A concerning smile

Rows empty out toward the center aisle every Sunday in our church. Then, people turn towards the communion table at the front, where we receive the sacrament. It's quite simple really, this processional, this ritual flow; and it happens every Sunday in typically Dutch Reformed order. There's no chaos because people move, in-line, for the sacrament.

A few Sundays ago, I waited my turn to stand, then walked between the rows of chairs toward the center, where I took the bread and wine, then returned to the aisle where I'd been seated, and took my chair.

The wrong one, or so I discovered, when a darling third-grader came back from the sacrament and, with admirable discretion, simply stood beside my seated self and looked at me, bearing an insistent but compassionate smile to remind me that I'd sat down on a chair one short of where I was supposed to be, one chair closer to her family. It had to rank among the sweetest admonitions I have ever received. 

Her mom was one of my favorite students some years ago, and I can't help but think that her third-grader knew at least something about that old man sitting one chair away from the one where he was supposed to sit. She said nothing, just gave me a concerning look. 

I processed her suggestion, motioned at the chair to my left, moved one over, and received an appropriate, thankful smile. It was perfectly darling moment of blessed interaction between two human beings, three score and a few years apart, who became, at that moment, fast Platonic friends. Every Sunday morning since, she smiles at me with that same knowing smile, and I smile back.

Last week, with our pastor gone, we had a woman for a preacher. Doesn't happen often, but it has happened before and will happen again. It wouldn't happen at some churches in town, but that's their choice. She delivered a sermon that noted the relationship between earthly and heavenly things, almost as as introduction to the sacrament of communion, as if her job that day was to lay out the plain facts of the mystery we celebrate with body and blood. 

Me and Ms. Third-Grader were sitting a row apart last Sunday, she and her family behind us. But I couldn't help thinking of how she might perceive a woman behind the pulpit. In all likelihood, having a woman preacher happened before in her life--I'm guessing it wasn't rare or striking or terribly unusual. 

Way back in the 80s, I attended synods of the CRC at times when the chambers were filled with men and women anxious about how the church's ruling body might come down on the clamorous issue of women in ecclesiastical office. Some churches left the denomination rather than share the table with those who, plain and simple, didn't believe what the apostle Paul so clearly said about women keeping silent in church.

Sitting there between the preacher and little celebrant, I couldn't help thinking how different church life was for this young lady, how different it would be from the way my wife, who today is an elder, might have perceived it when she was a third-grader seated in a pew in an old, big church not so far away. 

Some folks in the neighborhood think our congregation is progressive, even liberal. Even in the church I attend, some people are not comfortable with our carrying that reputation, would choose, if they could, to dull that perception.  

I hope my third-grade friend will allow me to say what I'm going to, but I'd like to assert that the two of us. . . well, we're okay with it, more than happy to be where we are. 

I can't help thinking that if she could read all of this and understand it, she wouldn't say a word, just give the grandpa sitting beside her a gentle, understanding smile.