We were late. I hate being late. The lateness we suffered from was no restriction imposed on us by an outside timetable. It was a lateness imposed on us by my oppressive neurosis that forces me to remain seemingly unchanged over long stretches of time. Every Sunday I arrive at Mass at five thirty, regardless of the fact that Mass starts a six and sit in the same place I always do. I sit in the quiet and reflect on many things. It is a point of stability for me at the end of the week to sit in that quiet then proceeded through ritual to benediction. So it is obviously quite disturbing to me to break this rule which I have never officially made for myself. Rebecca and I peddled our newly acquired bikes through Audubon Park blowing past all the rest and, no doubt, breaking the ten miles per hour speed limit. The Church loomed at the distant end of Audubon Park towering over the tree line like a great fortress we were racing to assault. Her bike is a more modern mountain bike, mine is a Cruiser class, black with small red knobs along its spine, like some cruel spider grown large and set to be my mount.

As we glided up to the side door of the church I pulled the watch from my hip pocket and checked our time. Five minutes late, “not too bad” I thought. Then as we rolled up I saw the imminent castigation for my tardiness. I eased my coster break as we came to the doors, but Rebecca lagged behind. On the walkway was an older man standing and looking at a door that was not the entrance. My brain took in his posture, his confused and somewhat embittered expression as well as his seeming desire to go into the utility closet as a sign that he was not a usual attendee. He headed for the correct door as Rebecca approached.

We usually sit at a pew very close to the door but not the closest. This makes our seat prime real estate for those who go into the side door. It’s not the closest, so you don’t look like you want to skirt out. But it is very close, so you can. This man was obviously breaking one of his old rules, one prohibitive of church attendance. He looked somehow upset to be standing at that door. This made me believe there was a good chance that when I walked into the doors he would be sitting in my seat if he beat me in. The flame of my Christian charism for charity was extinguished immediately in the face of my neurosis for stability, already insulted once for the day by being late and soon to be bruised again by geographical considerations. By this time he had reached the correct door. He paused staring at the entrance as I eyed him. Suddenly the few seconds it was taking Rebecca to catch up to me seemed an eternity, I had an urge to leave her and bolt for the door cutting the guy off. He proceeded in as she pulled up not knowing the dilemma she was to cause by her tardiness to our tardiness.

After locking the bikes up for fear of losing our worldly goods we went into the nave of the church. My worse fears were not realized but what I saw threw me into a moral dilemma fitting for our individualistic American culture. Being that we get to church so early if we are not the first people there we are usually close to it. At this time there were a few knots of people around but the large church stood relatively empty. Preoccupied as I was by my territorial desire to pee on my pew my focus went directly to it only to see that it sat empty. The relief was quickly tempered when I saw that the old gentleman sat in the pew directly behind where I am accustom to sitting surrounded by an ocean of isled empty benches. The American in me immediately saw the great insult to be levied if I was to walk up and, in all this vastness, sit directly in front of this new comer to my church. Yet in me there stirred a counter intuition that still urged me toward the micturition of that grand padded pew.

As I contemplated these things standing mouth agape next to the holy water Rebecca had already stepped past me and moved to the pew ahead of where we normally sit placing her bag down and opening it. Apparently she too inherently knew the value of space in the American mindset and instinctively left pews length between her and the stranger. But does not share my dominant desire for stability, because she did not hesitate to change location as I did. With little time to think I leapt into action walking briskly over to our normal spot and leaned over the back of the pew to her, “Don’t you wanna sit here?” I whispered. She looked at me and replied, “Sure, . . . I guess.” I reached down and grabbed our weekly donation to the food bank from the bang and turned to walk to the statue of St. Anthony at the back of the Church where the dry goods are deposited. I saw the man look at me and I looked back. Our eyes locked like two bull moose during spring as I walked by.

The church consists of four rows. Two main sections in the center forming a main isle down the middle of the church. And two-side row on the extremes creating two lesser isles on outer ends of the main rows of seats. Our location is on the row furthest to the right. Upon returning to our seat I immediately noticed that the man had moved from the seat directly behind us to the seat immediately to the left of us on the main isle. I felt the pangs of guilt for my rudeness, and rued the afternoon timeline that lead to all this unpleasant posturing.

