Jesus is no superhero

Cherry Hill Seventh-Day Adventist Church
Cherry Hill, NJ
December 8, 2007

Well, this feels odd – going to church on a Saturday morning. But it’s time to break up the pattern of going to a familiar type of church, and try something new for this year of visiting churches.

The Cherry Hill SDA congregation meets in a brick building with a steeple, which appears to have been built in the fifties. I walk in, and someone hands me the bulletin. An arched wooden ceiling covers the sanctuary. The windows are clear glass, with half-drawn blinds. A large screen has been pulled down from the ceiling, and occupies most of the wall behind the pulpit.

Twenty or so people are scattered among the pews, in a space that would probably seat 200. Something is already in progress when I enter – not the service, but perhaps a Bible study. A man in a suit is walking up and down the front aisle and asking questions, such as “What is humility?” and “What does it mean to be perfect?” The people in the pews offer answers (among them, the remarkably unhelpful “the state of being humble” to the first question).

The man tells us that God allows trials and suffering to make us stronger (the more frequently I hear this statement, the more I hate it – but I’m just walking in on the end of something, and I don’t have the whole picture). A woman in the front pew stands up and rings a bell ( the kind of bell you see on hotel desks in old movies, where you punch the button on top to summon a bellhop). Some people pass around red baskets for the Sabbath school offering, which I pass up. (I think I’ve wandered into the end of a Bible study rather than the beginning of a church service, but it’s still a bit unclear to me what exactly is going on here.)

The man in front leads everyone in prayer, and then nothing much happens for several minutes. People are milling around, chatting. I open the bulletin and see that Divine Worship begins at 11:10, not at 11:00 am, as advertised on their website. So that’s why I’m confused.

I overhear a man behind me earnestly discussing “2,300 fulfilled prophecies” and the end times, but I can’t hear well enough to know what his point is. (That must be some spreadsheet, keeping track of 2,300 prophecies.)

The man who led the Bible study walks over, shakes hands, and introduces himself. He says, “Let’s see, I’ve got something here for you . . . “ and walks off. I suppose he’s going to bring me a visitors’ packet, but he never returns.

I study the bulletin again. I see that the 2007 church budget was $61,596. Giving has been good this year, it says – they are currently over budget. Hmm. The pastor must be part-time or unpaid, or else I do not understand this budget figure at all.

People are filling the pews now. This is a very racially mixed church, with white, black, Asian, and Hispanic members. Although I have read that SDA churches have women leaders, throughout the rest of the service everyone who speaks publicly is white and male, which seems odd in the circumstances – the very diverse group here, and the fact that the SDA church was founded by a woman prophet. I do notice, again from the bulletin, that two of the elders are women, and that the church has head deacons and a head deaconess.

Now another man stands up to give us the Welcome and Announcements. I learn that some of the members of the congregation are participating in a special Music Day Celebration at a different SDA church, so attendance here is down. Everyone is encouraged to contribute to disaster relief.

The next item on the schedule is Elders Enter, which I think is what they term the fact that two men walk up onto the stage behind the pulpit and kneel for a while in prayer.


It is 11:25 now, and it still doesn’t really seem as though church has started. People are still arriving. I do notice that this is a very well-dressed congregation. Many of the women are dressed beautifully and vividly in what must be their “Sabbath-day best.”

Next comes a Call to Worship, so the service must really be starting now. The man who led the Call to Worship asks if there is a pianist in the building. A woman steps up to the piano to play (she’s quite good), and we stand to sing “Away in a Manger.”

I am somewhat surprised to find myself singing my first Christmas carol of the season already – I’m accustomed to singing Advent hymns during Advent, and saving the Christmas carols for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – but difference is exactly what I’m trying to experience, so this is good.

Next comes the Children’s Offering and Story. Someone begins a rousing chorus of “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” and while we are singing all the children in the church walk up and down the aisles with baskets, collecting money. There are lots of children – perhaps thirty or so – and they are exceedingly cute. Some are so young they are just toddling, and many of the little girls are dressed up in very fancy, frilly dresses. They don’t seem to be shy, either – the kids are enjoying this part of the service.

Eventually all the kids are gathered up front, and a young woman with a surprising amount of visible cleavage delivers the children’s sermon. She holds up a bar of soap and asks the children what it is for. The correct answer is “to clean our bodies.” Then she asks them how we can clean up our insides. The answer she eventually gets them to agree to is “by confessing our sins.” After 4-5 minutes, the kids are led out of the sanctuary toward their Sabbath Day rooms (all through the service, I keep stumbling at spots where I’m used to using the word Sunday.)

