Today is Ash Wednesday, six weeks till Easter, or the beginning of Lent.
We do not make much of these liturgical traditions in our fellowship. We have our reasons. And, they are good reasons. Let me make the following disclaimer: The following suggestion is in no way meant to cast doubt on our current approach to worship nor is it intended to provoke change in our current practices.
Take time to read Contratimes' latest post. Bill Gnade writes about the value of liturgical worship. I think you will find it interesting and very thought provoking.
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Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Lent is off and running
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20 comments:
I enjoyed that post. He brings up some interesting and thought provoking ideas. I enjoy the relaxing confines of our services, but I do believe their is something to be said about bringing out your "Sunday best". Their is a feeling of respect that a formal service allows. And I see nothing wrong with respect, especially when it comes to an older generation.
Whether it is me getting older or what, but I notice more when a kid treats me with respect in my office. Now I am not saying that a kid who comes into my office with his hat on backwards and saying "Yo!" is a bad kid, in fact they are some of my most enjoyable patients. But I can say that a kid who comes in and acts respectful and shows a manner or two makes a bigger impression on me and almost always is easier to deal with. The kid who is not respectful is about 50/50 on whether we have a positive experience.
That being said, since we are all children of God I think respect in the church service is a must. Now what one calls respectful is in the eye of the beholder. But going the extra mile (say in formality) to be respectful to God or to someone in an older generation is a positive in my mind.
This said from a not-so grumpy 34 year old.
If you check back at Contratimes, Bill has posted Part II of the series. It is a good read, too.
Jason – I appreciate your post and followed the link to read the article. After reading it I am very mixed on what I think of it.
Of course the author is very talented – and because he writes so well it’s easy to believe that his opinion is correct on the subject. But it seems a little judgmental in my view, that you can sit back and make assumptions as to what one is feeling when in worship, or why they do it in a certain manner -- Yet say in the end of the article…”When Episcopalians march into church in grand procession, why do they carry a crucifer before them, lifted high, leading the way? Is it mere empty formality? Is it mere show and excess? No, it is neither of those things. For the message is proclaimed on high: we can only approach God through the Cross. That is why, as the crucifer passes, Episcopalians bow and kneel, honestly acknowledging a wondrous fact.” The fact is, he has no clue what Mr. or Mrs. Episcopalian is really thinking in their heart, anymore than he can know why someone is singing a casual worship song. If his point is correct – then why have all the Bible translations? Aren’t the Older versions good enough? After all they’re full of respectful words. The translations are better partly because they speak a language we understand. I know this is not the only reason, but it is one of the reasons. And the same is true when it comes to worship… worship is about God, yes. But you can hardly come to the conclusion that singing a song that is written with a casual approach is not worship, look at David in the Psalms. He is often very casual in his words, but very respectful in his heart. And just like the Bible translations, songs written in the language we use communicate much better what our hearts feel toward God. I can’t remember when I sung a certain song because of how I looked or was perceived by another.
While I was reading the article I had flashbacks of my aunts and uncles and people of their age group trying to decide for me what I was thinking.
My other struggle is this… at Jesus death the curtain was torn from top to bottom. God wanted us to approach Him and be near. It was Jesus himself in John 15 who said…
“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
Scripture also shows us that when in the family – we are considered brothers of Jesus – we are family. (No I am not quoting the Pointer Sisters, but its fine if you want to think that.) My point here is… I’m pretty casual when in prayer, worship, or meditation. Now that doesn’t mean that I’m not respectful, it means that I approach Him as my Father, and friend, who I am in relationship with, and that’s what He calls me to do.
Ok – now that I’ve said all of this -- I need to say that I have written this very quickly, and with several interruptions, I believe what I’m trying to say, I just haven’t looked over it to make sure it makes sense.
BTW – It goes without saying that I believe God deserves our highest and greatest respect. But I don’t think pomp and ceremony necessarily show respect – It demonstrates formality but not necessarily respect, and I just can’t see how formality gets one closer to God.
