A Defense of the Liturgy

 

              I know folk like Ross Douthat pooh-pooh naming the social good of the liturgy and the church as adopting the position of a quisling to culture, but I disagree. Focusing on the transcendent frame is very important, it is why I encouraged my congregation to have God conversations and why I added a 4^th D to my conception of ministry in the year of our Lord 2024. That said, noting how people’s physical lives are impoverished by a lack of practicing the liturgy, is worthwhile.

              If you’d like to read the broad strokes of my thoughts on the 7 Central Things of Worship, here is my most comprehensive thoughts. But, for this post, I’ll be focusing on the absence of the 7 central things.

Gathering:

              The recently released documentary, Join or Die is a popularization of Robert Putman’s famous book Bowling Alone. It documents the rise and fall of club/league culture, and points out that not gathering with other people is disastrous both for individuals and for whole societies. On the individual level not being an active member of at least one organization is as detrimental to one’s health as picking up a major vice, like smoking or overeating. For societies it is the difference between kleptocracy and democracy. So, gathering weekly with your fellow Christians doesn’t sound so bad when compared to the alternative, does it?

Baptism:

              The church in every age has a built in buffer against bigotry—Baptism. We can point to that famous phrase found in Galatians, “In Christ there is no…” and add whatever division the world has created in the present moment. In Christ there is no cis or trans, in Christ no black or white, in Christ no red or blue, in Christ no foreigner or native. We quite often fail to live up to that ideal, but it is always there as a prophetic wooing, “Come back to the font you whose ultimate Identity is in Christ Jesus.” In the face of Apartheid and segregation and the murder of Matthew Shepherd—look again, that’s a CHILD OF GOD! That’s the IMAGE OF GOD! You are a child of God, ACT LIKE IT! Imagine if you were regularly reminded of that reality! If your identity and the identity of your neighbor was grounded in grace! Imagine if our society was less bigoted, because a good portion of us had to make a mark of the cross upon our brow before brow beating the “other”.

Confession and Forgiveness:

              I regularly hear complaints about our country being too litigious, people being too sensitive, no one having a sense of shame, and that there is never a way to back down in a confrontation. What if there was an alternative to tit for tat confrontation, a way to wrestle with having fallen short other than a shame spiral or complete denial that you’ve ever done something wrong? What if we could soothe and ameliorate hurts instead of holding onto them or resenting the one we’ve wronged? What if there were ways of righting a wrong and receiving an apology and rectifying the wrong that didn’t involve going to court? Well, according to the Christian tradition, there is, confession and forgiveness. In fact, there is a concrete process for doing so, most earnestly described by Desmund Tutu—the fourfold path of forgiveness.

Word:

              Especially with the gaping wound of our partisan divide, it feels like we aren’t telling the same story. Our news is siloed, our lives are cut off from one another by garage doors and diverse area codes, our fables, myths, and metanarratives are told by politicians—mediated by storytellers with axes to grind. What if instead, once a week, we shared a common story? How might that transform the ugliness we've all embraced?

Thanksgiving

We are an anxious people, drawn into that dis-ease by a sense of lack, a sense of want, a sense of avarice even. Our souls are cultivated by an artificial sense of scarcity, advertisements that turn our attention to what we do not have. In that mentality of scarcity, we lose our sure footing, resilience and very selves—all this in one of the most well-off countries in the world! It doesn’t have to be that way, we can name everything as gift, and in so doing recognize that we have enough, that abundance is on offer.

Meal

              For some time there has been talk of a “generosity crisis”. While a few super rich people and corporations are currently propping up charities, millions and millions fewer people donate to charities and volunteer their time, than in previous generations. Some of that has to do with the average person being squeezed economically, some of it has to do with a lack of trust in institutions and the breakdown in community Robert Putman talks about, and some of it has to do with people being out of practice. Well, I’ve got news for you, every time a congregation receives the Lord’s Supper—Holy Communion—we are participating in “The economy of the City of God.” We receive the generous, priceless, gift of the body of Christ, and in turn are sent to be that very body in the world. Receiving grace, we offer grace, receiving the generosity of God, we are moved to be generous. And, funny enough, the statisticians and psychologist agree with this theological statement, the most generous folk, are religious folk!

Sending

              Piggypacking off that last point, in a world where consciously avoiding assisting our neighbor (just look at any of those hidden camera viral videos with people passing a stranger in need, or search your own heart when someone asks for assistance) and where we have grown to believe we are so time poor we hoard our hours and our minutes, isn’t it amazing that I have the audacity to use a phrase like: “sent to be that very body in the world.” That’s a dangerous thing, to understand leaving a church building as a call to go and entertain angels unaware, that’s downright countercultural! But that’s part of what goes on at a typical Sunday service. We are priming ourselves to serve and to be sent for the sake of our neighbors.

Conclusion

              So, what am I saying with all this? That liturgical worship, worship that encompasses the seven central things, is expansively good!

-It is good in a spiritual way that is maybe too ephemeral or transcendent or unquantifiable to justify the practice to anyone not already wooed by its mysteries.

-It is good in a nameable individual way as I’ve spelled out before: I’m better at being in community, I have an increased sense of self-worth, am better at getting over slights and making sense of life, and I am more content, generous, and gentle, because I worship.

-But also having a meaningful number of people practicing the seven central things is good in a way that benefits society at large. We flavor our neighborhoods and nations. Where there is loneliness, we offer community. Where there is bigotry, we offer identities rooted in baptism and loyal to the truth that all people are made in the image of God. Where there is enmity, we offer a path to reconciliation. Where there is a broken story, we offer narratives that can cross many boundaries. Where there is greed and scarcity, we offer abundance, resilience, and generosity. Where there are walls of separation and unmet needs, we offer assistance and neighborliness.

Truly, the liturgy is very good.