Why sacred space—and not activity alone—matters for human flourishing
We were walking to church one Sunday when a friend joined us for his morning stroll. He said he had done church and was now done with it. He had spent many years attending every Sunday, serving on boards, and doing his duty. He had done it all. Now he was finished.
It is one of the great tragedies of the church that doing things in the church and for the church has become a substitute for the church as sacred space—space in which communion with God is encountered in ways not available elsewhere. It is space made sacred by the shared prayers and presence of generations of the faithful, learning to believe in and trust the Lord Almighty through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is sacred space where the Holy Spirit is more fully present through the sacraments and the spoken word.
No doubt you have heard the saying that going to church can no more make one a Christian than sitting in a garage can make one a car. When church is merely a place to go and something to do because it is what one is supposed to do, it has no more importance than the Elks Club—and probably less than the country club. If the church is not holy space, sacred space, it has failed in its duty to proclaim the good news of God in Christ Jesus.
How can it be holy space if this has not been explained and made clear to the people who assemble there—if they do not understand that its purpose is devotion to worshipful encounter with God in ways uniquely its own?
I wonder whether those of us called into ordained and lay leadership have assumed too much about the people we welcome into the pews. Perhaps we assume they are reasonably well informed about the Christian faith and the purpose of worship. Perhaps we assume too much about their understanding of the space into which they are welcomed and the liturgy that guides our services. Perhaps we assume too much about why we do what we do—why we sit, stand, kneel, genuflect, bow, make the sign of the cross, raise our hands in prayer, shout “hallelujah,” shout “amen,” or, as we Episcopalians often do, mumble them quietly with what we regard as deep reverence.
This is not performance. It is entry into intimate communion with the power and presence of the Creator and Sustainer of all that is—the One who loves without measure and calls us to live fully and abundantly in the power of the Holy Spirit, who is God with us.
We can be very welcoming. We can offer many opportunities to get involved, to volunteer, and to develop friendships through fellowship. The country club and the bowling team do the same—and probably do it better. I am not dismissing the importance of this kind of welcome. It is essential. But more is required.
I suppose it is possible for faith in Christ to be absorbed by osmosis through weekly attendance. Every now and then I read public testimony suggesting this happens. I suspect it is relatively rare and not something on which the church should rely. What the church, as space and time, must provide is serious adult formation—opportunities to ask hard questions and receive answers grounded in the gospel, the traditions of the church, and the expectation that people can think for themselves, though not by themselves.
Perhaps most important, the church must be a time and place where people learn what makes for flourishing and abundant life. Jesus said that he came that we might have life, and have it abundantly. That abundance—that flourishing of life—is at the heart of the gospel. It may be a flourishing experienced in fullness only in the life to come, but by following in the way of Jesus Christ it can be known here and now, as much as this life will allow.
All of this brings to mind another friend who began wondering aloud what is needed for people to be happy in their daily lives. His tentative answer was enough money to feel reasonably secure and a small community of friends who truly care for one another, in spite of individual peculiarities. He was on the right track, but as Christ reminded us, we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
The essentials of life are necessary, but they are not sufficient. They do not bring happiness; at best, they diminish dissatisfaction with life as it is. The pursuit of our own dreams, passions, and pleasures may do even more to constrain dissatisfaction, but they rarely deliver lasting fulfillment. They are the products of transient enthusiasms that inevitably collide with the reality that no level of success can produce the fruit we imagined it promised.
Jesus was clear: our basic needs are real and known to God. They are not to be rejected. But if we are to know the fullness of life—if we are to flourish—we must seek first the kingdom of God. And what does that require of us? God has already told us: to love kindness, to do justice, and to walk humbly with your God.
Beautiful article Steven!
Thanks for this powerful reflective piece. You have said quite well what I have often thought but have not had the eloquent words to express. I think this is one reason I find so-called contemporary worship so vacuous. It is performative and shallow, and aims to help me feel validated and important – so important that all that matters is that my needs are met. This is also why i find myself more drawn to Lutheran or Episcopal worship these days – I need to be fed by both Word and at Table, and I need the peculiar language of the church honed by decades and centuries of use and not some banal and superficial expressions created with not much thought or depth.