Jamie,
I appreciate your thoughts--glad you read the post. I think I understand what you are saying. Much of the justification you made for informal worship is what I was considering when I wrote that we have good reasons for being non-liturgical in our tradition.
The main reason I linked to Mr. Gnade's post was that it provides great insight to the liturgical worshipper. He articulates the heart of liturgy. That is something to which I have rarely been exposed. It helps me to understand what makes high church folks tick.
I am glad you found it thought provoking. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I enjoyed reading it! I found myself saying "yes!" while reading it. He is my father, my friend, and my savior and that requires openness, honesty and genuine relationship but He is also my God and that requires formality because afterall, He IS King. It's important to realize who I'm talking to when I call him Father.
I am glad you liked it.
I have to say that I lean much more toward informal worship rather than formal ritualistic worship. I say this for several reasons:
First of all, the New Testament calls for regular people to be involved in church worship.
29Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
36Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? 37If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. 38If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.
1 Cor. 14
I think we all get more out of the experience when we hear our brothers share their hearts at the communion table rather than just recite the same verse of two and proceed to pass the plate. Christ himself was most informal at the original communion service we quote from so often.
The next thing, dressing up to show “respect” I don’t understand. We put on a false sense of pride in how good we are and how good we look. “Look at me, I look good, I’m prosperous, everything is wonderful in my life.” The old Mac Davis song, “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in everyway” comes to mind. What does it say when we put on a $200 suit, $90 shoes, a $35 tie and put 75 bucks in the offering? When I go to God I can only go to him in uttermost humbleness as a man and He is God. If I stand proud it will be on His terms, not the world’s terms.
Last, when the temple veil was split from top to bottom and major shift occurred in man’s approach to God. No longer would only a few “priestly” people be able to go before the throne of God, but each man would need to approach Him through the Spirit placed into his heart. Formalities and rituals were replaced with heartfelt longings to be close to the Father and Son on a level of friendship.
12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other. John 15
Through Christ, the Father reached out to man on a new level, a level of one on one with Him. But this is hard for man to accept. We still see man wanting to go to God through confessional booths, sacraments, through priest, bishops and popes. We still want “noble” men to wear robes and crowns and waive incense in processions because this keeps us arms length from God. But the New Testament level is that of friendship, one on one with God.
Very well said, Scott!
Greetings, everyone!
I would like to comment here, but I will await Jason's invitation. I don't want to just break in on others' conversations. And I will not be offended in the least if it be deemed proper that I keep my thoughts to myself.
(My thanks, Jason, for honoring me with this kind link.)
In Christ, bidding you all peace and mirth!
Bill Gnade
Dear Bill Gnade,
As Jason's older cousin and good friend, I, for one, would welcome your comments to our humble blog site.
Please proceed at your convenience.
Dear Jason and Scott, and everyone else,
Thanks for letting me join this conversation. I am honored not only by Scott's link to my essays, but also by each of you reading them and commenting here with such passion and thoughtfulness. Thank you.
I am not sure what to say. I might start by pointing out to everyone that there is also a Part II and Part III, with several comments, concerning "informed formality." Perhaps as my series unfolds my ideas will become clearer (one can only hope). In fact, I think there will even be a Part IV and Part V before I am through.
For Jamie R.,
You raise some good points. Yes, of course, I might be overly judgmental, but judgmentalism per se is not a bad thing. For St. Paul tells us not to judge those outside the Church, but those inside; and I've stayed pretty much inside. Jesus tells us not to judge, and then tells us not to throw pearls before swine. But one needs to make judgments about pearls and swine to determine what makes them different from each other, so Jesus must be meaning something much more serious in his warnings about judgment.
