The question, though, is how such gathering is to be done.
I did a search of the word "gather" on Bible Gateway. I see that believers gathered by rivers, by lakes, on roadsides, and, most often, in houses. There are references to gathering crops, gathering crowds and vultures gathering around a carcass. While I haven't done a deep, thorough study, I don't see a place that dictates that we must meet once weekly in an established building for which we use our tithes to pay the water bill and that we must volunteer in the nursery once a month.
I think there's a problem--a lot of problems--with the way we gather as believers in this culture, and probably many other cultures. I've felt this way for a long time, but it's almost heresy to say so. But here I am, saying so. Lord, watch my words. I invite You here, to this conversation, and I ask you to do with it what brings You glory.
See, here's the thing: gathering together as believers in Christ doesn't mean that we all go to one aseptic building on Sunday morning wearing our hip Hollister outfits and talking to each other in God-speak. Gathering together is about the daily stuff, the dirty stuff, too.
Recently, a friend of mine came for a planned gathering to my house. Before the visit, we had a nice little phone conversation about church and life. As we were wrapping up the conversation, he asked me how I was feeling about our gathering, which would bring several families into my home whom I'd never met.
"I'll be really honest. I'm very nervous."
Why on earth would I be nervous? I asked myself. This is a group of believers in Christ! This is a group of women who are like-minded in regard to schooling! Shouldn't I be overjoyed and excited?
But I wasn't. I was fearful. Yes, I already know that the kind of fear I was experiencing doesn't come from the Lord. But it was there, and I shared it with my friend.
"What are you nervous about?" he asked. With more than a little embarrassment, I told him that I was afraid of judgment, the judgment that comes when you invite people into your home. I worried about the cleanliness of my house, the dust. Good Lord, what if someone were to look in my fridge? Or under the stove? Or find those Fig Newtons that The Baby wedged between my Freecycled couch cushions? And speaking of furniture--what if they all have better furniture than I do? What if they come here and look at my stuff and think, "She has horrible taste in decorating?" What if they hate my kitchen, or see the unhealthy food in my pantry, or wander into my laundry room where my clothes are gathering mold in this hot, humid Ohio weather?
What if they just don't like me?
My friend assured me that it didn't matter. What mattered was that I was opening my home and sharing my gifts. He corrected me for striving to please man instead of God.
"Just clean your toilets. Everyone's toilets get gross. Forget about the rest of it."
"Everyone's toilet does not get gross," I countered. "My aunt's toilet is so clean, you could serve punch out of it."
"Everyone is not your aunt. On most days, if you would just stop into someone's house unannounced, it would be a mess."
"But the common person would never know that," I said, "because people don't stop into other people's houses unannounced anymore. If we did that on a regular basis, if we could all see how other people really lived, if we could get caught with dirty toilets and wedged Fig Newtons every few days, we'd be inoculated against this poisonous idea that everything must be mondo-clean every time someone steps over your threshold. I mean, it's one thing to like to have fresh-baked bread coming out of the oven when someone comes to visit and to plan it accordingly, but it's something else entirely just to live! To LIVE and let other people accept that life you lead!"
The Amish in my community hold church in their homes. Every other week, everyone from their district, and sometimes a few visitors from other districts, gather in a church member's house and hear the bishop's teaching. I think they have it a lot closer to the early church, living among each other, not wasting money on heating and cooling and lighting a building in order to use it for a few hours each week. But they still obsess about cleaning their houses before their church meeting. They scrub cupboards, paint porches and pressure-wash their houses. A cupboard that's not scrubbed spic-and-span is declared "filthy."
Where does all of this judgment come from? Where? Is this a natural part of our genetic makeup, to want everything just right? Or is it toxic conditioning that comes from being exposed to picture-perfect better homes and gardens, country homes with well appointed rooms, but not a person living in them?
I contend that it comes from too much compartmentalized living. We run about here and there trying to find our meaning, our worth, within boxes of life. We each have our own lawnmowers and our own cars. We go to other places to work, take our babies to daycare and our children to a place of learning. We exercise in gyms, eat in restaurants, get our clothing from department stores and go to movie theaters for entertainment. Our groceries come from stores where they come from trucks that come from who-knows-where and cost thousands of dollars in fossil-fuels to put them on our local grocer's shelf, which we avoid because we want to drive to the neighboring county to shop at the "better" stores, passing farm markets and neighbors' gardens along the way. We pay someone else to entertain us, to clean for us, to care for our children. We are born in hospitals and die in nursing homes. And, if we can stand it, we gather together on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights in a place of worship, choosing either the early or the late service, depending on how tired we are from watching our TiVo'd prime-time shows the night before.
So what purpose does our home serve? To hide? So no one can see who we really are, regardless of the face we put on outside of our houses? Or to sleep? Will there come a day when homes are simply rooms lined up in long hallways where we recharge our batteries before heading out again?
What purpose does a home serve?
What purpose does my home serve?
I think my problem is that I know, on a very deep level, that my home is a reflection of who I am. In a very complicated way, I want my house to be perfect. Yes, I want you to feel comfortable and enjoy your stay, but I also want to avoid your judgment. It's a virtually impossible task.
How do I know you judge me? Because I judge you. I do it to make myself feel better, to have some validation in my life. If I can find fault with you, then maybe I can forget about my own problems for a while, shift the spotlight somewhere else, build up a wall of defense that says, "I'm paying attention. If you ever have a nasty thing to say about me, I'm armed and ready to be on the offense before I ever need to be on the defense."
And so, I believe a regular inoculation of reality is in order. Come to my house when it's messy! See the real me! Smell my litter box! See my dirty dishes! Step over my piles of laundry, toys, library books and children! See me without my shoes, my bra, my makeup! And then judge me as you like.
But just remember-- I'm coming to your house next.
Maybe after a few months of this real life, we'll stop eating crow, stop serving ourselves humble pie. Criticisms, either silent or spoken, will turn into compassion and empathy. I'll do your dishes. You'll wash my laundry. We'll stand together in my unmown yard and watch the goldfinches eat thistle seeds from the untamed meadow. We'll let the dandelions grow. We'll get past the pretense of performance and we'll really learn to love one another without fear of judgment, either of ourselves or of each other.
I'm a believer. My door is open. It may be messy, but we'll wade through it together. Come gather with me.
"And since we have [such] a great and wonderful and noble Priest [Who rules] over the house of God, let us all come forward and draw near with true (honest and sincere) hearts in unqualified assurance and absolute conviction engendered by faith (by [b]that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness), having our hearts sprinkled and purified from a guilty (evil) conscience and our bodies cleansed with pure water. So let us seize and hold fast and retain without wavering the [c]hope we cherish and confess and our acknowledgement of it, for He Who promised is reliable (sure) and faithful to His word. And let us consider and give [d]attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities, not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together [as believers], as is the habit of some people, but admonishing (warning, urging, and encouraging) one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching."
Hebrews 10:21-25, Amplified Bible
