"Spiritual But Not Religious Is Not Enough: Standing at the Feet”(Pt. 2) by Rev. Jillian Hankamer
- Northminster Church
- Sep 17
- 6 min read
August 31, 2025
John 13:1-17 & Romans 14:1-9
Intro
-Started this conversation last week talking about phrase “spiritual but not religious”
-self-made religions
-tend to be self-centered
-can’t stand up to things like trauma, grief, sin
-This week going to discuss being the church in the worst moments of life
-My worst moment was losing Teigen in 2021
-most of you know the story
-for new folks, Erich and I lost our first child at 22 week in 2021
-I had something called PPROM - Preterm Premature Reputre of Membranes
-devestating situation for which cause is unknown
-Teigen was simply to little to survive, and was stillborn
-I could write a month’s worth of sermons about the catacylismic grief that followed
-Simplest explanation: I could have not woken up from being asleep and that would have been fine with me
-I won’t put words in Erich’s mouth but has said there was life before Teigen and life after Teigen
-Also height of COVID so even if we’d been capable of having company it wasn’t safe for family to be with us
-So church family had to take care of us. Which they did by doing what we needed most - they left us alone.
-didn’t visit, didn’t come by and expect us to talk about what happened
-few did leave meals
-dozens of people sent cards - still have them all
-each one made us cry, but E made sure to read them all
-when I went back to work 3 weeks later, people were gentle and patient
-let me do my job and have something else to focus on
-healed slowly
-gave me grace, particularly on hard days like Mother’s Day and first anniversary of loss
-will always love those good people for loving us in a situation for which there’s no handbooks and lots of ways to misstep
Being Church & Giving Testimony
-That experience, along with countless others, makes me wonder what people w/out church families do in terrible moments
-How do they deal with trauma that can’t be prepared for?
-Who reminds them to eat when grief is so thick and heavy you’re surviving minute-to-minute, not day-to-day?
-In Lillian Daniel’s book When Spiritual Religious is Not Enough she tells story of Pete,
Sexton of church she served as Associate Pastor for a few years
-Pete had a “salt-and-pepper beard, and rock-star-skinny build…[and]he still played the guitar with other men in that New England suburb…”[1]
-not church member. Worked at church, didn’t participate in church
-As Daniel says, “Scarred by church long ago, Pete had been drawn into an intellectual dance in which he read much about all religions but could not bear to rest in one.”[2]
-Then Pete got cancer and on deathbed wife called Lillian, “A former associate minister, one who had stayed too short a time to affect much at all, I was suddenly the Church of Jesus Christ writ large, present at the moment when Pete would die…”[3]
-Might think being at deathbed is more specific to pastors, but as Daniel’s says, “...we do this [being the Church] for one another all the time…We interact with those who will not step foot in the institutions we love. We make friends with nonbelievers who claim that we are crazy. And then in these moments of utter crisis, we find ourselves called into the eye of the tornado. And suddenly we realize that we have become, for them, the church. And we are called to play a role greater than our role as friend, family member or colleague.”[4]
-Daniel’s says in these moments we’re not being called upon to give an answer or argument, “...but for your testimony. Not just your testimony, but the testimony of the church that has stood in the midst of utter sadness and made claims that only the made would make.”[5]
-Might have emotional reaction to word “testimony”
-I do!
-senstitive to shoving our faith down peoples’ throats
-”don’t want to be pushy, obnoxious, or self-righteous.”[6]
-But times come that we must speak
-In those moments, “Testimony is calling out that you have seen light in the midst of darkness. Testimony is telling the story about how you met God…Testimony is telling the story of a community over time, of a particular people, and how God has intervened. And when the unchurched call us into the most intimate and sad moments, we become the church. We can either sit mute or give our testimony.”[7]
-Doesn’t have to be eloquent. Highbrow. Full of theological concepts and seminary words.
-“Some of the best testimonies are stumbling words choked out of the same sorrow that the nonbeliever stands drowing in, but at least the believer can say, ‘Yes, in the midst of this tragedy, I belive there is more than all of this.’”[8]
Where’s our place?
-Daniel continues Pete’s story by talking about being unclear of her role and place during the visit, specifically her physical place.
-She goes on to note “...a hierarchy of grieving”[9] anyone who’s sat bedside with family members know to be real, “Who sits closest? Who does the docotor address? Who is forgiven from speaking and who is called upon to explain?”[10]
-So as the newcomer, particularly a non-family member, stepping into such a space can be unsettling
-In case of Pete Lillian decided to stand at foot of bed and said she found her place there for Peter and “in a longer story.”[11]
-As she says so beautifully, “The great prayers of the church, the testimony that life will go on and that the dead will live forevermore, often get heard from the foot up.”
-means that such words get lost in the work of death, the details of funeral planning
-”But God never [objects] to speaking from the bottom end of things.”[12]
-Afterall hear story of Jesus washing disciples’ feet in John reading
-while disciples argued over who would sit at his right hand, “Jesus preferred to proclaim from the foot of the bed, and to take his cues from the foot of his own body.”[13]
-this is model we’re called to
-our place is at the foot of the bed
-Sometimes as people of faith we’re called to share our faith with those who have no interest in our beliefs because “they have called us to their sides at a moment of crisis, as friend, family member, or comforter.”[14]
-Should be sensitive, but can’t and should’t leave our faith behind
-Because in such moments, if we’re present and honest we’re “being as much of the church as they will see.”[15]
-We want to cross the “membrane between the church and the world…lightly, [and] gracefully,”[16]
-particuarly for those who don’t come to church
-doing this agily isn’t possibly if we take the church lightly
-As Daniel says, “...worship is what prepares us for the strangeness of life. When we read about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet before the Last Supper and his death, God prepares us for a later moment when the only seat at the table will be at the bottom of a hospital bed.”
Conclusion
-Good news: Don’t have to hammer, argue with, or badger the unchurched with the gospel. We aren’t called “...to be brilliant, not to be persuasive, not even to tell the entire story right then and there…”[17] We’re “called to simply be.”
-We follow a savior “who knew when to preach but also when to be content washing feet. Jesus delivered the gospel from the bottom up. We can do that too.”[18]
-Daniel concludes Pete’s story this way, as Pete died “...I held on to his feet a little longer, as they grew cold, until I knew that this was no longer my place. It was time to love to the rest of the room and the tears of the living, where Pete’s song played on.”
[1] Lillian Daniel, When Spiritual But Religious Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Suprising Places, Even the Church, Jericho Books, 2013, pg. 19.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid, pg. 20.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid, pg. 21.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid, pg. 22.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid, pg. 23.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid, pg. 24.
[18] Ibid.
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