You point out quite rightly that I cannot tell the sincerity or earnestness of the person sitting next to me in church. It is not my job to determine anyone's sincerity but my own. But I can discern whether the song one is singing is filled with empty words; or whether the prayers offered are uttered thoughtlessly or carelessly, indifferent to syntax, grammar, punctuation. And I can discern whether one form of worship is promoting unity in Christ better than another; is better suited for directing people to die to themselves and become one body before God. At least, I think I can. But I know this, too: that the old man sitting next to me reciting the same old written prayers may in fact be more (invisibly) sincere than the vibrant young preacher who prays publicly with such earnestness that you feel like blushing. Only God knows the heart, and it would seem to me that we run into danger when we talk about sincerity and earnestness, as such talk may lead people to put on airs in order to demonstrate, to others, the authenticity of their feelings for God. In short, earnestness may become a show, a display, even a reason for competition with one's brothers and sisters: I am more earnest, more intensely passionate, than you.
But all these are things for God to decide, of course; and I would be remiss if I said that I KNEW genuine sincerity, or even false sincerity. Moreover, I would be remiss if I suggested that sincerity was a bad thing. In fact, I think it is a good thing, and I find that liturgy beckons me to be fully sincere when I pray. I mean, I've tried to pray the Lord's Prayer sincerely, from start to finish, just one time. Though I have said it perhaps thousands of times, I've yet to fully mean it. And the same can be said for most of my prayers: the fault is not in the ritual but in the heart.
I can't really answer your argument (from analogy) about Bible translations. But I might try to by pointing out that the Jewish religious world familiar to Jesus was quite formal: there were holidays and priests and rituals and holy places. And the images of sacrifice and altars did not end with Christ; they actually began, albeit in a newer form. St. Paul talks about the "altar", "sacrifice", and Communion all in the same passages in Corinthians, even suggesting that demons can be present in certain meats and certain cups (the cup of demons); which suggests that if demons can be present in physical things, then perhaps Christ is present in Communion in a physical way. And surely many churches today invoke even Christ's words when serving communion, urging partakers to confess their sins before receiving bread and wine: "If, when you come to the altar, you realize that you have something against your brother... go to your brother and make peace with him first." What altar is Jesus speaking of?
Anyhow, I've gone off base, I think, though my point is that the early Church was not casual; it was informed by the practices of Judaism. But in Christ the practices were purified and made accessible to everyone: we are all a royal priesthood. But this did not stop St. Paul and the other apostles from pointing out that there were, in fact, people in the Church who held more authority, more priestly qualifications, than others. But germane to your point --and if I may borrow your analogy-- is this: reading the Bible in better translations is all well and good; but I am asking us to all learn Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek! I don't want to worship in translation, I don't want to worship in the modern tongue that makes things easy: I want the meat and potatoes of the original WAY. Does that make sense? For surely none of us would argue that the translations are better than the original words. We all want, don't we, access to the truest, best and even oldest tradition, just like we pine for Christ's original words?
I don't know if this helps, but I've tried.
Scott G.,
Both you and Jamie discuss the temple veil being torn in two, which is a wonderful symbol and fact. It does mean access to the divine is made possible through our being in Christ, the High Priest Himself. He makes our access possible, for only through Him do we have access to the Father. As such, we sit as priests in the highest priest of all.
For Episcopalians, the supreme point of every worship is the Eucharist, the breaking of bread: it is the culminating and central fact of even the earliest church gatherings in ancient Palestine. The whole liturgy guides the heart and mind towards this unifying meal (and we can only hope people are sincere when they receive it). But when Jesus first served this meal, He served it, as priest and rabbi, at what was a formal holiday meal. And people (the disciples) had to receive that meal from Him. So, since all of the Episcopal Church's acts in worship are sacramental, since they are symbolic of historic and heavenly realities, there is indeed a priest present at Communion; but not as mediator between God and man, but between Church and Risen Lord, acting as the server of Christ's enriching life. After all, someone has to stand there, in Christ's stead: we can't all just be servers and receivers simultaneously: someone serves, someone receives. If we are all servers, then no one receives; if we are all receivers, no one prepares and serves. A priest stands as the symbol of Christ's priestly presence in our midst; and he stands as a descendent of the apostles, an authority who can say, "This is indeed Christianity."
