Worrying About What To Wear To Church

I wanted to attend an Easter sunrise service this year, but since the earliest service my church has starts at 8:30, that meant finding a different church to visit. There is a big sunrise service at the Lincoln Memorial, but I was looking for something with a familiar liturgy and Holy Communion. 

When I found out that St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Old Town holds a sunrise service at St. Paul’s Cemetery, I was intrigued. The cemetery was established in 1809, and is in a corner of Old Town with several other old cemeteries.

I decided that I wanted to go, but then spent hours fretting over what to wear. If I were going to a “regular” service on Easter Sunday, I would dress up. If I were going to a service at a park, I would dress casually. But, how do you dress for an Easter service at a cemetery? I couldn’t find any hints on the church’s website or Facebook page, so I asked my friends for advice.

From Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, I felt that the one thing that might hold me back from actually going to this service was not knowing what to wear. Then I remembered this passage from Matthew 6: 24-30:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin,  yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 

I realized it was ridiculous to let self-consciousness or fear of judgment keep me from attending services on the holiest day of the church calendar. So, on Sunday morning, I got up early, put on a bright sweater, nice black jeans and nice boots (a safe bet according to my friends), and went to a cemetery to celebrate the Resurrection.   

This was before the service, after I saw others taking pictures!

Standing there among graves that marked lost loved ones, I was able to imagine what it might have been like for Mary Magdalene to arrive at the tomb planning to tend to Jesus, and finding the stone moved away. I could picture her questioning the gardener, worrying about what might have been done with his body, and then recognizing that Jesus was there with her. 

The Grave Of The Female Stranger was our altar table. 

It was such a moving service, I felt silly for worrying about what I was wearing, especially when I saw how varied the dress code was (from jeans to suits or dresses). But my experience was a reminder of the many reasons that people can find it hard to go to church, and how important it is that regular church-goers welcome visitors with kindness–no matter what they are wearing! 

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Have you been to an Easter sunrise service?