Shopping at the Worship Mall

If we could have planned a book rather than a single issue of Liturgy on "emerging worship," it might have looked something like Bryan Spinks' recent The Worship Mall: Contemporary Responses to Contemporary Culture (New York: Church Publishing, 2010). Spinks, professor of liturgical studies at Yale University Divinity School, provides what I found to be a helpful overview of the variety of liturgical responses to contemporary consumer culture, including those that loosely fit under "blended," "praise and worship," "emerging," and "Celtic" (where the quotation marks take on a double meaning). It is helpful on two fronts--on the one hand, in its careful descriptions of these responses, and, on the other hand, in its equally careful critiques and questions.

Spinks suggests that Christian worship takes the character of the mall in two ways: 1) as religious traditions and practices are put "in competition with all the leisure and entertainment industries" and 2) as worship practices and styles are increasingly manufactured to "suit...personal taste or spirituality, all enticing in different ways, and in competition with one another" (xxiii). 

While these may not be new observations, they are significant for the problems toward which they point. For example, if religious practices, including worship, are but one more form of leisure activity, what does this mean for Christian understandings of conversion or transformation of one's life? Can we be "converted to" and "initiated into" a leisure activity or form of entertainment? What might it mean to think about "leisure" as a way of life? What does this imply for those for whom leisure remains always out of reach, for those for whom the choice to go to worship or to the mall on Sunday morning is not possible because they are required to be at work at the mall on Sunday morning?

And, if worship practices are increasingly manufactured (I use the word intentionally) to suit personal taste, whether in music, spirituality, theological belief, what are the consequences for the body we call "church"? Might Paul's discussion of the variety of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 help reframe the individualism of taste in a way that helps us recover some sense of the diversity our individual gifts as for the benefit of, the upbuilding of, a community of believers? What might it mean to explore the diversity of our gifts (as well as preferences and tastes) not as competitors in the satisfaction of desire but as necessary complements to one another?

Spinks concludes his book with observation that "organic development of the liturgy, providing the liturgical tradition is open to change [his emphasis], will probably be more successful than liturgical genetic engineering where we are always intervening to make liturgy contemporary" (215). Yet, as he makes clear in other places in his book, such organic development requires a community of belief that both knows its liturgical tradition well and is willing to live with it, worship through it, over time--that is, over a generation rather than a month or season. In the end, worship that has any kind of truth or faithfulness cannot and will not come from those who do not believe, but from a community that knows its deepest desires and hungers will be satisfied by gifts of "finest wheat" and the bread/Bread of life.

Ron Anderson is Styberg Professor of Worship at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and president of The Liturgical Conference.

Second Sunday of Easter--John 20.19-31

The gospel reading this week provides the closing "bookend" to the "octave" of Easter and to the story of Thomas. As Delmer Chilton wrote, "Thomas was not so much a doubter as he was an empiricist; that is, he is something of a 'scientific man.' Thomas was looking for empirical data, facts, hard and sure evidence, measurable and quantifiable upon which he could base his decision as to whether or not to believe in Jesus' resurrection. In this, he is no different than most of us are about most things, most of the time."

How, then, do we talk about "faith in a believable way to those who don't believe" in a culture that "has separated fact from faith" and that has "relegated religiosity to the category of taste or personal preference"?

Chilton answers this question: "Contrary to both science and traditional wisdom, seeing is not always believing. Something besides an informed, reasonable decision is going on here. Some who saw the risen Christ still doubted [Matthew 20.17], while others, who have never seen him believe fervently."

"Our problem is not a lack of information...our hesitancy is more a product of what we do know than what we don't know. We know that to commit our life to Christ is to commit ourselves to following Christ and the gospel wherever it might lead...We know that the one calling us [was] crucified... executed in the cruelest way possible. We know that the one calling us revealed himself by showing his wounds and suffering for the world and that we will be called upon to show our love for the world by being wounded and suffering for those whom the world has hurt and rejected. We know what it means to believe in Jesus, and our hesitancy to believe may be rooted in our hesitancy to risk taking up that cross...Do we consider the joys of following Christ worth the risk?"

Perhaps, as Taylor Burton-Edwards suggests, it is time to turn the tables on the question of our hesitancy and doubt. If we do consider the joys of following Christ worth the risk--even with our doubts, then "How might we act like Jesus in this story, going out of our way to offer ourselves and our witness to those who doubt?"

From Delmer Chilton, "Serving the Word" and Taylor Burton-Edwards, "Welcoming the Word" in Homily Service, 41.2 (2008): 119-121. Chilton is currently pastor of Holy Family Lutheran Church in Highlands, North Carolina. Burton-Edwards is director of worship resources with the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee.

