ARE WE BOWLING TOGETHER OR ARE WE BOWLING ALONE?

The bowling alley business can be either big bust or big success. Owners with a lot of leagues and exciting competition do well. Kids love getting their first strike. Adults love flirting with the gutter as they take down the corner pin. Bowling can be an experience of community fun. But you could also have thirty lanes with thirty people bowling alone.

Christians can bowl their faith alone. Their religious goal is close and personal ties with Christ. Salvation, like hamburgers, is personalized. Public, ritual prayer called liturgy is done alone surrounded by others praying alone. There is no interaction, no investment of social capital, no community discourse. Each person is a guarded and gated community unto oneself. Christians are consumers cultivating individual choice.

Holy Week cannot be faith-ing alone. Salvation includes all the unwashed stepping forward for the foot washing on Holy Thursday evening. Washing weary feet brings refreshment to each person and to an entire community. Washing tired feet brings new energy to committed disciples. Washing wounded feet brings solidarity to sisters and brothers dedicated to service. When our feet feel good, we feel good. When we feel good, we are able to walk the walk of three days. We are on a victory walk-like Israel walking the Sinai desert, like Americans walking the streets of Selma and Montgomery, like each no longer rag tag people and every clan returning to a restored and peaceful homeland. Our victory walk brings us to the table and we eat and drink fully of the supper of the Lamb.

Salvation includes all the humble folk stepping forward to keep leisurely vigil, to wait patiently for the risen One, and to herald stories that tell tales of salvation. It includes folk stepping forward to be washed in the water bath, to be anointed with sweet smelling oil, to be clothed in radiant garment, and to be fed at the community meal. Initiating means handing over loyal hearts to Christ. Initiating means laying aside sin's old rags. Initiating means putting on royal garments. When we initiate well, gates get opened and all kinds of people get invited to the July-like street party called church. Our victory walk is a jig danced for fifty days, is kids hopscotching o'er chalked sidewalks, is adults marching arm in arm down golden streets in golden slippers.

Church is never a bunch of individuals faith-ing or bowling alone. Church is community convoking in Noah's rainbow covenant, is community re-creating on the potter's wheel, is community rescuing from sea monsters. Church is community gabbing together at table and supping together at the meal called thanksgiving. Church is people faith-ing together. We are a people making spiritual capital together.