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Brian C. Taylor - 1999
What are we doing when we worship and what does it have to do with our life?
Liturgy marks time. Our week is marked by the celebration of the resurrection on the morning of the first day. The week, as well as our lives, are a new creation. Liturgy also marks even larger cycles. The liturgical seasons of the church year provide a way of acknowledging the passage of the seasons of nature. By them we also observe certain basic truths about our life in God. Every year we go through the same journey, from Advent through Pentecost, and in so doing so we revisit the touchstones of our faith. Over time we make them our own. It may be that we are never exactly in sync with the seasons, but that doesn’t matter. We may never really experience repentance during the six weeks of Lent. God’s nearness may become real for us in the middle of summer rather than at Christmas time. This is not a problem. What is important is that we walk the journey every year so that these themes become a part of who we are. We begin to look at our experience through the lens of incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection.
The church year begins in Advent. This is observed at a time of year, four weeks before Christmas, when the sun is at its lowest. The days are short and the nights are long. In many parts of the world it is cold. We turn inward. Seasonally speaking, Advent is a time of waiting for the sun. We wait for the light to overcome the darkness. On a purely natural level, this is a time of expectation.
The readings during Advent reflect this natural reality. We are a people who live in darkness, awaiting the coming of God’s light. Christ’s birth is immanent, and we can hear its approach. We remember our sins which keep us in darkness. We stand looking ahead to the coming of God in our lives.
The church used to focus her attention upon the need for repentance during this season, as a way of properly preparing for the coming of God into our lives. This was marked by the use of purple altar hangings and vestments, the color of penitence which is also used in the season of Lent. But now more and more parishes put the emphasis upon expectation and hope. Repentance is a part of preparation, but it should not dominate. The color that is used more now is blue, which was, in fact, the color for Advent in parts of the medieval church. Blue is the color of the vast sky and the immense ocean. Blue brings us out of the closeness of our wintry isolation and opens us to god’s transcendence. Blue is also the traditional color for Mary, who at this point in our story is quite pregnant. We wait with Mary, honoring and imitating her willingness to carry Jesus into life.
On the first Sunday of Advent, an evergreen wreath with four candles is placed near the altar. The first is lit this first Sunday, and one more candle is lit on every subsequent Sunday, culminating in all four the last Sunday. This heightens the sense of expectation. We can see the light that begins to break into the darkness even now, and it is growing. The use of evergreen symbolizes the constant presence of God, the ever present newness of our life lived in Christ.
As we celebrate this annual festival of expectation, perhaps we can learn to hope. Now hope is a tricky thing. It can be the fervent expectation that things will turn out the way we want them to. Hope can be a way of expecting that God will, in fact, behave just as we think is best.
Not only does this lead to disappointment, it undermines our faith. There is another kind of expectation that is healthy. This is the inner knowledge, coming from experience, that tells us that God’s life in us will deepen. We learn over time that life is good and that even if things turn out tragically, life will still be good and we will still be able to appreciate what is before us. This is a mystery of the cross and the resurrection. It is not that we can have the hope, the faith that we will be spared from crucifixion. It is a deep knowledge that even when crucifixion comes, we will, in time, be resurrected. This deep knowledge is like a foundation, giving us equanimity and bringing peace to our days, no matter what the circumstances. This is what Jesus referred to as the coming of the kingdom of God. For him, this kingdom was both breaking in, even now, and yet it was still to come in its fullness. His followers could see the kingdom of heaven through Jesus’ love and healing miracles. They could also expect that in the future, they would know the kingdom when it would be realized fully. The coming of this kingdom figures strongly in the season of Advent. Like the candles of the Advent wreath, the light pierces our darkness even now, and it is growing into its fulfillment in us.
And so during Advent we make an annual pilgrimage to our hope. We revisit the reasonable expectation that we have the ability to enjoy this moment, and that God will give us the grace to grow into this ability. We will still act for change, we will work for what we need and want, we will strive for justice and peace. But we can do so without anxiety, without the clinging fear for what will happen if it doesn’t work out.
In pre-Christian popular religion (called paganism by some Christians) the festival of the winter solstice was extremely important. This is true of all nature-centered religions: Celtic Stonehenge, Chaco Canyon and the ancient Southwest Native American Anasazi, the Zapotec’s Monte Alban in witness to the popularity of this universal festival. In a time when one’s yearly survival depended upon the warmth and light of sun and the coming of spring, the solstice was no small matter. It represented the annual victory of life over impending death. It was the solstice that prompted the church to place the festival of Christmas at this time of year. We don’t know when Jesus was born, but the early church sure knew when the winter solstice was. We moved in and used the symbols with which the people were familiar. Christmas took on meaning immediately.
