"I'll See You in Church on Sunday" - A Maundy Thursday reflection from Erin Zavala

Sometimes I take breaks from church. I don’t mean to do it. It’s definitely not planned, but I get into spaces where I fall out of the rhythm of making it in there on Sunday mornings. What you need to know is that I love my church. I’ve been going there for over 20 years, and I’ve seen it through a lot of super huge highs and then some really difficult and sad lows. It is a space of comfort, love, frustration, solidarity, unrest, diversity, peace, frustration, joy…all the things in all the spaces that fill our hearts and souls in all the ways. It is imperfect. It is community. It is home. And yes, there are some times that I just do not want to go. 

This year, I entered the DSF Certificate Program. And while I have completed just three of the 10 courses so far, I can say that I’ve already experienced glimpses of the deconstruction of my embedded theology that I was warned might be coming. As I sit here and reflect on Maundy Thursday, I am brought back immediately to my grandparents’ kitchen table, where I ate dinner countless times with Leonardo DaVinci’s The Last Supper hanging on the wall behind me. Yes, we were that Catholic. As a kid, I had NO idea what was happening in that painting. I just knew that it was important and should be respected, and it was there for a reason. I think the eight-year-old version of me might have had the same questions as the 51 year old. The in-between-aged me had it a bit more figured out (or so I thought). Funny how the eight year old was probably naturally deconstructing at a similar rate as I am now. Who knew?

As I sit here and close my eyes as a 51 year old, and I picture that painting, I immediately start making my own edits. Things start moving and shifting. The room changes, their clothes change, the color of their skin changes. There are women. The unnamed women who most definitely helped to prepare that meal. The women who probably knew what was happening better than the men in the room. The women who showed up afterwards when the men couldn’t. They are there, listening in behind doors, in the shadows. Ever present. 

I apply the context that I suspect was lost or replaced for the artist’s intended audience and start to see and feel things as I imagine them to be. I place myself in the room with eyes closed and begin to feel the energy. I can feel fear, confusion, anxiety, devotion, strength, and love. I open my eyes and see what is happening. We know the story. We tell it often. He washed their feet, he broke the bread, he poured the wine, he forgave. And yet in its purest, most simple form, it was a gathering. It was Jesus’s last moments of community and love. It was his gift to help carry them through what was to come.

The Bible tells us over and over again the importance of gathering. Beginning in Genesis and all the way through to Revelation, where God’s people gather into eternal life. Community binds us together and helps us work in ways that are unexpected. When we come together, we gain perspective and understanding. We forgive. We love. We heal. This last supper was no different. 

Last Sunday, as I sat in church, I took a moment to look at my church family. Watching them greet each other, hug one another, catch up, and enjoy each other in fellowship, it gave me hope and made me feel more whole. We are so much stronger together. We are facing a lot as a people now. It seems that there are forces at work that don’t want us together in community. Forces that know how much harder it is for us to find our way if we are isolated. And while it may seem easier to sit at home, doomscroll on social media, and get into online arguments with bots, we need to fight against it and come together. We need each other more now than ever. God told us how to do it, and Jesus lived it out. Let’s accept the gift that was given to us at that supper. Let’s remember him, love one another, and gather in the name of God.

I’ll see you in church on Sunday.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. (Matthew 18:19-20)

---

Erin Zavala is a DSF Certificate Program student and works as the Development and Communications Manager for DSF as well as Director of Communications and Marketing for HELM (Higher Education & Leadership Ministries). She is a longtime member of First Christian Church of North Hollywood, where she has served in many positions. Erin lives in Valencia with her partner Jim, her two children, Lucy and Noah, and her very noisy but lovable English bulldog, Birdie.