GOD AND TIME: SUNDAY AS A PROBLEM

Go to church on Sunday afternoon – a non-starter

I simply cannot understand this – in two churches in Växjö the congregation has opted for having the main worship service at 17h00 in the afternoon. This you will find in the Church of Sweden congregations in Sandsbro and Teleborg.

When asking why this is so – I took for granted that there was some practical reason, availability of a priest or something – I got a firm answer from a lady, active in the congregation.

– No, we have decided in the council that this was the best time of the day. Now I can see my children and be away for the week-end and still come back in time for church in the afternoon, still before it is evening.

The whole matter might seem like a trifle, but I do not think it is. Here I want to give three aspects of the problem.

Anyone who ventures out fairly early on a Sunday morning in any of the major cities in Western Europe will see the same scenario: streets almost empty, very little movement, there is a depressive sense of nothingness, to me at least. I mean this is the result of a void that has been created in the post-Christian era. People used to go to church – voluntarily or involuntarily, which does not matter much here – at this time, but in this post-era the church has not been replaced by anything else. A void has been created, an emptiness which at least I sense. Being caught between going up too late on a Sunday morning and facing the Sunday afternoon’s inevitable reminder that there is a working day the day after, is not the brightest of prospects.

Secondly, I see the Sunday afternoon worship as a concession to a secular life style. Those individuals who persist in going to church on a weekly basis are having their own families to see to and somehow have to adapt to these. It is a matter of becoming marginalized, of becoming the odd one out in a society which has become more and more dominated by consumerism.

Thirdly, moving around times for worship more or less as you like is not as innocent as it might look. In fact, the Sunday morning is the crucial movement for a Christian and has so been since the early church; we worship, and the earlier the better, on a Sunday morning to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day. One could be tempted to say that this time of the week only has a symbolic meaning and that one could think of and commemorate the risen Lord at any time of the day and week. Certainly; however the fact that we want to order our lives in accordance with our basic beliefs is not just a matter of symbolism. It is a reality, even a physical reality. If Sunday becomes the peak of the week, the first day of the week, not the Monday, a day when attention is given to this one all-decisive event, then this fact will influence the rest of the week and of what I am doing. My time is giving priority to the Christ event and everything else is dependent on it. If I instead marginalize my celebration of this Christ at a time that is very inconspicuous and not in variance with all the other activities that have to take place during a week-end, then my whole faith runs the risk of being marginalized.

Sunday afternoon at 17h00 is not a good time for High Mass. I rather want to spend Sunday afternoon either for reflection or for socializing with others staying in that privileged moment between a morning when my whole life has been renewed in the midst of the congregation under God and the appropriate arrangements for the week that is to come; in so doing Sunday afternoon can become that moment of grace, thankfulness and restfulness.

 
To be a Christian in a post-Christian society is not a matter of hiding in the shadows of the afternoon but a matter of showing to whoever wants to care – be it other family members or the public at large – that there is a fellowship, however small, that structures the whole week and equips me to a life of service, a service of others in gladness.