Confessions of an Incomplete Liturgical Nerd

True Confession: I’m a liturgy nerd.  

I’m a sucker for good order, for letting Scripture “dwell in me richly”, for the beauty of a chanted kyrie (even if I can’t do it), and a reverent Eucharistic prayer that places Christ’s inauguration of the New Covenant squarely in the context of God’s entire salvation narrative beginning in Genesis, for a full-on cross-led procession in and out of the service.  I like this stuff because I think it points to Jesus.  I like it because it’s different, and it reminds me that, as a Christian, I participate in a reality that is simultaneously “not of this world” and also the most real of all realities.  I like the liturgy, and “high church” because it’s the Sesame Street method of learning the faith – lex orandi, lex credendi, and when we pray and sing and read the actual words of Scripture, over and over and over again, we learn them, we marinate in them, and the Word that goes out and does not return empty transforms us, slowly, deeply, over time.  I love the old hymns.  I love that they were written by people with a deep faith and love for the Lord, and I love that they were written to teach and defend the faith.  “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” is a beautiful, haunting, lovely, deep, rich hymn – more so when you know that it was written in the 4^th century at a time when the debate about the quality of Jesus’ divinity was raging, threatening to tear the Church apart.  In short, I believe in mystagogy.

I’ll be honest – I think that when we scale down or eliminate altogether the depth and richness of our liturgical heritage, of our hymnic tradition, of the Eucharistic celebration in favor of a couple spontaneous prayers, a few songs that were mostly written for performance rather than congregational singing, and a “message” (however orthodox and well-delivered) given from a “stage”, we have lost a lot. 

And I’ll continue to be honest – I think that a great many congregations that make the decision to adopt this sort of “contemporary” worship have done so in order to play to “what people want”, to take the easier route of creating an “on-ramp” to the faith that never actually merges with the rest of traffic rather than doing the (admittedly difficult) work of teaching appreciation of the historic patterns and language of worship.  That’s harsh, I know. 

But.

True Confessions: I also love “contemporary Christian music.”  My alarm clock is set to KLOVE, it was Northwestern College’s radio stations that got me through seminary.  My “fav” playlist on my iPod is chock full of Lincoln Brewster and the Newsboys and Matt Maher and Brandon Heath and Sara Groves and Moriah Peters.  On Sunday morning I want “Lead On, O King Eternal”, but on Saturday night, what’s wrong with “How Many Kings?”

This is where my liturgical friends start to get antsy, I think.  CCM is so vapid, it’s so “emotive”, the theology is crap, it’s impossible to sing congregationally, it’s all 7-11 songs, “worship leaders” perform like they’re at a concert rather than leading others in worship of the Most High God, why do I feel like “Jesus is my boyfriend”, it’s unsacramental, etc.  I get it. 

These are all valid critiques.  Every one of them.  There is a lot of CCM out there that is garbage, especially if you subscribe to a sacramental, non-Arminian version of the Christian faith.  It’s part of why I don’t like CCM in worship – because it’s so hard to find music that is theologically acceptable and congregationally-singable – and even more so in smaller parishes with far less musical resources to support using it in worship.  Personally, I’d be pretty happy if I went my whole career without ever having to deal with that. 

But.  But, as a former pastor used to say, “the organ is God’s favorite instrument never mentioned in the Bible.”  There’s something slightly ironic about claiming to want the most ancient liturgies of the church revived – and played on an organ.  And even more than that, is the fact that culturally, the organ is rapidly falling into disuse.  Organs are expensive to buy (for new mission start congregations) and expensive to maintain once you’ve got them.  Organists are expensive to employ.  Very few congregations can afford a full-time, well-trained organist who can properly prepare for worship each week.  A goodly number of congregations are “getting by” with the (admirable, dedicated often heroic) efforts of near-volunteer musicians who serve the church as something of a moonlighting opportunity.   In no way do I wish to denigrate their service.  Most of them are hard-working wonderful people who love the Lord and love music and love serving their congregations in this way.  But most of them are also on the far side of their midlife crisis, and in 10 or 20 or 30 years at best, they will no longer be able to serve in this capacity.  Fewer and fewer people are enrolling in “sacred music” degree programs – the ones who do will have massive student loans to pay once they graduate, loans which will require a better pay/benefits schedule than many congregations can offer.  It’s chicken and egg, to be sure, but I don’t think that anybody has really come up with a good long-term solution. 

So what are we to do?  To oversimplify, there’s nobody left to play the organ, and all the non-organ music is crap. 

But, of course, not all non-organ music is crap.  There’s some that’s good.  Virtually all of Matt Maher ‘s work is fantastic.  Stuart Townsend rocks.  Some of Chris Tomlin is good.  Tenth Avenue North is usually pretty solid.   But it’s hard to get around the fact that if you’re from a sacramental (read: Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox) tradition there’s very little CCM that is acceptable.  Why is this? 