Of course, this is all theory, and way too philosophical, but I am straining to get at something difficult. And I am not talking about personal, private access to God; I am only talking about corporate worship and our response to God's presence in our lives as a church. The veil is indeed torn. There is no mediator between God and man except Jesus Christ. But surely there are mediators between Christ and man -- His witnesses, who testify to His presence and redemptive acts in their lives. We each mediate all the time, bringing people to our Lord and Savior in every testimonial we offer. Christianity is rife with mediators; our very vocation is mediation, with our ministry being one of reconciliation between two estranged partners. Even I, as witness, stand between Christ and man.
I know that I have probably contradicted myself somewhere, but that happens. I pray that I have not angered anyone; and I hope that I have not alienated anyone with my penchant for waxing philosophical. But most importantly, I hope I have helped.
Peace to each of you. Feel free to contact me anytime if you have questions, doubts, disagreements. I need you. I need your feedback, your wisdom, your insight. I don't have all the answers. I might have none of them. But the Church is struggling, and I, like so many, am struggling to help the Bride of Christ prepare for Her wedding.
Bill Gnade
Bill, I really appreciate your comments and want to welcome you to our blog. Today has been a busy day at the ole workplace and have not had a chance as yet to respond. WELCOME. I'm sure Jason and Jamie feel the same.
I welcome you as well. :)
Bill,
Thank you for coming by. You will always be welcome here.
Our heritage in the Churches of Christ stem from the revivalism of the early 19th century American frontier. One feature of such is our lack of value given to pre-American history. Our religious forefathers sought to restore Christianity in its simplicity. They often decried ornate buildings and ritualistic services. Traditionally, little emphasis was given to the need for formal religious education.
Times have changed. The CofC is currently in something of a transitional phase. Some question whether or not we will weather the storm. I believe we will.
I believe that much of our heritage has value (i.e. relevance) in our world today. But, we have work to do. Those of us who assume leadership roles must be open to the critical evaluation of our heritage as well as the application of our (forgive me) unwritten creed.
For me, this is exciting! I like a little change here and there. In all seriousness, my faith is not grounded in our heritage but in the Shepherd, who will lead His sheep. That may sound trite, but for me, it expresses a liberating reality.
Shared commitment is of greater spiritual value than shared ideology. Bill, your commitment to the cause of Christ is a blessing to me.
Peace to you.
Bill –
Thank you for joining us, and I share the feelings of Jason, Scott, Jennifer, and so many others in saying you are very welcome here. You’re among friends.
I want to apologize for not commenting before now – sometimes my schedule is busy enough that I’m unable to blog for a few days at a time. I’m not complaining, nor trying to sound overly important – I love my call, just saying that even my personal blog gets a little stale for lack of post time. (Maybe that’s a blessing for those reading it, assuming someone really is reading.)
Anyway, I want to start by saying I really appreciate your comment, and also the way you openly share your heart in your writing. I sense a wonderful genuineness in you that is refreshing, and encouraging. I also sense your spirit when you call for a greater respect for God and the way we approach worshipping Him. I desire a greater honor for Him in my life and in the lives of those around me as well. Thank you for your call to greater respect.
