Faith Works 2-15-20

Faith Works 2-15-20

Jeff Gill

 

Public work in spiritual practice

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When you have a standard, repeated, recurring pattern of words and speech in a public event, you have a liturgy of sorts.

 

Liturgy is one of those churchy terms that churches sometimes try to avoid using, but it really has a place beyond worship settings.

 

"I'll go tally the votes" and "Jeff, the tribe has spoken" are part of a liturgy on "Survivor." Many reality TV shows have an interesting liturgical element to their stock phrases, including the now infamous "You're fired" from "The Apprentice," but also the steps in the boardroom leading up to that line.

 

And in church, even for non-attenders, some of our lines have seeped back out into the culture. If you say "The Lord be with you" there are quite a few strangers who will respond "And also with you," even though in certain settings that response has been gently altered to "And with your spirit." Liturgy is both timeless, and ever changing as language and elements of public worship change.

 

The word comes from Greek, basically, "leitourgia" which means "public service" or "public working." Some have tried to bend the etymology into "the work of the people," and while I think that's a bit of a stretch, there's certainly the clear implication of a public act, not a private piece of work, where the audience or congregation or participants have their place in the public working of worship as well.

 

Liturgy holds a very odd relationship to the "worship wars" we've been discussing here. In one sense, liturgical worship is seen as basically identical to traditional worship, and is held in contrast to so-called contemporary worship, which is generally not so liturgical.

 

Or is it?

 

I've been to enough contemporary Christian services to know that even in its radical informality, there tends to be a certain pattern to the countdown timer on the screens, the opening songs, usually three of them, the prayer to transition to announcements and/or offering, the dismissal of the kids to children's church and the preacher's own templates for getting into the text for the day, making their points, and coming to a close often with the prefatory words "as the praise team makes their way back up onto the stage" for a final song.

 

When Jeff Probst says "Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode" he's not invoking God or holy insights, but he is giving structure to the public expression of what he's working on, so as listener/participants we know where we are, and our own reactions can be both shaped by the program and freed to reflect on our own thoughts about winning, losing, and surviving.

 

In the same way, liturgy for a faith community gathering can have elements that are ancient and sacred, or as tedious and typical as "if you'll look at the announcements on the back of the bulletin…" Both sorts of formalized, ritualized speaking help us know where we are, shape the gathered worshipers in some ways but also free up our preoccupations to do our own reflection on what's happening in this "public service."

 

I have been powerfully shaped in the growth and depth of my personal faith in Jesus Christ by the forms and norms of liturgical worship. I think there's a unique formative power to using words that, in T.S. Eliot's words from "Little Gidding" from "Four Quartets," are what have been said before in certain places elsewhere and here before, "Where prayer has been valid." That very liturgically grounded poem goes on to say "And prayer is more/Than an order of words, the conscious occupation/Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying."

Part of what I was trying to address last week was my dismay at the fact that those who love liturgy too often, I believe, run down the spontaneous and impromptu spirituality of contemporary styles of worship assembly – and those who find their spiritual strength built up by contemporary informality of worship too often mock and condemn liturgical worship as "empty of intention" and lacking in true personal meaning.

 

I would lift up that both approaches have a place and a value. I know that to some there is an absolute spiritual necessity to worshiping according to one particular set of words and forms. I've never been convinced of the rightness of any single liturgy in my own spiritual walk, but I am certain as a minister that you should be mindful of the liturgies you are using, whether you've been aware of the patterns you've fallen into or not! Because in public worship, there's always a liturgy at work somewhere.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's probably not done on this subject, but you knew that. Tell him what you've wondered about worship at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.