Lost Liturgy

I didn't grow up in a liturgical church. In fact, I grew up thinking or assuming anyway that liturgical churches didn't really believe the Bible, and that they put more trust in their traditions than God. We, on the other hand, believed the Bible and were not bound by religious tradition.

That's a lie, of course, but I didn't know any better. In fact, I'm still trying to figure it out. In my church tradition we never observed the church calendar or the lectionary. I never heard of Whitsunday until I was in college. And the idea of some nameless source choosing your readings and sermon texts for you -- why that was unthinkable! Let the Spirit lead! And throw away traditions!

Only we didn't. I've since learned that our lack of using the lectionary meant that we ignored whole sections of scripture. And in later years, our sermons became little more than pop psychology with a scriptural proof text. "How to affair proof your marriage." Remember that one? As if there's any text in the Bible whose original purpose was to teach that topic.

As a pastor committed to preaching on marriage, I always found it to be a very difficult task. Honestly, how many marriage texts are there in scripture? Certainly not enough for an annual series on marriage! In fact, I was always troubled by this conundrum: name one example of a good marriage in the Bible. Go ahead, I dare you. Give me the text and the principles it teaches. Thought as much. Now, name me five examples of a poor marriage in the Bible. Easy to do, right? Abraham, who twice pawned his wife as his sister? Isaac, whose played favorites with his wife over his children? Jacob? (Which wife is our model?) David? (Don't forget about Bathsheba.) Solomon?

But who needs biblical texts when you've got itching ears to scratch? So every year, sometimes twice a year we rehash marriage principles, usually between Mother's Day and Father's Day. The fact that these holidays often obscure Pentecost Sunday doesn't matter to us. After all, isn't it more important to preach a practical and relevant message than to honor the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church on Pentecost?

So while evangelical and fundamental churches feel secretly prideful that they don't honor the formalism of the "catholic" church year or the lectionary, we follow a more subtle liturgy of our own. We have our stewardship emphasis, our family emphasis, our Mother's Day and Father's Day events, our Independence day festivities, our Back to School emphases, our Harvest Festivities -- oh, and Christmas and Easter. And to accomplish these things we recycle the same tired texts every several years or so. In so doing, we unconsciously cultivate a consumer-oriented clientele.

Meanwhile, our liturgical brothers and sisters follow a time-honored calendar that removes church from the horse and pony show. By design, their focus is not on the parishioner, but on the Savior. So this week they showed up on Ash Wednesday to receive the mark of the cross on their heads just as it has been done for over a thousand years. They're oblivious to the pressure to perform that so characterizes our evangelical show. They're not after the contemporary and relevant, but rather the ancient and timeless.

I decided I would observe Lent. I'd gather with a few friends on Ash Wednesday to talk together about self denial and discipline. I thought I'd take some time to reflect on Jesus' sufferings along with my liturgical friends. I decided I would give up caffeine. It's a lame sacrifice, to be sure, more symbolic than real. But you wouldn't know it by the revolt my body is waging against me. I'm tired, I'm lethargic, I'm depressed. I'm really ticked off by my dependence on this drug. But that's probably a topic for a different blog. All I know is that right now I could really use that sermon on Stressbusters.