Later that night the homily was discussed in our courtyard between the house hold attendees and non-attendees of church. It was agreed by all that the homily was unarguable in its assertions, but lacking in zeal, educational value and originality to the point of criminality. The readings for this Cycle are mostly from Mark, but for this few weeks the readings have been taken from John 6, the Eucharistic Discourses of Christ. The priest started off in good stride explaining all of this, but very quickly faltered, never to recover. The basic message was “we eat the Eucharist here and are good to each other. We need to be good to all people even away from here.” The priest said this about three different ways and very abruptly turned to his chair. It was short and to the point and that’s always a plus, but a point with substance is nice too. Besides, are we all “nice to each other here” at the eucharistic table?
The time had come to go to that table. The way the line works is that those on the inner rows stand and head to the main isle, followed by those on the outer row. They form two lines representing each side of the church and all proceed up the middle. When the row to the left of us stood we stood too, and turned left. I noticed the gentleman had not stood. Now I am confronted with a new moral dilemma. The rows are very narrow forcing anyone who goes to communion to climb over those who do not to get to the center. As I looked at the man I saw him give the slightest hint of a scowl as he contorted his knees to the side giving all the room possible in anticipation of our passing.

It is my opinion that Christian ethics is based on one principle. Love God with all you heart, all your mind and all you soul. From this is derived a secondary principle, Love your neighbor as yourself. All other “rules” of Christianity are but commentary to these two maximums. The odd thing, in terms of acting in the world, is that by doing to your neighbor as you would want done to you, you wouldn’t necessarily be doing to your neighbor what your neighbor want’s done to himself. All ethics becomes self-centered and self-affirming. Wouldn’t you want done to you what you want done to you anyway? Should I appease others? What if what I want done to me is bad for me, don’t I always want good things for myself. This is why the primary rule is to love God unequivocally, meaning, I assume, expressing gratitude for the fact that you exist, because you didn’t have to exist at all. Assuming everyone did, I guess we would all want the same types of goods done to ourselves, but who knows. It’s already impossible to know if we do indeed love God with all our hearts, all our minds, and all our souls. So we walk blind in our ethics forced by our Christian values to judge not lest we be judged, eschatologically if not civilly, because we are finite and ignorant.

I know as an American, I would not want someone to sit directly in front of me in a church that is almost empty, so I had already screwed up once in the past hour. I also know that, as an American, it would be equally uncomfortable to have some stranger to crawl over me, so what was I to do now?

Luther said that we are to “sin boldly” and the ire or the Romanists was raised to a pitch because he was misunderstood. The common misconception is that Luther asserts we are all saved sola fide, by the grace of Christ and can do nothing to save ourselves, so its alright to sin since we can do nothing to merit salvation anyway. Why not do it up right? A grave misinterpretation. What Luther seems to mean by this apparent antinomian phrase rests on his definition of sin as a self-interested act. It contradicts the dictum, Love God with all you heart, all your mind and all your soul because it is self-centered. His second axiom is that all our acts are self centered, thus inherently sinful in the gravest fashion. This raises the ultimate dilemma of how one is to act for the good, if one cannot? His answer is “sin boldly.” Sin for the good. Do not be afraid to act in ignorance of the good, but try for the good. Is he right? Of this I’m afraid we are ignorant as well.

I did not know what the gentleman wanted me to do, and according to my own ethic it did not really matter. I made a b-line for the pew in front of him, which stood empty, breaking the rules laid out for an orderly communion precession and my own love of such ordered stability. In this I allowed him the comfort of not having me rub my knees against his and scooch my crotch past his face in a most indecent display of unwelcome. His face lightened as I walked past and made my way into the line rather smoothly, not even disrupting the flow.

The man did not go to communion, but when I returned he was sitting in his original seat directly behind mine. After communion he made fast his escape which was originally his plan no doubt, but I like to think he didn’t need to stop and sit behind be on the way out. I like to think that by pausing and sitting in his old seat for an extra few minutes he was trying to let me know something. He was trying to let me know that he knew I turned aside in order to let him know he was welcome, in the way we Americans do, by staying as far away from him as possible. And that he now found it easier welcome me in a more than American way.

Phillip G.

Literature