I went to Seattle last week with two octogenarians (surprisingly nimble travelers if a tad slow), my sister and her daughter, and my daughter Audrey. It was a whirlwind of a trip to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and their three kids. We did all the things people who don’t live near an airport do–we drove to St. Louis the day before our flight because we had a 7AM departure time, woke before the crack of dawn, arrived in Seattle around 9:30AM gaining two hours for the day and hit the ground running.

I’d never been to Seattle. Man, it’s hilly–cars parked all willy nilly on both sides of the road hilly. We looked up into the eyes of massive wooden trolls, went up into the Space Needle, gasped at the fragility and beauty of the Chihulys, sipped some dark coffee, rode the trolley to Bainbridge, and with about 500 million other people carrying cameras and herding children and animals took in the beauty of University of Washington’s Cherry Blossom Trees.

Five fast-paced days and we were back home Wednesday evening, just in time to do a bunch of laundry, get a few extra hours of sleep, and prepare for Easter.

All of this to say–I was pretty tired and had low expectations for the Easter church service.

Sunday’s 8AM mass came pretty early for me (I’m not an early riser by nature). But I made it to the church on time and found myself in the front row next to my travel buddies (my slow but good-natured and nimble parents). Not a huge fan of the front row, but the lilies were pretty and as everyone else in the church was behind me, I wasn’t distracted by all the beautiful new babies snuggled in their parents’ arms and the small bouncing children waiting for church bells to ring, so they could go home and pull the plastic, jelly-bean filled eggs from the tall grass in their overgrown spring yards.

That’s why I heard the sermon. I’m a semi-regular church-goer (that’s likely a wee-bit generous), but most of the time I’m lucky if I hear enough of the sermon to be moved. More often, I love seeing folks I don’t necessarily agree with and enjoy the spectacle of young families trying to keep their brood in line while being put off and preoccupied by the patriarchal language and culture of the Catholic church.

So I was listening instead of looking around when our priest started his sermon. He’s not a loud talker but he is quite expressive. He smiles and moves his hands around a lot and gives the general impression of genuine excitement.

He told a couple of stories and then towards the end of the sermon, he said something like this:

(It’s impolite to get your phone out in church to record the sermon, although I wouldn’t have been recording anyway because I never expected him to say something I’d want to remember days later. That is why his words below are an approximation of what I heard him say and not a direct quote.)

If you’re here this morning because it’s Easter and you haven’t been joining us often, I want to welcome you, to tell you how glad we are you’re here. And I want to invite you to come back. Yes, the church and the people of the church are a mess. It’s true. That’s why we need you. But the truth is, you’re a mess too.

I love that so much. There I am in the front row and the priest is telling me I’m a mess. I am a mess. The church is a mess. The people of the church are a mess. We are all a mess, and we can be a mess together. That is the best thing I’ve heard in church–maybe ever.

The one thing I hate about what passes as Christianity these days is certainty. It takes all the mystery out of faith. But uncertainty by way of messiness. Well, that properly mucks things up a bit. When the priest asks me to come back because we are all a mess.

That kind of makes me want to go back.