I also agree with you that we are, at times called to make a “righteous judgment,” or that we can “tell a tree by its fruit.” We are often in situations where we have to make decisions about the actions of another, and only by the grace and guidance of God’s spirit are we able to properly discern the intent or character of that person. My comments about your post were meant to point out that I believe it’s very difficult to make a judgment that one’s heart can be wrong for being casual in their worship, while the other is righteous because of their formal bowing when the cross is lifted high. The point I wanted to make is that the action can, but doesn’t always reveal the heart. That’s why Jesus called some “white washed tombs, full of dead men’s bones.” Sometimes we are deceived by the external, but Jesus has called us to be changed inwardly, then the whole would be clean. I think this is part of my struggle with ritual and ceremony. I’m not saying we need to do away with all of it, I’m saying that it is so easy to just go through the motions while never engaging your heart. The scripture says in Psalms 51…
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise
My comment to this is simply that when it comes to things of worship I believe God is looking at our hearts...
When Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, she gets a little uncomfortable and tries to divert the conversation by calling Jesus a prophet and brings up the worship issue to which Jesus says…
“Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:21-24
I grew up in the Churches of Christ, and we had a set structure of how things were to be done so as to please God. Sing a few songs, have a prayer, sing a few more, have communion, then came the sermon and the invitation. All of this was to be done decently and in order, a ritual, reverent and holy – and God would be pleased. My problem with this is that I know a set order doesn’t bring one closer to God. Just because I may recite some scripture before serving communion doesn’t make the service correct, what does is if God is honored in the hearts of those serving and being served. If God is lifted, then He is honored and those lifting Him are blessed.
I also believe that our relationship with God is very personal, and that I really don’t want to stand between anyone and God, nor do I want anyone to stand between me and Him. I know Jesus is our mediator, and not any man. That’s part of the beauty of the veil being torn…no longer was the High Priest or anyone else the go-between, now it’s just between us and Him. That’s another way I see ceremony and ritual, another man doing worship for me. I’m not saying I’m right in this, I’m only saying that’s how it seems to me. You’re very welcome to help me understand this better.
Ok, so this could go on and on, Romans 12:1-2 comes to mind – our very lives as worship to God – what a wonderful thought. But I need to move on so as not to bore anyone too much.
As for your thoughts on seeking the old traditions, the meat and potatoes of the original way, and all of us learning Hebrew… I think these are all honorable efforts and very challenging to accomplish. But is Christ only in the “Old Way?” We all know that God is more modern than we will ever be, we’ll never catch Him. He created it all, and He is not only our history, but our present and future as well. When Jesus walk the earth his message was the message of good news, and it was shared in a way that was contemporary to the time. And I believe that if he were here today that He would share the message of good news and it would be contemporary to our times. Yet I believe He would still call us to be clean on the inside and not just a tomb full of dead men’s bones. I’m saying this to say we are not so much an emerging church, but we are somewhat contemporary. By this I mean we sing some of the newer songs, and we often use power point. The power point is something that has been useful in some interesting ways. The mothers with young children have often said to me how helpful it is to have the songs and scripture on the wall, because their hands are always full, so it’s hard to hold the songbook or Bible. If you’ve preached or taught very much, you probably know that few people actually turn in their Bibles to follow the class or sermon. Here I find power point a blessing because the members are all looking at the word that is being read to them. I know you make the comment that this is for us, not God – and I somewhat agree, and so is the building. But the beauty of the building and the power point is that used properly they can be used to bring honor to God. Used improperly they’re only a distraction.
Ok – I’ve said enough, or maybe too much. I hope this doesn’t sound like an attack, I said all of this not to be critical of you or your thoughts; I’m actually encouraged that you care enough to blog with us. And I really appreciate and am challenged by your desire for deeper honor and respect for God in worship. I think we both desire the same thing, only coming at it in different ways.
God has blessed you with an incredible gift for writing. (But you already know that.) I hope all I’ve written makes sense, and doesn’t just cause confusion.
One more thing… I need you as well - we all do.
Jamie, I think you made a great comment! It came out clear and even I understood it and I'm blonde. I'm sure Mr. Gnade will understand it too, even if he's blonde. He's wearing a hat in the picture so I can't tell. ;)
I do understand!
I am in a rush, so I can't respond fully. But I will say this: I am bald as a bone, with very blonde skin. So I am very much a natural blonde in the truest--and saddest--sense of the word.
