Leaving Church Early
A little while back Shereen and I were in the lovely old town of Montagu in the Western part of South Africa. There's a lot of history in that town, and one of the places we visited there was a little museum called Joubert House. It's a house that a local Afrikaner named Piet Joubert built in 1853, and it's been beautifully restored and filled with old things making it feel much like it would have in those early days.
His daughter, Dirkie Joubert, wrote a book before she died in the 1950s. It's called Crab Soup and Other Stories and it was on sale at the museum. Of course I bought a copy and read it eagerly, and her stories of those years in the second half of the 1800s in our country are quite something to read.
Let me share some with you this week! Starting with an occasion when she was twelve or thirteen years old, Dirkie was at church in the beautiful Dutch Reformed Church in Montagu. She says that the custom in those days was for families to buy their spots in the first few rows, and the last few rows were left empty for anybody who couldn't afford the good seats. On one communion Sunday, she snuck into the back rows so that she could quickly slip out unnoticed when communion began.
A Lesson in Commitment
But before she knew it, one of the old ladies in the community named Mietjie Swart also came to the back row, and pushed Dirkie down a seat so she could sit at the end of the row. When the minister started the communion liturgy, Dirkie got up to leave, but Mietjie grabbed her and forced her back down into her seat, and Dirkie writes this:
"Sit down," she hissed at me, "How would you be able to endure one day in heaven if you cannot endure one short hour in church?"
Dirkie was very angry at her, but she says later in her life she often thought back to that moment and Mietjie's words. Dirkie writes "She taught me a lesson I was never to forget... even today, after more than 70 years, I cannot bear to see anyone leaving church before the service has ended, and when they sometimes do I can still clearly hear old Mietjie's admonition, and wish they could hear it too."
Taking Worship Seriously
Now, I don't want you to feel scared about walking out of my church if you do come here. You gotta do what you gotta do, and perhaps old Mietjie's words ignore our human frailties to some extent. But on the other hand, perhaps we sometimes don't take our worship seriously enough. Perhaps old Mietjie can teach us something today - when we are in a time of worship with our family in Christ, it’s a sacred time! Let's engage fully and not let anything distract us. Let's give all our attention to our God as we worship, pray, and hear His word preached. Let's not take a casual approach like we would if we were going to see a movie. Let's give our all and not come and go as we feel.
That lesson stayed with Dirkie for years after the incident - perhaps it will stay with you too next time you get a bit restless in a moment of worship!