Living the Liturgical Year-Arriving at the heart of faith

Writing on the cusp of the church's celebration of the "great three days," the Triduum, in which our liturgical celebrations take us from upper room to garden, to cross and tomb, and finally to resurrection and proclamation, it seems appropriate to offer these words concerning the whole of the Christian year. Mary Katherine Deeley helps locate our celebration of the liturgical year and of these days in a broader understanding of Christian spiritual disciplines. In her article "Living the Liturgy Year" [in Liturgy: Spiritual Disciplines 26.1 (January 2011): 20, 22] she writes,

"spiritual disciplines extend beyond the individual person to encompass the entire community of faith. At the same time, they also extend beyond the traditional articulation to include all habitual practices that draw us closer to God and to one another. For churches whose communal prayer finds its center in liturgy, one such discipline is the liturgical year...The discipline of living in recognition and awareness of the church year grants the community and all its members access to divine time as a means of marking the journey in this world. 

What advantage is there in this? Divine time is what brings us into communion with those who have gone before and those who will come after; divine time is the place in which the heart and spirit celebrates the coming of Jesus as though for the first time at Christmas and anticipates the coming of Christ at the end of all things as though it were happening now. To live the liturgical year as a community is to journey through this life in full awareness that God is present in all times and in all seasons. The readings of each season direct our hearts and minds toward a particular aspect of our relationship with God, each in its place until we have moved through the range of responses and find ourselves closer to God. The community that lives, prays, sings, and preaches in full awareness of the liturgical year will lead its members into a deeper relationship with God both as individuals and as a group."

What then of these three days, and of the weeks ahead? Where do they lead us? Deeley writes,

"In the triduum and beyond we become the living witnesses to the great paschal mystery that says so eloquently that death can become life and what is weak in us can be our strength. Christians encounter this reality throughout their lives when they move from dark times to the light of peace, or when they experience the many deaths that signify transformation. This is the mystery by which we make our way to God and it tells us that we have been changed undeniably and irrevocably by grace."

Mary Katherine Deely serves as the pastoral associate at the Sheil Catholic Center at Northwestern University. She also served as guest editor of Liturgy: Spiritual Disciplines on behalf of The Liturgical Conference.

Easter--Proclaiming Resurrection

As we think about the abundance of lectionary texts for this week, especially those for the Easter vigil and the festival services on Sunday, all of the texts point us to one thing: a proclamation of resurrection. Here is one form of that proclamation.

"The message of Jesus' resurrection is that this created world matters and that God has bridged the heavenly realm into this present world with healing life and all-conquering love...Resurrection is not about some comfortable afterlife, a great fairway in the sky, but about God having dealt with evil, and being now at work by God's own Spirit, to do for us and the whole world what God did for Jesus' body on that first Easter.

That is why we who celebrate do so with material things...We use bread and the fruit of the vine at the meal...We use candles and flowers and processions and banners and, above all, music; the world of creation has been reclaimed by the living God [and we] celebrate the fullness of life God gives us.

Christians believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, though...some are welcome not to believe it. But take that away, and Marx is probably right about Christian faith ignoring problems of the world. Take that away, and Freud is probably right that it is a wish-fulfillment religion. Take that away, and Nietzsche is probably right that Christianity is a religion for wimps. Put that back, and you have a faith that takes on the world today, with the Easter news that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

So we who celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ have an awesome responsibility. When we say 'Alleluia! Christ is risen!' we are saying that Jesus is Lord of the world, and that the present would-be lords are not."

From Sara Webb Phillips, "Serving the Word" in Homily Service, 40.5 (April 2007): 53. Sara Webb Phillips  is pastor of Brookhaven United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and former editor of Homily Service.

Requiems on Palm Sunday?

This may be an esoteric question, and more concerned with church music outside of the liturgy, but as we approach Palm Sunday it concerns an ongoing practice in the life of the church: As a church musician and liturgist, I am puzzled by the frequency and popularity of church choirs performing settings of the Requiem on Palm Sunday (though not doing so as part of the liturgy of the day). Why is this so?

Others have raised the question, but it doesn't seem to have any clear historical answer (there might be a dissertation for a liturgist or musicologist here). Like Tevye (in Fiddler on the Roof), we don't know why we do this, but it has come to be "tradition." An exchange on Ship of Fools a year or two ago raised the same question. One respondent noted that he "had never really thought of a requiem as a passion work" but "as the church's liturgy for the faithful departed and not about Our Lord's Passion." A second writer seconded this, adding "The implication, that we might be singing the Requiem for Jesus ('may he rest in peace'?), is staggering." Have church musicians simply decided, as another noted, that our entrance into this sad week in the church's life requires a "sad requiem"?