I have a theory: my theory is that we (traditional, liturgical, organ-loving worship nerds) have so wedded ourselves to Bach-ϋber-alles, that we have effectively suppressed the potential gifts of our own congregants, our own theologians, our own musicians.  “Styles” of music come and go – Gregorian chant sounds different than medieval choral anthems which sound different than antebellum fiddle songs which sound different than early 20^th-century-jazz which sounds different than Elvis which sounds different than hippie folk music which sounds different than…well, you get the point.  So it stands to reason that modern-day writers and composers aren’t going to be coming up with the next Beethoven symphony.  They’d probably write something that sounds more like Matt Redman than Charles Wesley.  If we let them. 

But do we shout down “contemporary” so loudly that our high school youth who love music but not so much Isaac Watts think that if they wrote something that was Biblically and theologically sound we’d reject it out of hand? 

In recent years, I’ve really taken to Matt Maher.  If you don’t know who he is, think of songs like “Your Grace Is Enough”, “Christ is Risen,” and “Turn Around.”  He’s a sensation on the Christian music charts, he plays “modern-sounding” music that resonates with those less enamored of Martin Luther or Ralph Vaughn Williams.  And he is thoroughly Roman Catholic.  Maher’s songs are drenched in Scripture and liturgy, in the words of the daily offices and the wisdom of the saints.  They are theologically rich, and avoid trite “Jesus is my boyfriend” style clichés.  They open a new world of contemporary music to congregations who would like to use a particular style without compromising orthodoxy, they provide words for individual praise and prayer among the faithful.  And in a CCM culture that tends toward deep suspicion of “pre-written prayers” and sacramental traditions, especially Roman Catholicism, he has steadily been making inroads and building friendships and showing that the RC church isn’t scary, and it gets a lot more right than it gets wrong.  So, yay, Matt Maher. 

But it makes me ask – how many other “Matt Mahers” are out there?  How many grew-up-Lutheran (or RC or Anglican) composers and lyricists have we pushed to non-denom Baptist/Reformed circles because we explicitly and implicitly communicate that any music less than 200 years old (theirs) is inherently inferior?

Once upon a time, the pipe organ was new.  Once upon a time, Bach was but a gleam in his father’s eye.  Surely, because there is nothing new under the sun, once upon a time somebody thought that “kids these days” needed to stop trying to reinvent the wheel, when God hath so clearly ordained the psalms for the purpose of corporate worship why do you need anything different isn’t what we have good enough for you? 

I’m not giving up on my homeboys, Watts and Wesley.  But I love me some Matt Maher.  Someday my congregation isn’t going to have an organist (we only barely do now).  So how do we, who love and respect and honor the Tradition of the Church and the sacred words and music it has given us, also find ways to lift up and honor the gifts of today’s saints, as well?  If God has given them the gifts, then it must be because the Church has need of them.  What do we do with that?

"I believe in God...

...but I don't go to church.  I just, I absolutely believe in God, I just don't think you have to go to church to believe in God."

...said the grieving son as we met at the funeral home.  His mother had just passed away in a town several hours from mine, but the family was returning to bury her remains next to those of her late husband.  I had never met the family before that day.

The husband assured that they were Lutheran (apparently getting married in a Lutheran church building qualifies one to be Lutheran these days) and that he and his wife had gotten baptized "after the wedding".  Deceased mom apparently never felt the need to have her children baptized, despite telling them stories about how her mother had read her Bible stories at bedtime.

So, "we believe in God, we're just not really church-going people, you know?  I don't think you have to go to church to believe in God."

I nodded non-judgmentally and pressed the conversation further, "Tell me more about your mom," I said, as I suppressed my eye-rolling.

After a few more minutes with the family, I returned home to work on a memorial service/homily for this woman and her family who "believe in God, but don't need to go to church."  And the more I thought about it, the more frustrated I became.  "If you don't need the church," I thought, "then why do you need me, a representative of the church?  Why don't you just do your own funeral?"

And then I remembered a seminary professor who once told me that the purpose of the church is to teach us how to die.  At the time, I didn't really understand her point, but I think I'm beginning to get it.

Anybody can (I didn't say should, just can) baptize.  No stained-glass windows?  Well, a lot of modern churches these days are terribly ugly anyway - get married in a botanical garden if "beautiful setting" is that important to you.  But death?  That's different.  Even people - families - who don't want a funeral "in church", want a pastor to do the funeral home service or graveside committal.  And I suppose that's something in our spirits that cries out for hope, for promises, for someone to tell them, in the face of "the end", that this isn't really the end. I suppose it's something crying out to hear that, although they've forgotten God, God hasn't forgotten them.  And fortunately, we have a God that does that.

