I was an only child for three years before my brother was born. Three more years passed before we played together, so I played by myself. I hid from my mother underneath her sewing machine.  The wheel on which the fan belt turned was the steering wheel of my car.  On some days, I was a police officer driving the mobile patrol (my Dad was a cop and I have taken rides on the mobile patrol).  On some days, I was the missionary’s wife going shopping at Unimart (the missionary’s wife drove an automatic Ford Maverick).  On some days, I was Aling Ine (she drove a Libertad-Kalentong jeepney) and I made change for imaginary passengers who got on and off.

I hid from my mother because she invented tortures for me: taking vitamins, drinking milk, eating vegetables, using a hilod and gugo when she gave me a bath, putting langis ng niyog on my hair; tying up my hair in really tight pigtails; making me take a nap when I felt most wide awake; or making me pray with her (she can pray for hours!)  Her best torture for me was church.

I would lie awake in bed, thinking up new adventures on Sunday mornings.  My mother would come in and interrupt my thoughts. She came in singing; “Wake up, wake up you sleepy head, it’s time for Sunday school.”  When that didn’t work and I was still pretending to sleep, she would sing a more upbeat song:  “Everybody ought to go to Sunday school when it rains, when it pours, the man and the woman and the girls and the boys, everybody ought to go to Sunday School.”  So I would ask her “Do I really have to go to church?”  Of course, my mother would say, it’s the Lord’s Day.  We were given seven days and six days we can use for ourselves but Sunday is his.  We put everything on the side and we worship on Sundays.

“Can’t we worship at home?  You said God was everywhere.  You said where two or three are gathered in God’s name He’s there.  Do we have to go to church?”  My mother pegged me to my seat with her stare.  I knew she sensed defiance.  This was a game I loved to play.  I loved trouncing my mother with arguments, using the verses she taught me. It didn’t matter if I lost and got a bruised backside from a spanking.  It was fun.

She was still staring at me.  So I change my tone. I use persuasion, I implore her: “Jesus didn’t always go to the temple to pray, you know.  He sometimes prayed all night on the mountain.  He went to the wilderness to pray alone. You said so. Why can’t we pray at home and worship at home, too? We always go to church on Sundays, can’t we stay home for once?”  My mother would reply: “When you succeed in praying all night on a mountainside then you will earn the right not to go to Sunday School.  Now go before you get a spanking.”

By the time I was all scrubbed and dressed up in my Sunday best, my resentment over my disrupted plans for play that day had gone down the drain as well.  I was ready to go to Sunday School.  We walked to church which was just a block away.  My Dad, my mom and I would walk to church holding hands.  We’d often meet up with Mr. Zabalerio.  He’s an usher at the church.  He was also the security guard at my school.  When my mother couldn’t pick me up from school, I would stay until 5pm and Mr. Zabalerio would bring me home.  We’d meet up with Aling Trining, Auntie Abeng, Auntie Nena.  They were walking to church, too. Tita Becky would also be walking with us.  We were all going to Sunday School.

At the church gate, Mr. Galacio would be there.  He was the driver for our school administrator.  His wife, Mrs. Galacio ran the church nursery.  The men folk would stand around and shake hands.  They would talk awhile before going in to Sunday School.  I loved to stand with them and listen.  But my Dad would shoo me away and tell me to get to Sunday School.

I hated to be cooped up in one room with kids my age. People made such a fuss over me.  They told me they liked my dress–my mother dressed me in frilly creations.  The other kids probably didn’t bathe that morning. The Sunday School teachers spoke to me in English and I was obliged to answer in English. The teacher spoke in childish sing-song! I was expected to have the verse memorized. And I was asked to recite the verse in front of the whole Sunday School! (Panic!)  I was asked to lead the prayer or lead the singing or to answer questions.  I hated that.  I liked to be left alone to my own devices.  I wanted to volunteer if I felt like it, if the discussion interested me; otherwise, I wanted no part in it.  I was there because I was forced to go to Sunday School!

The only thing I loved about Sunday School was the old scooter stored under the stairs.  It belonged to Bro. Wen.  I rode it and I imagined myself riding it at breakneck speed!  That was my thing.   At the end of Sunday School, all the kids would be herded for Junior church.  This was when I snuck out.  I looked for my mom: she taught her own Sunday School class.  This was where I sat and listened.

I loved the service.  I carried my mom’s Scofield Bible and I made sure we had our own hymnal to share.  I loved sitting with the grown-ups.  My feet dangled from the pew and I could swing my feet and no one stopped me as long as I didn’t make noise.  I looked forward to singing “Jesus Saves” especially if Mr. Corpus led the singing.  He was the Scout Master at my school but he was song leader at church.  He would relate an anecdote by way of introduction to the singing of Jesus Saves.  I have taken a picture in my head of the page on the All American Church Hymnal where the song ‘Jesus Saves’ was printed.  I had memorized the song from hearing it Sunday in Sunday out.  Just the same my mother opened the hymnal for me and pointed to me the words.  I think this was how I learned to read.  Words just became familiar sights to me.

Mr. Corpus would say “Altogether, now….We have heard the joyful sound!” He always pounded his fist and stamped his foot on the downbeat.  I waited for him to do that but I was always startled when he did.  Ate Dinah knew that, too.  She played with flourish on the piano.  She played with the keys and you could tell her fingers were having fun all by themselves.  She didn’t need to look at the hymnal; she looked at Mr. Corpus, ever alert for any sudden changes in his enthusiastic beating.  I loved the singing.  I was disappointed when the singing so abruptly ended two songs later.  Sometimes, just for fun, I would open the hymnal and find a familiar-looking page and sing the song in my head instead of listening to the preaching.  I got a pinch when the song in my head escaped from my mouth.

I liked listening to Bro. Wen.  He would start with a funny story. When he got caught up in the point he was making, he would hold his Bible aloft.  He would pound on the pulpit.  He stamped his foot.  It jolted me.  It made me stop and listen again.  At the end of the preaching, during the invitation, I loved the silence.  Everyone prayed.  Everyone was still.  Some people came to the altar in tears, others knelt where they were.  Always, my heart was stirred, it was reaching for something unseen.

So why do we go to church? It isn’t for entertainment.  It isn’t so we can get a blessing, that’s so selfish.  It isn’t because it’s a family tradition.  It is because we carry the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the earthen vessels of our bodies.  When we meet together, the presence of God in each of us, the Spirit of God, moves in us and moves us to think of God, to listen to His voice through the Scriptures, to affirm what we know of Him, to remind ourselves that the God we cannot see is alive in us.  We make connections with others who also bear in them the presence of God.  We testify to others that the presence of God is in us and we celebrate that presence of God.  We declare that we are people of God.  We leave our usual occupations and give ourselves time and opportunity to reach beyond our earthly existence to the Eternal God who made us.  Sure we can do it at home.  We can do it alone in our own time.  But something happens when people who serve and worship the same God come together. We suddenly belong to a family of believers who call on the same Heavenly Father.  All of a sudden, we are comforted.  We are given a glimpse of how heaven would be like when all God’s children would be gathered.

Going to church is like being invited to a feast by Christ himself the way he did with his disciples. “Come and dine, the Master calleth.” There is abundant food for the soul, ready and prepared by the Spirit of God and we feast with others but we each eat according to our appetite, our taste and our need.  It is communal feeding in the presence of the God-man who redeemed us with His own blood on the Cross.  It is an intimate conversation over good food with the God who knows us but loves us still.  If you’ve been a Christian for a long time and you still don’t get why we go to church, if going to church is just part of your routine, then you miss the point.  Why did you go to church at all?