Is anyone sitting here?

“Is anyone sitting here?”

That was the very innocent question, asked by a visitor to the church I attend. Sitting and spaces. What a complicated world for those who have lost the person who would have been sitting there.

It seems odd to me that this question created such a mixture of emotions in my brain – perhaps some would say “heart.” But it did.

For most of our married life, I was preaching, and Vicki was the organist. I could take a detour here and talk about the blessing of having married an incredible musician who didn’t play the organ because she was the preacher’s wife, but because she saw it as ministry. Perhaps I should write about that sometime – it might save a ministry or two and perhaps a marriage or two. But that’s for another day.

In the earliest years of my being a preacher and her being an organist, the preacher sat “on the platform.” I always hated that. It made it look like the preacher was actually at “the right hand of God” and somehow superior to any and all who might be there to listen. Eventually, while at First Christian in Tyrone, I decided that no one would sit on the platform. When it was your time to do whatever you were supposed to do, you could walk up to the pulpit and do it.

As the organist, Vicki typically sat in a chair behind the railing that surrounded the fine organ at First Christian, and I can’t remember that we ever actually sat together. When I left First Christian, initially to work for the European Evangelistic Society and ultimately back in a full-time role at what is now Point University, we sometimes sat together during church. But even then, she was often singing in the choir or in a small vocal group, and we didn’t actually sit together.

The final decade of our life together in ministry was with a group of wonderful people who were mostly younger than we were and frustrated with “the church.” Most often, I preached for that group, and she often played keyboard or taught the children. When I was leading the service, we ended up not sitting together.

I’m telling you all of that because it shocked me, when, on a Sunday morning, as I was sitting in a place where almost no one ever sits next to me, a very sweet lady and her family came on “my row” and said, “Is anyone sitting here?”

Let me explain. Throughout our married life, I never once thought that I was the one in ministry; we always thought, “We’re in this together.” That is probably how I have managed to be in ministry for almost 50 years. The 50th anniversary of my ordination will happen on April 22, 2023. I was ordained in Russellville Christian Church on a Sunday afternoon. Roy McKinney, our favorite Bible teacher at Atlanta Christian College, came over to speak. Vicki’s mother and two sisters came all the way from St. Petersburg, Florida. I was the first person in decades, if not forever, ordained by my home church. It was a wonderful day. Vicki played the organ for that service – a reality that didn’t often happen back in those days, because no one in Russellville could play the organ! We were in this thing called ministry together – even though it would be four months before we were actually married!

I will simply praise God that I made such an incredibly good choice in whom to marry. There is no way I was smart enough to make that choice.

So . . . nearly 50 years later, I’m sitting in church. I tend to sit on the right side of worship areas – that is often, at least in my experience, where the organ would be. I normally sit on a row right in front of my good friends Jim and Robin Donovan. But I don’t sit “by” anyone. Since Christmas, the seating chart in my church has disrupted the normal place I sit. (That is probably one of the blessings of chairs versus pews.) 

My good friends weren’t present this morning, and my “normal” space was taken by others. God bless them! I found a row where no one was sitting. But just as the service started, the lady mentioned earlier asked, “Is any one sitting here?”

I said, “No, welcome to our church.” After the service, we talked for a moment, and she will be in the Bible study I will teach at our church on Wednesday night. Nothing about her question offended me, but it did remind me that I don’t have anyone to sit by when I go to church!

Please don’t take that as some sort of “woe is me” kind of sentiment. God and I are fine. But I have been thinking since church this morning about who else is sitting in worship with no one to sit next to them. A widow or widower like me, struggling with the loneliness of an empty home. A single adult who finds visiting family- and couple-oriented churches awkward. A recently divorced person who is reeling in the midst of “how did this happen?” A person of faith married to someone who has no use for the church or Jesus. The list could be endless.

I’m grateful for the sweet lady who sat by me this morning with her family. I wish that our church were so crowded on Sunday mornings that everyone had someone next to them on their row.

I hope – and pray – that these words will speak to people like me, who are sitting alone because of a great loss. Don’t think it foolish to find these moments sneaking up on us out of nowhere in ways that remind us of our heart’s deepest losses. 

I don’t grieve as one without hope – but I won’t lie – I still grieve. And . . . many may disagree . . . I’m grateful for such “out of nowhere” moments. They remind me of the incredible blessing of having been married to a wonderful woman with whom I raised two incredible women. 

What more could I ask for?