But.

It proves that "I believe in God, but I don't need the church" is a complete lie.  Even if the person saying it isn't aware that it's a lie.  Because as a representative of the church, I can offer up prayers about God's merciful arms.  I can strip any semblance of theological sophistication from a homily.  I can pray the Lord's Prayer on my own, and coach the proper response to intercessory prayers.  I can read very basic, very simple, very common Scripture passages - but in the end, I don't know if this family has any idea at all what I'm talking about.

Because the prayers, the liturgy, the language, the Scriptures, the rites, the rituals all "belong", in a sense, to the Church.  Even if the ancient wording is "translated" out of "King James English" and into something more vernacular, it still presumes a familiarity with the faith, with the promises of Christ, with the images of Scripture.

And so, leaving the Holy Spirit out of it for just a moment (we'll get right back to that), it's hard to know what to say.  Because the Church created the rituals - selected the Scriptures, wrote the prayers - for individuals who belong to the Church, who hold to the hope of eternal life promised by Jesus Christ. And it isn't so much that God isn't - or can't be - merciful to those outside the faith.  And none of us knows for sure the state of anyone's heart at the moment of death.  But to do a service, and preach the essentials of the faith - for a group of people thoroughly uninterested in it every other day of their lives - is a nigh-unto-impossible task.

(And yes, who knows but that the pastor in this situation might be there for such a time as this - perhaps the Holy Spirit will indeed use this time of loss and despair to bring a grieving family to himself.  And we should always hold out such hope, trusting that God works as he sees fit, and in his mysterious timing.  We have a big, big God.  But that's not really my point.)

My point is that, for anyone who says, "I believe in God, but I don't need to go to church," the answer is, "Well, actually, yes, yes you do."  Because the Church teaches us how to die.  She teaches us how to die ourselves, and she teaches us how to handle the death of a loved one.  We have prayers and Scriptures and rituals and rites for just this occasion.  But if you don't ever participate in the life of the Church, they will be meaningless (although not powerless) in the face of The Last Enemy.

"Christ loved the Church, giving himself up for her."

But if you and your loved ones have consciously declared that you don't need the Church, then how is the Church to explain her Lover and his promises in your hour of need?

**And yet we proclaim them all the more - we know not what seed will be planted, and while we give no illusion for false hope, we continually announce the good news of Jesus Christ for all who have ears to hear.

But you need the Church.

Palm or Passion?

So we've come 'round again to another Holy Week, and the seemingly inevitable debate has once again arisen: is today Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday or Palm/Passion Sunday?

Let's start by eliminating the third option.  Palm/Passion Sunday looks and sounds stupid, and conveys the sense that the Church doesn't really know what she's supposed to be commemorating.  Pick one, and stick with it.

With that out of the way...

It seems that the oldest Roman traditions referred to the Fifth Sunday in Lent (last week) as Passion Sunday, which marked the beginning of "Passiontide" - the end-ish of Lent that really leaned into commemorating and leading up to the Passion.  "Palm Sunday" has been known as Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, Second Sunday of the Passion, and so on.  At least in Rome.

Growing up Lutheran, I just knew it as Palm Sunday, until a few years ago when people started calling it Passion Sunday and reading the entire Passion narrative - right on up through the crucifixion and everything - on Sunday morning.  When I first heard this, it really took me by surprise.  What happened to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday?  If we were going to cram it all into Palm Sunday, what was the point of the rest of Holy Week? 

The longer this has gone on, I've heard more and more people make the argument that "most people don't come to MT or GF services, so we read the whole account for them on Palm Sunday."  Well, look.  I'm all for keeping people in the loop.  And I suppose it's true that if you only went to church on Palm Sunday, but not Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, Easter might not make a whole lot of sense.  So I see where we're trying to go with that. 

But, really?  One, it makes for a ridiculously long Gospel reading.  I'm happy to read Scripture, particularly out loud, particularly in the congregation.  I'm frustrated by congregations that have gone down to one (or zero!) readings on a Sunday because "people can't pay attention," or "it's not relevant" or whatever.  The Word of God is always relevant.  And people will pay attention if you teach them to.  But it's true that 50+ verses all at once is a lot to read, and a lot for little kids to sit still through, and a lot for even adults to follow. 

Two, it is a huge amount of content to cover.  There are a ton of things going on in the text, three or four different plotlines to follow, and it's really emotionally charged (or at least, it can be).  Frankly, it's a lot to try to read, listen to, absorb, process, and preach on in a week, let alone in an hour.  Also, along these lines, when it's all done so quickly, one right after the other, there's no time for contemplation of the wildly contrasting attitudes of the disciples and the crowd, the major shift that happens from Palm Sunday...to Maundy Thursday...to Good Friday.

