Prelude
The people stand as they are able. My Sunday dress sticks to my thighs, and I wait for the older congregation to open their hymnals and their hearts before I pull myself to my feet. I follow their lead, because I haven’t done this in a long time.
Processional Hymn Wait for the organ. Whisper the Song (I’ve never heard).
Opening Acclamation
Blessed be the one, holy, and living God. This, spoken by the reverend, reverberates across the round room, hits the crevices of the labyrinth etched into the sanctuary’s navel. I don’t need to think; I open the pamphlet handed to me at the church doors and read the bold text in response— Glory to God for ever and ever—and though my lips form the words, I only hear the voices of those surrounding me, all of us echoing as one body.
As a child, I’d been dressed in miniature gowns and pressed into place beside my dad, my mom on stage, microphone in hand, and my brother and sister filling the pew beside me. Everyone in that room shined brown, just like us, one body. When I look back, it isn’t important that they looked like me, only that all of us were there for the same reason. Now I am alone, far from childhood and in need of a sermon, accompanied by the brown of cushioned wooden seats.
The Epistle
A Reading from the letter of Kennedy
I have a horrible habit of hearing without listening, and it gets easier when I’m in church. When I was younger, I used to sketch heads in the margins of a composition notebook and map ideas for novels I’d never get around to. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to listen, it was just easier not to. When Dad tested our short-term memory, I’d recall one of the pastor’s idioms, a phrase I was meant to meditate on throughout the week and never did. And despite this, I know how to pay attention on Sunday. I know to tune in at the sound of my whispered name, God’s phantom snapping at the back of my mind. I know there will be words that I cannot afford to miss.
The Sequence Hymn Stand again. Jesus, (hear my prayer.)
The Gospel - Kennedy 20:24
I’ve been taught that the Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.
In high school, Mom would ask me over and over to sing with her on Sunday, to perform, and I found an embarrassing comfort in the word no because it was easier to be afraid. Fear is a thing of the world, the flaw of my flesh and blood. To be afraid is to doubt God, and though no one’s ever said these exact words to me, I always felt an itch of biblical guilt when I thought of college and leaving home and my first thought was to be afraid. Both of these—my future, my unknown—are things outside of the realm of self-control. According to Matthew, I should find comfort in that.
Sermon
In 2020, when I was a junior in high school, my family and I watched our sermons on YouTube, the livestream of the Baptist church we had stuck with since I was in fourth grade. I’d slump on the couch and try not to sleep, and I was so used to my dad’s quizzes that I began to point out things about the sermons that I didn’t like: the falsely charismatic preacher, the soulless script used for our docile, quarantined minds, the thirty minutes of worship before and after that really, was the only thing I cared for.
It’s 2024. There are still things the reverend at my new church says that I cannot believe, and somehow, this is what it means to be a Christian. Instead of drawing pictures, I sit with my palms flat under my thighs, ears turned to God like they should’ve been when I was younger. They speak for fifteen minutes at Episcopalian churches, not the forty-minute-to-an-hour lectures I’d assumed were the standard. A guilty part of me wishes the sermon was longer.
When she speaks, I’m not sure what I hear: the word of the Lord, or reminders that I still know nothing. I find my peace in both.
Confession
I have not been baptized. In middle school, when all my peers were being washed clean in a giant tub at the center of a mega church, I vowed that I wouldn’t touch the waters until I felt one hundred percent sure about God. Even then, I was already sure I believed. I lied because of the audience; I would not perform. I lied because I didn’t want the fabric of the black tee they handed out so every bap-tee looked the same wouldn’t stick to the folds of my back.
The Episcopal church I attend is a small chapel tucked away in a pocket in the woods, and in two weeks, I will be baptized there. The reverend will pour water over my head instead of soaking my body, and I’ll be instantly fulfilled and incomplete.
The Peace
We’re given nametags at the front door so when it’s time to exchange the peace—shake hands—I can say the stranger’s name instead of fumbling for words. They come from all corners of the room, across the aisle and two rows back and beside me, reaching for my grasp and meeting my mellow, brown eyes and speaking God’s peace. I’ve been searching for a church since the fall of freshman year. Now I’m a senior in college, graduating, and I know I’ve found it because somehow, the old, white congregation doesn’t see brown. They see me.