A different musical/liturgical tradition better reflects the not only the theological shape of Holy Week but also the church's use of scripture throughout the week, with the passion narrative from one of the synoptic gospels proclaimed on Palm Sunday, and the passion for John's gospel on Good Friday. Given this, one could argue that if a choir is looking for a "large work" for the beginning of Holy Week, the theological and liturgical shape of the week would send us toward musical settings of the passion--of which there are many (from J. S. Bach's settings of both the Matthew and John narratives forward to Arvo Part's setting of the John narrative, or even Stephen Schwartz's Godspell).

What is it that we think we are doing? Are we, as the one writer suggested, singing a "requiem for Jesus"? If so, what does this tell us about the character of our Christian faith? Does the church not believe, as the gospels tell us, that Christ is risen? Or, as Luke asks of the disciples, and of the church, on the Easter morning, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen."

Ron Anderson is Styberg Professor of Worship at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and president of The Liturgical Conference.

Palm/Passion Sunday

Liturgists and preachers often struggle with how to hold together the Palm/Passion texts for this week, and congregations often experience a kind of scriptural "whiplash" as we move from the celebratory opening of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem to the concluding words of the passion story. Yet, among the  things that hold these texts together is a question of identity. Paul Bieber draws attention to this in his comments this week:

"Here is the One who emptied himself, who humbled himself, who became obedient. In letting others do what they would to him, this is what Jesus did: He chose the identity he would have as others did their worst. He emptied himself to take the form of a slave, when by all rights he could assume full equality with God. He impoverished himself for the sake of his fellow human beings. He offered himself.

And we, too, are called to offer ourselves, to 'let the same mind be in us' as we choose our personal identity in this world, to think as he did when others would do their worst to us. But we don't want to do that--to set ourselves off from any sort of exercise of power in the world, to become a servant, to strengthen others after we have ourselves been sifted like wheat, to dine with those who will deny us, betray us.

Jesus' passion tells us who he is, and invites us to take on a whole new identity of our own. We enter into this week by hearing the story of Jesus' passion--his suffering and death. In holy baptism this story has become our own story; in Holy Week we make our way through it again, because it brings us (and has brought us, and brings us again and again) to life with Christ."

Confronted by, immersed in, these narratives yet again, who will we choose to be? Where and how will this identity become our own not only this week but in the weeks ahead?

From Paul Bieber, "Healing Word," Homily Service 40.5 (April 2007): 11. Paul Bieber is pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church in San Diego, California

Emerging worship--practices or shopping items

For the past month, we've been posting excerpts from the most recent issue of Liturgy: Emerging Worship. Each of the writers in the issue are thinking carefully about what it means to be "church" and how our patterns and practices of worship enable us to "accomplish" this. One of the tensions (and I do think of it as "tension"--a place where we are pushing/pulling or pressing up against one another) is the way in which the protestant churches of the 20th century and early 21st century seem focused on a consumer model of church growth and church identity. That is, the church has taken the practices and patterns that are intended to form and sustain us as Christian people and made them into items for a "shopping list," a set of commodities on offer.

Vincent Miller, in his exploration of the commodification of the church, Consuming Religion, argues that two consequences of this move are:

1) it tends to treat liturgical practices as if they stand on their own, independent of one another, and that their meaning is similarly independent; and

2) it removes our liturgical practices from the institutional and communal settings from which they derive their meaning and through which they come to shape our daily lives. (See Consuming Religion, 4-5)

My questions then are the following: How might we celebrate the kind of "retrieval" of the church's liturgical tradition that is present in the "emerging church"? How do we prevent the further commodification of liturgical and sacramental practice? How do we help new communities connect their meaning making through these practices with the tradition of meaning making throughout the church's history?

Ron Anderson is Styberg Professor of Worship at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and president of The Liturgical Conference.

Fifth Sunday in Lent - John 11:1-53

The raising of Lazarus is the last and perhaps the greatest sign in John's Gospel. It brings the coming age into the present, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. It also points us toward Holy Week, the Paschal Mystery, Good Friday and Easter, as John tells us that "from that day they took counsel how to put Jesus to death."