Peace to you all!
Gnade
Thank you, Jamie, and everyone else, for such kind words. I am blessed, and I do indeed feel that I am among friends.
We agree here: God looks at the heart. I just don't believe that the rituals, formalities, customs and ceremonies are the problem: the problem is our hearts. Written prayers are not empty; it's the heart that no longer means the prayers that is empty. I mean, let me just post here what I think is one of the most beautiful prayers ever written:
Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we thine unworthy servants
do give thee most humble and hearty thanks
for all thy goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all men.
We bless thee for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for thine inestimable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we beseech thee,
give us that due sense of all thy mercies,
that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful;
and that we show forth thy praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to thy service,
and by walking before thee
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit,
be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.
This prayer, the General Thanksgiving from the Book of Common Prayer, is something I've tried to mean, from beginning to end, just once in my life. There is nothing wrong in the prayer itself, and it reads far better than perhaps any spontaneous prayer I've ever expressed. Of course, I believe in both written AND spontaneous prayer. It's just that I do not believe that abandoning the former is a guarantee that REAL prayer is occurring. Curiously, I just got an email from an editor of a magazine who is putting together an article on prayering with insincere language. THAT is the problem with everything in Christ: we're insincere (much of the time). But I am sure our Lord is patient even with that (or so I hope)!
Now, when Jesus says that God shall be worshiped in "spirit and in truth," I take note that He is speaking to a woman whose people are prevented, by socio-political and physical barriers, from worshipping God in a certain physical place. The common belief was that God was after all rather local. Jesus is not saying that our worship is to be devoid of physicality, it's just that God has not limited Himself to a particular temple mount.
We are all sacramentalists, though many of us don't know it. We believe in certain physical things serving as symbols to help us worship (in our hearts) properly. Some believe in silence, some believe in making a loud noise. Some believe that a church should exemplify the heavenly courts; others believe that the church should emulate the simplicity of a manger, where there is no place for Christ to lay his head. Some believe in kneeling, as a sign of humble reverence; as others believe in dancing, as a sign of bliss of soul. The empty, plain church is as sacramental, as rife with sacramentalism, as St. Peter's Basilica. Both perhaps represent different sets of holy things.
Nowhere do we see in Scripture God as a disembodied Spirit. He is always presented in terms of some sort of created thing: A fiery bush; a voice in the night, a whirlwind, cloud or column of fire; a donkey or even a man. And we at no times have any instruction or any suggestion that we are to worship God in some sort of interior, disembodied and nearly buddhistic state: we have bodies, bodies that are to be involved in all of creation, including the creation of real worship.
When I love my wife, I do not do so in a disembodied state. I touch her hand, I give her a ring, I buy her flowers. To truly demonstrate we are one, we create a child, something that incarnates our love and pleasure. And this is not the only part of my life that is embodied: every part of my life is this way, and I express myself in countless physical ways. In fact, everything I've ever learned of God has come through my senses.
So, then, for me, the formalities of worship, dangerous in the hands of inattentive and lazy believers, are powerfully helpful in fixing my whole being on the realities of the Gospel. When I bow, I am hopefully bowing in my soul; when I kneel, I mean to bring my whole being into submission (and not something inside of me, like my spirit). Spirit and body are powerfully linked; none of us has known one without the other. We are physical beings, and God wants us to properly use the physical world to feed ourselves; and it is through the things of the world we offer our gratitude and praise back to Him. I mean, if God only wants a contrite and broken spirit, then surely contrition takes a physical posture as well? Is not David clothed in sackcloth and ashes, is he not curled up in his bed, grieving at his sin? It's not purely something intellectual or spiritual that he's experiencing: His very postures reflect the realities of the world before God.
