everybody wants to go to church. Say, “Let us go to the house of the Lord,” in December, and all the world’s your friend. Say it in the middle of July, and all the world rolls its eyes at you as it heads out to the beach.
Even you. I bet we’ll see you at church on Christmas Eve, even if we never see you any other time.
Why is that? Why that night instead of some other? Yeah, your mom made you go, I know. But she tries to get you to go lots of other times, and it doesn’t work then. Why this holiday and not some other one?
Just what is it about this time of year that makes people start going to church more? Is it habit? Some ingrained cultural thing? Are we making up for lost time? Is it because the children’s programs ramp up? Or because we really like the music? Or because the parents of the world really double down on their wheedling?
Or is there something about lengthening nights and colder days and death in the garden? Isn’t there something—some need or fear or longing—that shrinks away in the long hot sun by the pool but which grows as fall turns to winter, until even you can feel it? That becomes large and threatening in the backseat when you’re driving home from work in full dark at 6 p.m?
Now’s a good time of year to find a churchgoer you know and get him or her to invite you to a service. And if you are a churchgoer, keep a lookout for a friend who might be nudging for an invite.
Because this time of year might come as something of a relief (even though you pretend it doesn’t) when someone says, “Let’s go to church.” Because don’t you know that there lies reassurance that whatever it is following you around in the backseat, there’s no way it’s going to beat you to Bethlehem?
God, let me long for you summer and winter, light and dark, and let me always be glad when someone invites me to visit you. Amen.
December 7
Evening
“What do you think? A man had two sons. Now he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ ‘No, I don’t want to,’ he replied. But later he changed his mind and went.” (Matthew 21:28-32)
By now, regular churchgoers out there will have noticed the pews in your church beginning to fill up. If your church is like mine, attendance will continue to grow right up through Christmas Eve, when your sanctuary will be fuller than at any other time, except maybe Easter.
You people who don’t get to church that often will find yourselves making an extra effort to show up in the next few weeks. If you don’t go often enough the rest of the year to have a regular pew, you might slip into the back row. Maybe somebody will recognize you; maybe not. Maybe you’ll care; maybe not.
Regular worshipers will rejoice in all the extra people; they also might be tempted to look cynically at the C&E (Christmas and Easter) Christians with whom they suddenly find themselves sharing their pews.
Against any who would be too hard on those who only manage to make it to church on the big days, Jesus tells this parable. One son says he won’t go work in the vineyard when their father asks, but then he does it. Another son says he’ll go but then doesn’t. Even Jesus’ adversaries have to admit that it’s the first son who does the father’s will.
C&E Christians may not make it to church much, but Jesus points out that God cares more about what we do out in the vineyard than about what we do when the authorities are looking. Who knows what miracles of grace were born this year through that guy sitting next to you whom you haven’t seen since last April?
This year, if you’re an every-Sunday type, give C&E churchgoers a break. Welcome them without cynicism. Thank God for bringing you together. Be sure to invite them back.
And if you’re a C&E type, or one of those lightning-will-strike-if-I-set-foot-in-a-church type, don’t slink into the back row; walk in like you belong there because you do.
God, however often I find myself in church, help me act like I’m yours when I’m outside it, too. Amen.
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