Worship usually takes place in a church.
Yes, Jesus told the Samaritan woman that it doesn’t matter where a person worships – it matters how a person worships [check John 4:21-24].
But even so, most worship in our culture takes place in a building, a church. And in our culture churches tend to be very similar to each other, regardless of the particular brand of Christianity the worshippers follow.
Most church buildings have a space for worship. If the church was built more than twenty years ago, that space is dedicated almost exclusively for worship and called the “sanctuary.” Again, sanctuaries in Christian churches tend to have similar features, regardless of denomination.
As you enter a sanctuary – almost always through a door in the center of the back wall – one of the first things you notice is there are two distinct areas.
The area nearest you is filled with benches. The other area in the “front” portion of the sanctuary has other furniture – usually a good-sized table in the center with one or two speakers’ podiums on the sides and a few chairs on either side. In many churches there are also more benches or rows of chairs along the far wall or off to one side.
And there is a fence between the two areas.
It can be wood or metal or stone or even plastic. It can be plain or ornate. It is usually called an “altar rail” or “communion rail.”
But it’s still a fence.
And it divides the space where the worshippers sit from the space where the worship leaders do their activities.
If you are one of the folks in the large group (65% of the United States population) that has not been in a church in the last 25 years, if ever, the physical layout of the sanctuary gives you a clear message: you belong on this side of the fence, and the important action takes place on the other side.*
Nobody has to say anything. The front area (the formal name is “chancel”) is more spacious, the furniture is usually more ornate and certainly looks more comfortable, than the rows of benches in the back part of the room. The people in the pews are not as important as the people who are on the other side of the fence. (And the message will be reinforced when you see how those people up front are dressed.)
This message of division and separation is completely counter to the message Jesus brought with him into this world. Paul said he “emptied himself” and was “born in human likeness,” [Phil 2:7]. His physical presence in our world shouts that we are important. Our likeness is good enough for him. He entered our physical world the same way we entered it – through the pain of birth. He became an adult through the same process that we follow. He lived out God’s evaluation of us from the beginning: “very good,” [Gen 1:31].
Jesus eliminated any distinction between himself and us. He spent almost all his time and ministry on our side of the fence – among the people, among the sick and the sinners, among us. He respected us as equals in a culture that insisted people are not equals. (In Jesus’ time the temple had different spaces for gentiles, for women, and for men. Only the high priest could enter the innermost room; and that only once a year on the Day of Atonement.)
As Jesus died on the cross, the curtain closing off that innermost space in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom – eliminating another “fence” separating humans from God.
If we want to worship as Jesus suggested to the Samaritan woman – in spirit and in truth – we should worship in a space that says “All are welcome . . . no one is more or less important . . . all are very good.”
If we want to attract folks who are new to church, we should be proclaiming “Welcome,” not saying “Stay in your place.”
* The original purpose of altar rails (first used around 800) was to keep the untrained common people out of the way of the priests, who conducted the worship as the intermediary between God and the people. It was a fence.