It's amazing to me that God chose to clothe Adam and Eve before expelling them from Eden, telling them (eventually) that to remove them in all contexts but one (holy matrimony) is to defile themselves, though WITHOUT those symbols covering their private parts they were in fact holy BEFORE the fall. In short, there is something about physicality that should inform what we do in worship: God makes things for us to use in the fallen world to guide us back to the perfect world.
Of course, I know that you all are not denying the body in worship. What we are talking about is formalism, and whether having less or more is the direction the Church should be going in.
Jamie says he does not need another person worshipping for him, as a mediator. That's cool. I ask myself: Is a priest a mediator between me and God? Yes, of course. Is a person praying for me also a mediator? Yes. Do I ever ask someone to mediate for me, I mean, do I ever ask someone to pray for me; or do I always go directly to God because I can, by myself, because there is no mediator between God and man?
I guess what I am asking is, why have others pray for you if you have direct access to God? And why listen to a preacher, or a prophet; why heed a healer or a visionary or a soloist or a choir if you have access to the same Spirit, the same God, the same Word, the same Song?
And can you imagine serving the Lord's Supper to yourself merely because you can?
The priest in the Catholic Church is a sacrament. Of course, the Church does not teach that you MUST go through a priest to access God in Christ, though the prescriptions of the Church, like Paul's in 1 Cor. 11, do detail how folks should access Christ through the Eucharistic Meal. But the priest helps us affix our minds and eyes on the Risen Lord, who really is a Risen Lord, full of flesh and bones. For there before us is a real man, breaking bread with real fingers. I touch him; he touches my tongue with holy bread. I taste Christ, and I find that it is indeed good. And then the Holy Wine, the blood of the Great Vine, slakes my burning thirst. I make the sign of the cross in front of me, physically declaring that the Cross stands between me and everything else: I am saved through my Vicar, the First Vicar of the grand Vicarious Atonement my simple crossing gesture proclaims. I am nothing without that cross, and my hand cannot but sign that mystery over my dying, resurrecting body. I return with the Sacrament of Christ in me, and myself in Him, filling my very real body.
I have lost track of myself. Perhaps it is the Lifehouse CD playing right now in my headphones that has distracted me. But I know in my heart we agree here; our agreement just takes different forms. I think we agree that when we treat marriage casually, we treat our spouses and children casually; when we treat sexuality casually, we treat our bodies and marriage casually; when we treat intercourse as nothing special, we open the door to other forms of sexual expression that we once considered abhorrent. I guess I am suggesting that when we treat worship casually, we are not only going to treat God casually, we are going to cheapen the Church beyond repair.
Lastly, forgive me if I've sounded judgmental about Powerpoint. I know that there are benefits to it, though Jamie's one image, of a woman holding children in her arms preventing her from holding a hymnal, brings to mind my mother-in-law, long ago in church with eight children, all standing next to her, hymnals in each of their hands. I have wondered how any of us will worship if we ever lose electricity, dependent as we are on overhead projectors and amplifiers. I am just concerned that we are almost making worship less portable, less universal, and more "local," as we get used to electricity's benefits. Who knows?
Forgive my verbosity!!
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ! For He chose us ...
Thanks for the hospitality!
Bill Gnade
PS. I don't know if folks have read all my essays on this topic at my site, but I do delve into all this quite thoroughly.
Bill,
I found your comment very insightfull and I'm so very glad to have someone new to our blog adding to the mix of ideas and thoughts. I appreciate anything that challenges our thinking because it keeps us all on our toes and keeps things between us and God moving in a positive direction......active! Sometimes we all need a little goose in the butt to open our eyes to the world around us and to be reminded that there is more to worshipping God than what we ourselves have always known and experienced. I enjoy finding out what others do to worship Him. Very informative! Thanks!
Well, Jennifer, you are welcome. And I must thank you, too.
The dialogue here is truly a dialogue; I feel that the insights shared and learned are reciprocal.
There is a kindness at this site that I have not find nearly anywhere else.
Peace.
Gnade
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