MANNA: Narthex

Has anyone ever said to you, “Meet me in the narthex?”  Did you know what they meant?   Did you do a double-take to be sure you weren’t invited to join them in Narnia?

There are a lot of strange words in church-speak.  Narthex is one of them. The word narthex is an ancient word from the church’s history.  It refers to the entry way of the church.  In ancient church architecture the narthex was often a very elaborate and open place that welcomed people into the church, but was separate and distinct from the place of worship.   By the way, the worship space also had a special name.  It was called the nave.  There’s a whole story behind that too, but I’ll leave that for another time.  Today, we might think of the narthex simply as the church lobby.  But, the early church actually had a function for the narthex that was much more significant than just a place to hang your coat, share a cup of coffee with a friend or pick up a church program.

There once was a time in Christianity when only those who were baptized were permitted to enter the nave.  So, if you were unbaptized you would actually worship in the narthex.  You might imagine someone watching through a doorway, listening intently to the words of the service and the singing.  This may strike our contemporary sensibilities a bit rude, but the virtues of hospitality and inclusiveness were practiced by the simple gesture of opening the nave doors to the unbaptized. 

This also meant that it was appropriate for baptismal fonts to be constructed in the narthexes of early churches or cathedrals.  As a matter of fact, when there was a baptismal service the congregation would gather in the narthex, instead of the nave, at the beginning of the worship service.  The candidate would be baptized and then escorted into the nave for the first time as a celebratory event to begin the worship service. 

If you look closely there are remnants of these customs still remaining with us today.  For instance, we still begin our worship service with either the confession or Baptism.  Both happen to be spiritual practices of Baptism.  And, in many churches the baptismal font is at the entrance of the worship space.  But, for the most part, the narthex today has really become nothing more than the church lobby. 

The architecture of our church is unique because we don’t actually have a narthex.  There is a place that we might refer to as the foyer or lobby, that carpeted place immediately inside the entrance where the bulletin boards hang and coffee is shared, but that’s it.  There is really no distinct wall or separation between the lobby area and the worship area in our church.  This is unique, and it can be a blessing as well as a curse. 

The curse is that it can make reverence very difficult.  A certain amount of reverence is important for worship, because it refers to a kind of posture or honor and awe before the presence of God in worship.  In worship God meets us in the Word and the sacrament.  This space and time is holy, and reverence is an appropriate response.  Without a narthex we often have a difficult time making the spiritual movement from what I would call “narthex time” to “nave time”.  It can also foster a false sense of appropriateness for us to treat worship time as if it is narthex time.  Narthex time is that time and space where it is appropriate for us to talk and socialize with our neighbors in church.  When we confuse narthex time with worship time, we do so at the loss of reverence and, potentially, the loss of meaningful worship. 

The blessing of not having a narthex is that it makes our worship space immediately accessible, lively and friendly to all who enter our church.  For many people this is understood and even felt as a deep and authentic welcome.  Spiritually speaking we might say that God is experienced to be more inclusive and accessible in our church.  This seems fitting for a church in which the motto is to be a church for people who have no church. 

Whatever your opinion about these blessings and curses, it behooves us as a congregation to try to provide narthex space as a place that is distinct and separate from that of worship space.  Without an actual physical wall to separate these, we need to remember that there has always been a necessity for worship to be set apart as sacred time and space.  When the bell rings signaling the start of worship we might gently nudge ourselves to put down the coffee, take our seats among the congregation and quietly prepare ourselves for an encounter with God.  

I heard a fitting quote recently;
Before worship take time to speak to God. 
During worship listen for God to speak to you.
After worship speak to your neighbor.