Like Mary and Martha, we might find ourselves disturbed that Jesus delays in coming to the aid of a beloved friend. Preachers might acknowledge these feelings. But the point in preaching is not to explain away Jesus’ action. As in his healing of the man born blind, Jesus' purpose in raising Lazarus is not to bring comfort but to reveal God. Yes, Jesus is moved with compassion. But even the loving concern that we are told Jesus has for Lazarus and the sisters is secondary to Jesus' purpose of making God known. Moreover, we are reminded that in John's Gospel, Jesus responds in his own time and not in response to the prompting of others.

The real purpose of Jesus' delay is to make clear that Lazarus is dead and that his rising is a miracle or sign. When Jesus arrives Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. Lazarus has begun to rot. He's begun to stink. According to rabbinic teaching, his soul, believed to hover over the body for three days, has departed. By the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus is dead. The only hope of restoring Lazarus to life lies in "the resurrection on the last day." Jesus proclaims, "I am the resurrection and the life." Ego eimi!

We know all too well that dead is dead. Like Lazarus, our only hope of life beyond death is Jesus' promise. Jesus says, "Those who believe in me, though they die, yet they will live. And everyone that lives and believes in me will never die." Believing that Jesus was victorious over death when he was "lifted up" on the cross, our hope for life beyond death both for us and for our loved ones rests entirely in Jesus.

In baptism our hope is realized. In baptism, much of what we hope for on Resurrection Day takes place. In baptism we are wrapped in death like Lazarus was wrapped in grave clothes. And from that watery grave, we hear Jesus call us by name, "Child of God, come out!" We hear the words of Jesus—"Unbind him, and let him go"—and God frees us to live a new life, even in the face of death.

That's what this story is all about. Jesus has the power to call us from the grave and unbind us from death. And Jesus does this for us as surely as he did it for Lazarus. Jesus not only calls us from the death that stands at the end of life. Jesus calls us from all the deaths that are part of life. Unbound from death, we are let go to live a new life.

To be unbound from death and let go to live a new life means continuously struggling with the question of how to use life to bear witness to Christ and to proclaim Christ's dominion. That's what Jesus is asking Mary and Martha to do. Jesus is standing with the grieving sisters at Lazarus' tomb and asking them to be unbound from death and open to new life. He says, "Take away the stone." And Martha shows just how bound up in death they are. She warns of the stench. But Jesus calls the sisters to breath in the stink of flesh that's been rotting for four days. Jesus challenges the sisters to stare death squarely in the face and to trust that they will see the glory of God revealed in new life. 

Kicking away the stone, breathing in the stench of death, and trusting in new life are the struggles of the baptized. These are also the tasks of Lent. Mary and Martha did it. They took away the stone and breathed in their brother's death. We are all mindful of saints who did it, women and men who, in the last weeks of their lives, take away the stone and breathe in their own death, sometimes even planning their own funeral. We all know of congregations who, after a long and hard struggle with how they can best use their life to bear witness to Christ and proclaim Christ's dominion, vote to take away the stone of congregational survival and breath in their church's death in order to proclaim what Mary and Martha saw, the glory of God revealed in new life.

"Lazarus, come out! Unbind him, and let him go." Mary and Martha saw Jesus stand outside their brother's tomb and shout. But for us, Jesus does one better. For us, Jesus climbs into the tomb himself, so that God can blow the stone away and defeat the power of death—from the inside. Jesus unbinds us from death and lets us go to live new life in a way that proclaims that the day of resurrection is coming and bears witness to the One in whom that day comes. Unbound from death, we are let go to live new life now, here, today.

The journey of Lent will surely direct us to a tomb and call us to take away the stone, to breathe in the stench of death, and to trust that Christ brings new life. The journey of Lent brings us where Christ has led the way—to be unbound by death and let go to live new life.

Where has the journey of Lent brought you and yours? What does it mean for the people of your congregation to be unbound by death and let go for new life? What does it mean for us to approach our tombs, to take away the stone and to breathe in death? What does it mean for us that God will be revealed in new life? How can we use our life to bear witness to Christ and proclaim Christ's dominion? What stones do we—both as congregations and as Christians—find difficult to kick away from the door of our tombs?

These are the issues to struggle with in preaching. For these are the questions of Lent. These are the callings of baptism. Jesus frees us to live in new ways that bear witness to Christ and proclaim Christ's dominion. Jesus frees us to trust that he will bring new life and that we'll see the glory of God. Be unbound from death and let go for new life! That’s the goal of the sermon.

Craig Satterlee, a member of The Liturgical Conference Board, is the Axel Jacob and Gerda Maria (Swanson) Carlson Chair of Homiletics at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.