Third, I come back to my original question: What is the point of the rest of Holy Week if we're just going to put it all on one day?  Maybe there is no point, you say?  People just don't celebrate Holy Week anymore.  It's not a part of the culture.  Well since when has the Church started caving to the culture?  (Yeah, I know, all the time.  Don't start with me right now.)  Since when has it been acceptable for the Church to cave to the culture?  Perhaps the reason that many people don't engage the traditions and disciplines of Holy Week is because we don't encourage them to, because we don't tell them they should, because we can't articulate the benefits of doing so.  Perhaps it's because we're so afraid of works-righteousness that we can't bring ourselves to say, "You should be in church on Thursday and Friday and Sunday this week."  Why?  Because God's going to smite you if you don't?  No.  Because there's a story to tell,  to remember and commemorate and mourn and give thanks for and celebrate all at once, and this is the way the Church does that.  One week out of the year we sacrifice lunch or evening plans for going to spend time worshiping the Lord and remembering what He has done for us.  And I don't see anything remotely Pelagian about saying so.

Would we need to spend so much time and energy trying to cram the entire Passion into Palm Sunday if, as "Christian public leaders", we were more willing to step up to the plate and encourage piety and devotion amongst the faithful? 

I suppose there's an argument that could be made, something that would change my mind.  But for now, count me as voting for Palm over Passion.

In Which I Become Completely Sold On "Traditional" Worship, Part 3

Where was I?  Oh yes, my supervisor wanted me to evaluate Young Adult Worship.  I got there, and immediately engaged my event-planner side, left over from my days in politics.  I was thinking:

Well, let's start by evaluating how many people are here.  The actual number of people here isn't terrible, but the room is "built" way too big.  It is a gigantic room, with too much space between tables and chairs.  The room is obviously used for different purposes during the rest of the week, the remnants (tables, chairs, etc...) are just laying up against the walls.  The stage is...well, I don't know.  The lighting is strange.  No one is singing...I think because they are sitting at tables.  The PowerPoint is...hey wait a second, where is the cross?  Oh look, there it is!  Stuffed over in a corner with some extra sound equipment.  It feels like a comedy club, not a church.

Ok, so, what do we need to do?  Get rid of about 40 or 50 chairs, and set up some pipe and drape to close off the room a little.  Fix the lighting.  Spotlight the preacher, come up with some sort of lighting plan for when the band is playing.  Get the cross up on the stage, over to the side at an angle is fine so you can still run the PowerPoint against the wall.  Get some music going before the service actually starts.  Etc...

And then it occurred to me:

My goodness, this is supposed to be church, not a political event.  I'm trying to figure out what story the media would write if they had pictures of this, when I should be worshipping the Lord God Almighty.

So here's what I'm thinking: Traditional, liturgical worship, particularly when paired with the Lord's Supper/Eucharist/Communion is necessarily focused on Christ (at least for people who confess the Real Presence).  There is a lot, lot, lot of prep work that can and does and should go into awesome "high church" worship.  But my sense is that most of it is related to the dignity of the service itself.  The preparation is about expecting that the Lord is present in this place, engaging the tradition honorably and worthily, and allowing congregants to participate in that to the fullest extent.

Contrast that with my sense about the prep work of contemporary, low-church worship: I feel like we're trying to create an environment that we can convince people to come to.  We want the lights low and the people crammed together, to amp up the energy.  We need well-designed rooms because it's more professional.  We encourage people to bring in coffee and snacks because it's friendly and supposedly proves that "God can fit into your lifestyle" or something.  Bottom line: we have to create the conditions to make this service succeed.

I want to be clear.  Jesus shows up at contemporary worship.  "Where two or three are gathered," and all that.  "Contemporvant worship" has the capacity to reach people for the Lord, it allows people to encounter God, it creates and encourages faith, it comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.  I would never say that it doesn't.

But when you have the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, when you have the liturgy, brimming with the language of the Bible, language that has stood the test of time, that has steeped millions of people across time and space in the faith, then, just...wow.  It's going to "work" - He always has.  The rest is easy.  Making sure chairs or pews are arranged well becomes about allowing people to best participate in the encounter, not about convincing them to stay or come back.

So, am I anti-contemporary Christian music now?  Am I advocating for an end to all midweek Young Adult Worship that isn't the high-church Divine Service/practically a Roman Catholic Mass celebrated by the pope?  No.  I'm always in favor of everything that God uses to reach people.  Let's keep the music, and let's use it where it's appropriate.  Let's have concerts and clubs and Young Adult Ministry.  But let's stop pretending that the 8:00 "traditional" service and the 10:00 "Contemporvant" service are the same thing, just catering to different preferences.  They aren't. 

**I'm perfectly willing to engage anybody on this topic.  If you think I'm totally off-base, tell me so!