“In 1957, I visited my friend Mikey Ryder at Tulane during Mardi Gras. Everyone had bottles up their sleeves. I remember about thirty minutes of it.”
These stories are endless and delightful, a daughter-in-law’s thrill and a writer’s dream. Most of Bob’s tales are wildly entertaining, but there is some real tenderness too. He told of his small church in rural Tennessee where he and his buddies were surrounded by deacons, pressed on all sides, and terrified into receiving salvation during a church service. Strong-willed and resistant to spiritual bullying, Bob alone refused to “walk the aisle.” The pastor threw his hands up and proclaimed, “Well, I’ve done all I can do with this one. I guess he’s going to hell.” Bob walked out that door and never looked back.
It was the last time he went to church regularly—more than sixty years ago.
Who could blame him?
Sometimes the one place we should all be most welcomed is the very place we are most rejected; the house of healing becomes the inflicter of pain. Much like any betrayal, the more considerable the source, the harder the loss. No one can wound us more than those supposed to nurture: our parents, our spouses, our churches. The chasm between expectation and reality is particularly grim in supposed safe places.
As I’ve written often, my history with the church is complicated. It spans my entire life and, like any long-term relationship, has had its ups and downs. As a pastor’s daughter and wife, I’ve seen too much behind the curtain to idolize the church. It is a form meant to bring order to and strengthen the Good News; it is not the Good News itself. It is only the wineskin, not the wine; one of the containers, not the substance.
It’s an important distinction, because for many, it is tempting to worship the church, removing the inherent safety of the sanctuary and prioritizing the structures instead, at which point the people become a commodity instead of the body. By definition, a sanctuary is “any holy place of refuge” and, more specifically, “a sacred place where fugitives were entitled to immunity from arrest.” In other words, the guilty, the outcast, the refugee, the criminal, the desperate—all safe from harm or punishment under the steeple, protected within its four walls.
Of course, the inner sanctuary, deep in the belly of the temple, was once only available to the religious elite, the priests, the high and holy Levitical bloodline. No sin could cross the threshold into God’s presence there, and the purification process in which a priest was permitted entry once a year was complicated and wrought. But listen:
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. . . . Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 6:19–20; 10:19–23, emphasis added)
We’re in, man.
Jesus permanently made the sanctuary safe, pure, and accessible to all. He didn’t lessen its holiness but rather raised us to heaven’s standards through the cross. It’s just crazy. It was truly a new and living way, and Jesus threw the church doors open to the entire world and bid us come. Obviously, this entire miracle was Jesus’s doing: His life, His death, His resurrection, His dreams for this earth.
There is no such thing as a human hierarchy to approach God anymore. That old system is gone; Jesus completely leveled the field of humanity. There are no gatekeepers, there is no “us” and “them,” no tricky steps or tricky people to get through. No human being can decide who is in and who is out. We’re all the same now, brothers and sisters in one family, and Jesus is the entire substance of the church—our front door, our baptism, our High Priest, our bread and wine.
Nor is there a prototype for admission or, in any case, for sanctioned blessing. In many American churches, the approved stereotype for fully included members is Married (just once!) with Children. Most ministries and sermons and language and structures revolve around the 1950s family model. Obviously, there is a place for this work, as large segments of the population are indeed married with children. But sanctuary means all are safe, equally valued, everyone ministered to and included.
On a macro level, this includes singles both young and old, the divorced, married without kids, single with kids, empty nesters, LGBTQ singles, LGBTQ marrieds, widows and widowers, students. Parents of children with special needs, people with complicated families, couples with failing marriages, parents with wayward kids. People in a minority culture or minority race. Folks in these demographics regularly discuss how difficult it is to fit into the typical church, often feeling sidelined or tokened or dismissed. The Marrieds with Children are generally centered, and everyone else is a one-off.
On a micro level, and let’s speak specifically about women, there are additional deviations from the norm that complicate embrace in the church: those who are assertive, academic, breadwinners, spicy, heady not girly, opinionated, gifted in leadership, those with a seedy past, those with a seedy present. Women with powerful careers, powerful ministries, powerful personalities. Outside the sanctioned category, sometimes the church doesn’t know what to do with the other women.
One of my first speaking engagements to a crowd larger than thirty was at an enormous, traditional church for the Sunday morning sermon. The Sunday morning sermon in front of three thousand people, you guys. As I was on the brink of hyperventilation on the front row, the pastor’s assistant leaned over, two minutes before the service started, and whispered: “Did you know we’ve only had a woman give the Sunday morning message once in our entire history? And the funny thing is, a bunch of people stood up and walked out!”