Christ is the representation of the victory of light over darkness. The prophet Isaiah is read at Christmas, proclaiming the coming of God’s light upon those who sit in darkness, in the shadow of death. The prologue of the gospel of John is also read, telling us that in Christ, the light came into the darkness of the world and the darkness did not overcome it.
On Christmas, the vestments are changed to white and gold, signifying the brilliance of God’s light. Hymns and carols are sung that recall the light of the star which guided the wise men to the manger, and continue to guide us to God as well. At the end of the liturgy, often an acolyte distributes a light from the creche, so that the candle is lit in the hand of each person in the worship building. We are enlightened as the room positively glows. We take this light out into the darkness of the night. Like a light, God is present with us. The twelve days of Christmas, which make up the season, are a time of remembering the birth of Jesus, the beginning of his lifetime of light on this earth. In Jesus, we say that God was enfleshed in this man’s life. This is the Incarnation, the making-flesh. Incarnation is the presence of God in this world of matter and time, the immanent reality of the holy in the midst of the every day. In Jesus, we see the holiness if God. But God’s enfleshment is not limited to Jesus; this particular incarnation points to the universal incarnation of God in all creation. Christmas is a celebration of matter, of flesh, and blood, of creation. The love of God is such that we can see God in the world in which we live. I’m not sure why the church is so afraid of pantheism; perhaps it is pantheism’s tendency towards idolatry, mistaking the created world for its Creator. Perhaps it is also self-hatred, a fear of our own bodies and the potential destructiveness of lust in its various forms. I’m sure that as a radical interpretation of the Incarnation, pantheism and unbridled hedonism would not be healthy for the Christian church. But can’t we take the Incarnation seriously enough to become panentheistic (which is to say, God in all)?
The Christian liturgical churches are very earthy. We lay our hands on each other for ordination and healing. We eat bread and drink wine. Priests smear oil on the heads of people when they are sick or being baptized. Bishops sometimes lightly slap the face of those being confirmed, reminding them of the suffering which is entailed in the Jesus path. We bring up cash to the altar at a high point in the Eucharist. Everybody hugs each other during the peace. We sprinkle or dip ourselves in baptismal water. In matrimony, we celebrate the joining of a man and a woman in matrimony, we bless the sexual act which seals their spiritual union.
This earthiness is a celebration of presence of God in all Creation. Sexual abuse of self or others is a problem, but we must realize that it is anti-Christian to be anti-sex. Alcoholism and addiction to other substances is rampant, but it is anti-Christian to hate the pleasure of food and drink. Materialism is the besetting sin of our culture, but it is anti-Christian to scorn the beauty of art, gardens, fabric, architecture, handcrafts, gifts, furniture and other worldly stuff.
We are people of the earth. We are made in the image of the creator. As such we are co-creators, working with God’s materials and God’s skill which flows through us. An overly sin and salvation-based faith can obscure this basic reality. Before there is separation and the need for salvation, there is the joy of life. This is our birthright.
Christmas is a joyous celebration of the goodness of the earth, the holiness of this world. God can be seen and known in this life just as assuredly as God can be seen in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus’ life attests to this. He lived in the kingdom of heaven, eating and drinking and laughing and touching all the way. Our practice should be one which leads us back into the goodness of our bodies, the stuff of our lives and the earth. This appreciation can grow through the celebration of the sacraments of the church. It can grow through a daily prayer experience of being present to what is, in this life. It can certainly grow through a yearly celebration of the light and goodness of God’s incarnation in this world.
The season of Epiphany follows. This is the time that we think of God’s light in Jesus spreading out into the world. It begins with the visit of the three wise men to the manger. They were the first who came from far away to see Jesus. Their contact with this light symbolizes the beginning of its dissemination. Jesus is presented in the temple next, which is the consecration of this new life which has come into the world. The baptism of Jesus follows, which began his movement into his adult ministry among people. Throughout the season, we hear gospel stories of Jesus calling his disciples, and of their response. They begin to move in the light. Finally, at the end of the season, Jesus is changed into glorious light in the vision of Peter, James and John on the mount of the transfiguration. He is fully seen, and he is transparent to the light of God. During this season the church uses the color of green. This is the color of growth, of the plant world that so depends upon light for its nurturance.
As we hear of the light of Christ being spread into the world, we are reminded of the same in our lives. We are called out of isolation into the world. We are to be agents of the spirit of this light of God.
For very good reasons, evangelism has become a distasteful word. We have learned to be careful about television hucksters, robotic door-to-door mouthpieces for religious systems, and smiling friends who want us to validate their recent change of life by doing what they did. We feel as if we are being manipulated because we are. Evangelism has become a guilt and pressure trip designed to get people to accept a specific ideology. In the more liberal churches, evangelism is often a code word for getting more bodies and their money into their building. Snappy programs are provided for new member greeting, inclusion, involvement and commitment. There is nothing wrong with being friendly and helping folks feel at home in a new community. But the kind of evangelism that focuses on numbers is just another form of fearful, grasping materialism.
