Sunday, February 2, 2014
To Do List:
- Survive church
- Lunch
- Iron for school
- Study
- Who wants to be rich
- Study
I went through the motions at the joint church service. Joint church services are one of my worst times. On the first Sunday of each month we have a joint service, and this simply means the first service, which is carried out in English, and the second service, which is carried out in Twi, are merged and the joint service is carried out in a mix of English and Twi.
My mind began to drift as Dad climbed up the podium. I was already making a list of things I needed to get done as soon as I got home. Thankfully, Dad had not stopped taking us out to lunch on Sundays. Even though I’m sure even he had noticed the gloom that two glaringly empty seats at our table had on the outing. It was like a dark cloud hovering over us. Conversations were always more stilted than at home, and none of us had ever finished our meals but it was still better than eating anything I cooked.
There was polite applause and I looked back to the podium. Daddy wasn’t going to preach. He was hugging a man in a pair of jeans and a blue-and-white checked shirt. The man smiled and took the podium. He had my attention now. Obviously, he was a guest preacher. We occasionally had some of them over. This was the first time I’d seen one dress so casually.
I heard a few gasps and knew that some self-important person or the other was bound to tell this man that, church was serious business. Mom would have loved him. I knew that immediately, just for the fact that he was dressed down.
Once Mom had shown up for service dressed the same way in jeans and a white blouse. The leader and two or three other elders of the women’s group had cornered her afterwards and told her that church was serious business, and as the wife of the pastor she couldn’t just show up in attire that looked like she was going to the park.
Mom had been so amused. The byword in our house anytime anyone didn’t dress up for an event was: church is serious business.
My parents don’t fit the typical mould of Pastor and Osofo Maame. Dad hardly ever wears suits. He used to show up at weddings and funerals in African-print shirts, but a group of elders soon set him straight. They said that soon-to-be-brides had petitioned the council of elders that for their wedding pictures to look more memorable they’d prefer that he wore a suit. The elders again tried to get him to don the suit for Sunday service as well, but he stood his ground and agreed to the suits for funerals and weddings.
At least Dad had been accepted. Mom had been seen as the black sheep. They said her knee-length dresses were too short. Some said she wore too much make-up. Others said as a married woman when she wore her kaba and slit she had to wrap her cover-cloth around her waist and not leave it at home like she usually did. Finally a delegation from the women’s group had said for the sake of peace in the group, Mom should step aside for the Deputy Head Pastor’s wife, Mrs Kwakye, to lead the group. Mom did so. Sometimes I think the Deputy Head Pastor himself wanted Dad’s job.
The only person in our family whom everyone in church had unanimously loved had been Ntiriwa. Ntiriwa was like that. People just loved her. I’d joined the choir because of her. We both had great voices, but it was Ntiriwa who was often asked to lead worship or who got invited to sing at events. It was also Ntiriwa whom Ebenezer Kwakye liked. Ebenezer Kwakye was the son of the Deputy Head Pastor and the Head of the Women’s Group. Immediately after senior high school (SHS), he went to Bible school to train to become a pastor. He was upset when Ntiriwa applied to the University of Ghana, Legon, and was accepted. He’d thought she’d apply to a Bible school like him. Ebenezer Kwakye had once told Ntiriwa that our parents were not spiritual enough. His exact words were “they were lukewarm”.
I could understand where he was coming from. His father was always dressed in a suit. He spoke in a booming the-world-is-ending voice. On the days that he preached, people often jumped out of their seats and laid hands on their heads and shouted, “I receive it!” His wife was always in a slit and kaba or in loose-fitting dresses, skirts and blouses. She didn’t wear make-up, didn’t paint her fingernails, didn’t shape her eyebrows or wear shoes with heels higher than two inches.
When Ntiriwa had disappeared, Ebenezer Kwakye had actually told me to pray with more faith and if she wasn’t found then it was punishment for unconfessed sins in our family. I’d been too numb to say anything.
My sisters and I were raised in Tamale. Dad had pastored a church there for fifteen years before we had been transferred here. Going to church in Tamale had been fun. People didn’t dress up excessively. Bible studies had been joint learning sessions. No one took centre stage and tried to dominate discussions. In Tamale, Dad had always encouraged people to come as they were. People could show up in charley wotes and shorts and no one would bat an eye. It was a different story in the Kumasi Community Church.
In Tamale, people had been genuinely happy to see each other. There had been no sizing, no silent judgement. It was sometimes hard to believe it was the same God that we all claimed to serve. One time an elder in the church in Kumasi had asked a first-timer to go home and change before coming to church because she had worn a dress with a bare back. The lady did not come back. Dad hadn’t known of this until a few weeks later. He had been really sad.
The next Sunday he’d said to the whole congregation, “I don’t know the Jesus you claim to worship. The Jesus I know would have invited the young lady wearing in and made her feel comfortable. God does not judge a person by the clothes they wear, neither should we. He came to save the lost. Let’s not be the stumbling blocks in their paths.”
The elder in question, his family, and a few other families tried to get Dad transferred to a remote church. They did not succeed. They stopped coming to church after that.
The preacher introduced himself and said he and Dad had been friends at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). He said coming back to Kumasi was like coming back home. He preached on God being the Great I am. On God being whatever we needed Him to be. Some time ago
I’d have been nodding along with everyone, maybe even jotting down things in my notebook. But I didn’t believe anymore. The truth was I didn’t know what I believed. The proper thing would have been to tell Dad and to stop coming to service, but I was too much of a coward. I couldn’t bear to hurt him more than he’d already been hurt.
So here I was in church, going through the motions but knowing it was all a pretence. After the sermon, Dad supervised while Pastor Kwakye entered the baptismal pool and baptised new members into the church. Dad had chosen to wear a suit for the occasion.
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Tell us: What do you think of the people in the church judging someone by what they wear?