the retreat.

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Before I sound too snarky and irreverent here, though, let me clarify that I didn't just lay around in my jammies and watch Meet the Press. I went to an Episcopal church instead. This is actually the story I intended to tell in this post. It happened to be baptism and confirmation Sunday, which worried me at first, remembering a time I almost passed out from standing too long during a marathon baptism at my Episcopal church in college. These didn't drag on too long, though, and I was reminded of a great realization I had several years ago, during the college and post-college church-hopping phase so many people experience (if they go to church at all during those years, that is).

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As I bounced around to various Baptist, non-denom, Episcopal, Disciples, and yes, even a couple Methodist churches across Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee, I witnessed A LOT of baptisms and baby dedications. I just had a knack for being there when these things happened, even at churches I visited only once. In many of the churches, the congregation vows to help nurture the person in the Christian faith, and though I rarely knew the people being baptised, I repeated this vow as well. At first, it was rote, simply because that was what those in attendance were to do. After a while, though, I began to see these experiences in an "angels unawares" sort of way--wherever I go, there is some small chance that any person I meet could be one of those people I vowed to support in the faith.

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What might this mean? In the words of the Apostle Paul, it could mean not placing a "stumbling block" in front of others that would somehow rock their faith. In the words of my most admired college professor, if might mean working for a world in which it is "easier to be good." (The idea being that the more we bring the kindgom of God to earth, the more natural it will feel to be righteous.) Any other ideas, feel free to comment with them.

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I left the Episcopal service liking our own church not more or less, but with a renewed appreciation of the church at large and our role within it. I may only be "in" our local congregation, but I am "of" Christ's church, no matter what.