True evangelism requires something more of us than salesmanship. True evangelism asks us to know something of God’s presence in our lives, to be aware of its real effect upon us, and to be willing to share what we know of it with others who express a need for it. When we talk to a friend who is going through and divorce about our own struggles with pain and healing, we are being evangelical. When we share our story of death and resurrection of alcoholism and recovery, we are evangelists. When we describe the effects of our meditation to a stressed-out friend who has asked about it, we are evangelizing. Whenever we tell what we know of the effect of God’s light as we have experienced it, we are spreading the gospel, the good news, of God. All we can share is what we know. It is arrogant and foolish to speak about ideas of which we have no real experience.
Just as Jesus’ light began to spread out of the world, so does ours. The most profound sharing of this takes place without our even trying. As we practice our religion and the daily discipline of prayer, we are changed. We become lighter, more balanced, less fearful and bitter. This is apparent to those who need it themselves, and to those who have eyes to see it. They will ask. As I examine the gospels, I do not see Jesus spreading the light of the gospel by trying to convince people of their need for his doctrine. I see a man who has been transformed by God’s light, a man who is completely transparent to God within him. Others are drawn to this, and he responds to their unique situation as he sees it. He speaks to them of their life, and of his experience of God as he knows it. This sharing is the light-spreading evangelization for Epiphany.
Lent is the next liturgical season of the church. The decorative furnishings of the church are covered or taken out. There are no flowers used during this season. To set the tone, liturgy often begins with penitence and absolution. The clergy are vested with purple, the deep passionate color of repentance and suffering. Music is subdued. Alleluias are forsaken. In many parts of the world, the bareness of Lent is matched by the winter as it drags on. The season begins with the imposition of ashes, a gripping awakening of our own mortality. We say “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We are called to return from separation to our essential unity with God: right now, because life is short. And if we ever doubt that there are a myriad of ways in which we still separate ourselves from God and one another, it only takes one look at the daunting litany of Ash Wednesday to bring us back to reality.
The readings of Lent are powerful. On the first Sunday we hear the story of Jesus’ forty-day fast and temptation in the desert. Like him, we are made aware of the temptations of ambition, despair and materialism. Prophets wail laments about the injustices of Israel’s monarchy, and we reflect upon our own social injustices. The prophets call Israel, and now us, to change our ways. In Lent we go through a forty day journey, along with Jesus who fasted in the wilderness for forty days, and with the sojourning Israelites centuries before who were lost in the same desert for forty years. In biblical symbolism the number forty simply represents a long time. The season of Lent is long enough to give us a yearly taste of what happens in our lives at other times; our journey through the desert takes a long time. We all come to know the lost emptiness of that place, and Lent assures us that even though it is always long, it is a natural part of the journey, and therefore good.
In terms of seasons, Lent is the best known. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it is because the church has made more of this season than the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and Easter. The churches fascination with Lent is well known: hair shirts, penance, giving up pleasures, fasting and confession. In the history of the church there has been more actual practice during this season than any other. People go to extra masses and confessions, they abstain from things and they take on extra good works. Why is this?
Part of the reason is that guilt is easier than real practice. The alcoholic says “poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.” To practice the hard work of recovery is much harder than self-pity. I an told that when I was young, my natural father used to come home drunk and hold me in his arms, weeping about what a bad father he was. I would have preferred that he had changed and thus avoided the divorce which soon came. I weep for a lifetime about the father-shaped hole in my life, because he didn’t do anything more than weep then. Lenten self-loathing can become a handy way of avoiding what is necessary.
But self-loathing is not what repentance is about. The Greek New Testament word for repentance is metanoia, which means turning. We do not sit in our sin, moaning about the mess we have made. We see our separation, stand up and turn towards the light. It is not a one-time turning, either. Most difficult issues require that we repent over and over again. A monk was once asked what his life was like in the monastery. He said “we fall down, get up and walk, fall down, get up once more and walk, fall down...” This is life. Perhaps Lent is popular because it is so real. Life is filled with the practice of turning every day.
Lent brings the judgment- that is, the truth, not the condemnation - of God. Like Israel, we stand under the truth about ourselves and reflect upon who we are, what we have done and what we have left undone. Judgment never feels good, but we can embrace it when it comes rather than hide from it? To see ourselves as we are is a tremendous life-giving gift. Without it, growth is impossible. With it, we can be free from the things which have been controlling us from their hiding place in the dark. Brought into the light by the judgment of God, they lose their power. This is the forgiveness of God, who stands ready to renew us as we face the truth. Lent is an annual opportunity to do this self-examination, to stand under the light and look. Lent is an annual opportunity to remember that all year long we can receive the truth, turn and live.