Now something is projected onto the large screen – the words “Offering of Worship.” A man and woman with mikes sing, “O Lord I Bring an Offering to You,” and while they sing others walk up and down the aisles taking the offering, using golden plates. This seems odd – the third offering so far, and the service seems to have barely begun!

Next the words on the screen change to “You are invited to come forward for prayer.” A few people walk to the front, and they all hold hands and kneel as a man leads the congregation in prayer. Everyone in the pews kneels, too, and this church does not have kneelers. Nope, we’re on our knees on the carpeted (but still pretty hard) floor. These SDA folks are tough!

Now comes Special Music. A Latino man with a violin and three black women come forward. The man reads a story about Franz Gruber’s writing of the hymn Silent Night, and then the women sing while he accompanies them on the violin.

Then a Scripture reading (I Corinthians 1:27-31), and then the pastor, wearing a black tee shirt and a sports jacket, steps up to the pulpit to deliver the sermon, “A Strange Way to Save the World.”

On the screen behind him, a montage of superheroes pops up – an enormous Superman with one gigantic fist aimed straight at the congregation, Wonder Woman, and other comic book characters. It occurs to me that asking the men in the congregation to gaze at a six-foot-tall projection of Wonder Woman and other busty, scantily clad female superheroes might not be the best way to direct their Sabbath-day meditations, but perhaps this type of unspiritual thought is occurring only to me.

The pastor begins by saying that you would think that God would send a superhero to save the world rather than a defenseless baby. The screen switches to a traditional picture of a Madonna and child (traditional if you think of Mary as looking a lot like Dorothy Lamour, the actress from the old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movies). The next screen is a nice, moody drawing of Batman brooding over Gotham City. Throughout the rest of the sermon Bible drawings are shown alternately with comic book scenes.

The pastor contrasts “gentle and humble” Jesus with the muscular superheroes, although he makes a point of stopping to emphasize that Jesus was “not a pansy.” Then he talks about the miracles Jesus did, which would seem to be rather in the superhero category. In fact, the contrast between Jesus and superheroes keeps breaking down as he continues. He notes that superheroes perform “mighty acts” – just like Jesus. He notes that superheroes punish evildoers, whereas Jesus offers forgiveness, but then backtracks a bit and notes that Jesus does speak quite a lot about punishment for evildoers.

His big point is that superheroes do not die for our sins, but I think if he thought about a little more he’d realize that many comic storylines are about superheroes who subject themselves to all kinds of torments, humiliations, and sometimes even death in order to save someone – and the ones who “die” to save someone usually come back from the dead by the end of the story or in the next installment. In short, the more he talks, the more I’m thinking that there’s an uncanny resemblance between Jesus and comic book superheroes.

Next is more special music. This time a man plays the piano and sings a song about Joseph, Mary’s husband. And then we all stand for the closing song, Silent Night. Again! Folks love that song; you have to admit that Franz Gruber hit a home run with that one.

There is a closing prayer, and the service ends at about 12:40. I stand around for a while, but there doesn’t seem to be anything else to do now – no coffee hour or anything like that. So I leave.

In the parking lot, I notice a very dramatic building right across the street. It’s a large white structure, with a brilliant icon painted on the front, and two golden onion-shaped bulbs atop two white pillars. The sign in front says that this is St. Michael’s Orthodox Catholic Church. Now, that looks like it might make for an interesting visit. And on the sidewalk in front of the SDA church is a couple, the man wearing a yarmulke. I imagine there is a synagogue nearby, too.

America – all this religion, all this diversity!

Epilogue

There was no way for the SDA church to contact me, since I had not filled out a visitor card or spoken to anyone, so I have no idea what their follow-up efforts might be like. Reflecting upon the service, I realize that it left me pretty cold, but I also realize that the congregation seemed to feel quite otherwise – they were lively, involved, and apparently having a great time. They prayed fervently. They seemed to be doing a fantastic job of racial integration, and there was a nice mix of ages.

The most memorable part of the experience for me was the odd tilt it gave to my weekend – going to church on Saturday morning but not on Sunday. You might not think a little thing like that would be so disorienting, but it was. I’m sure I would get used to it if I continued – but even Monday felt a little different to me. I am clearly a creature of habit, which is one reason I wanted to try this project.