That’s My Seat

Every evangelism book I have ever read and every workshop on greeting newcomers I have ever attended deals with an ongoing problem that has been around for hundreds of years. People sitting in someone else’s pew. It happens!

Most of the time, it is a new person, and they didn’t know better. So, it is a little easier to excuse. But sometimes, it is someone who KNOWS that’s your pew. The Presbyterian Handbook even addresses it. It says that someone sitting in your pew is not cause for alarm. But, we all know it is alarming. So, their advice might be helpful:

1. Smile and greet the “intruders.” Make solid eye contact with them and shake their hands, leaving no impression that they have done something wrong.

2. View the “intrusion” as an opportunity. Take the opportunity to get out of your rut and sit someplace new. It says, “This will physically emphasize a change in your perspective and may yield new spiritual discoveries.”

3. If you can tell that your new friends feel uncomfortable at having displaced you, despite your efforts to the contrary, make an extra effort to welcome them. It even suggests taking them out to brunch after church to get to know them.

So, how did we get to this place where we sit on hard wooden benches that, let’s be honest, are not that comfortable, and that are placed one behind the other with not that much leg room?

We didn’t always have pews. For over 1,000 years Christians worshipped without pews. They met in homes for the first 300 years. Then, they built church buildings, but they stood through worship – worship was a stand-up meeting! Then around 1200, some backless stone benches found their way around the walls of churches. Eventually the benches were fixed to the floor.

In 1287, people were sitting in other people’s places! It was such a problem that it was on the agenda of the synod meeting at Exeter. We have this from the minutes in Latin, “We have also heard that the parishioners of divers places do oftentimes wrangle about their seats in church, two or more claiming the same seat; whence arises great scandal to the Church, and the divine offices are sore let and hindered: wherefore we decree that none shall henceforth call any seat in the church his own, save noblemen and patrons; but he who shall first enter, shall take his place where he will.”

Then around the time of the Reformation, pews as we know them came to be popular. Why?

The tenets of the Reformation influenced church architecture. The Bible was the central focus. So, the pulpit became the focal point of the church – Word of God, front and center. People didn’t have Bibles of their own, they didn’t read (for the most part).

The Reformers held that not only was the Bible the only authoritative Word of God to guide and direct the church but also that all the members of the church should be able to hear and understand what the Bible says. The doctrine is called the Priesthood of All Believers. The critique of the church was that the Scripture in worship was read in Latin – and the people didn’t speak Latin. The Bible was for priests. Praying was for priests, who could pray for you. The running of the church was for priests. The work of the church in the world was for priests.
And the Reformation said, then we are all priests because the Bible and prayer, working in the church and in the world for God’s will to be done, these things are for all of us. All believers are priests.

So, church got longer. Because if you understand what is being read, you are more likely to want more read to you. And church went from a stand-up meeting to a sit down and listen meeting.

Some people already had pews…because they didn’t stand for meetings…the wealthy, the aristocrats, the nobility. And they didn’t get rid of their pews at first. In fact, they made them more grand and moved them to the area closest the pulpit. In 1622, in a letter to clergy, the Bishop of Norwich wrote, “Stately pews are now become tabernacles with rings and curtains to them. There wants nothing but beds to hear the word of God on: we have casements, locks, and keys, and cushions, and for those we love the church. I will not guess what is done within them: who sits, stands, or lies asleep at prayers, communion, & etc.; but this I dare say, they are either to hide some vice, or to proclaim one; to hide disorder, or to proclaim pride.” So he directed “that no pews be made over high, so that they which be in them cannot be seen how they behave themselves, or the prospect of the church or chancel be hindered; and therefore that all pews which do much exceed a yard in height, be taken down near to that scantling.”

So now, we sit in pews that are all the same. No one owns them. We gather as the body of Christ, and because of Christ we are all part of the royal priesthood that God promised to Moses that we read this morning, “If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” All believers are priests. Priests can approach God.

So we are one body, and there is no hierarchy. We are different –because God made us different. We have different gifts, different kinds of service, different kinds of working, but they are all given by the same Spirit, done to serve the same Lord, and in and through them the same God is at work.

It’s like a body, says Paul to the church at Corinth, every part is different. It has its own work to do. But each part is critical to the whole. And the whole is critical to each part. One commentary I read on this passage said, “An eye in a head is priceless; an eye is a glass jar is a curiosity (Layman’s Bible Commentary).”

An eyeball, connected to blood supply with an optic nerve to signal the brain is priceless – because of that little ball, you see. The work it does is nothing short of amazing! But if you take it out of the body and separate it from the blood supply and the optic nerve that signals the brain…it cannot do what it was made to do.

Christians are the same way. When we are connected with one another, each doing our part, the work the church does is nothing short of amazing! But if we are separated, we cannot do what we were made to do.

And an eye is not more important than the brain that interprets its signals. How many of you thought, “Of course not, the brain is more important than the eye!” There is no hierarchy of worth in God’s kingdom of priests. All are necessary for the whole to function at its best.

We ordain and commission members of the body for particular jobs – teaching elder, ruling elder, mission team member, Bible study leader – all are important, but no one is more important than any other member of the body. God gives different gifts to different people.

Some, a passion for peace, some a passion for freedom, some a passion for life and wonder, some a passion for forgiveness and mercy, some a passion for evangelism, some a passion for justice. All are given their passion by the same Spirit.

Just like the human body is miraculously complex: 60 million cells, 36 million heart beats a year, 300 billion red blood cells a day, 60,000 miles of blood vessels – we cannot comprehend the complexity of our own bodies.
And we cannot comprehend the complexity of the body of the Messiah: billions of members, millions of settings, different languages, cultures, expressions of true faith. The human mind cannot begin to fathom the complexity of the body of Christ, any more than the human mind can imagine the 60,000 miles of blood vessels in one’s own physical body.

So, we gather in a room that is designed to help us remember that we are one body, each one a member of God’s kingdom of priests. We have the Scripture in the center, the pulpit from which we hear God’s Word in the front, and rows of pews that are all the same.
And an hour later, we all leave. Because this pew is not your place – the world is your place.

Back to that eyeball – What if it did its job, took in light and shadows, sent the signal to the brain, the brain processed and created images, but then it never sent a signal to any of the rest of the body?

Then the amazing work of the eye is not as amazing, is it? Just because you saw the baseball coming at you, just because your brain knew a baseball was coming straight for your head, it still hit you because no signal was sent to your arm to put your hand up.

We come to these pews to be united, to remember that we are a part of a “mysteriously complex, living organism, the body of Christ” unified by the Holy Spirit in love, and we get up from these pews to share God’s message of love in our own unique ways in the world.