At the end of this season, we enter into the passion and mystery of Holy Week. We begin with the triumphal entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. He has, at this point in the story, become quite popular. The crowds are buzzing about his recent resurrection of Lazarus, after he was four days dead in the tomb. They know of his healing power and there is a rumor that he is the Messiah, the long awaited one who will liberate Israel: perhaps from Roman occupation, perhaps from their sins. A crowd gathers and Jesus is regaled as a conquering hero. Naturally, the religious and civil authorities are nervous.
The church celebrates this day in a strange way. Not trusting the people to come to church on any other day other than Sunday, we observe both the triumphal entry and Good Friday’s crucifixion on Palm Sunday. The truly pious then go back in time during the week to pick up the rest of the story in between the Last Supper). The crucifixion story is repeated on Friday itself. Many years ago in our parish we started believing that people would come to church on Good Friday, to hear that part of the story. We also figured that if someone wanted to avoid the cross in their life, it would take more than the passion narrative presented on a Sunday to change that. So we stuck to the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, giving due respect to that event.
Playing with the liturgy of Jesus’ triumphal entry, we are given the opportunity to do two things. Together with the crowd in Jerusalem, we voice our gratitude and wonder for Jesus, the one who brought us the way of life. But we also know what is coming. We have, in the back of our minds, the knowledge that we, too, will betray his way. We will deny the immediate presence of God. We will fear, cling, hate and refuse to forgive. This is the way we are. Today we turn to God and tomorrow we turn away. It helps to know this, to act it out in liturgical play. That way we will be less likely to be disillusioned about our fickleness.
On Maundy Thursday the church continues with the passion story. It is the evening of Jesus’ and the disciples’ last meal together. In our parish, we gather in the informality of the parish hall. Prior to the meal, we hear the gospel of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, and we do likewise to each other. Like Jesus did, we continue with the consecration of the bread, which is laid out upon the head table. This is distributed to all. A simple meal of dried and raw fruits, vegetables, cheese, nuts and bread follows. After the meal, like Jesus, we take the wine, consecrate and distribute it. Finally we make our way silently into the worship building where we hear the account of Jesus’ agony and plea for companionship and prayer in the Garden of Gethsemene. The altar is completely stripped and we sit silently in the near dark, awaiting the betrayal and arrest which is to follow. An all-night vigil ensues, with individuals coming as they wish during the night.
This liturgy can be a powerful experience. The foot washing can humble us. Once people get over touching such an intimate naked part of someone else’s body, it can become an act of servanthood. We awaken our human ability to give freely of ourselves to another, to lavish tender compassion upon even a stranger.
In the informal Last Supper Eucharist, we may come to see that every Eucharist is a meal. We gather as a family of faith around the table that is the altar. In this meal we re-enact a meal which sealed Jesus’ intention to be with us every time we do the same. This Maundy Thursday Eucharist can also bring home the fact that every meal at home, every lunch with a friend, is a holy sacrament of God’s presence in food, love and nurture. We break bread together and something deeper is broken open and shared between us: God’s being.
Good Friday
In the darkness of the night watch, anything can happen. I used to live about a ten-minute walk from the church, and I’d get up at about 2:30 a.m. on Maundy Thursday for an hour of prayer during the watch. I would walk down the ditchbank, under the moon, sometimes through the snow. When I go, I enter into the worship building, seeing the votive candles, one or two other pilgrims and a stark, bare altar with the door to the reserved sacrament standing open, revealing an utter emptiness that bespoke of Jesus’ abandonment. This is the beginning of a hollow feeling that always continues for me through the next 24 hours of Good Friday. I sit in silence, allowing myself to be empty. It’s good to be there, and the time passes swiftly.
The next morning I walk as in a dream, waiting for the terrible drama which is to unfold at noon. For three hours we gather in the barren church. We contemplate during long silences, fifteen minutes at a time. These are punctuated by readings from the passion narrative, long chants and homilies. Time is stretched thin and my belly growls from fasting. We enter into the death of Jesus.
Jesus emptied himself during his three hours on the cross, his three days in the tomb, and his awakening to new life. This experience of death and resurrection is found in our lives any time that we find ourselves empty, dying to the demands and fears of the false, self-centered life of the ego. It is normal for all seekers, and even for some non-seekers to whom it just happens. Grace visits us when we die to self, and we are born again. A man stares at the bubbles in the dishwater and suddenly he moves from despair to wonder. A meditator is assailed by demons, and then she breaks through to the clear sky beyond. An alcoholic hits a vile bottom of ugliness, and then begins anew as if an innocent baby. A gang member awakens from the surgery which removed a bullet from his chest and is finally able to surrender to love. This is the death and resurrection of Christ. God does this everywhere, to anyone who seeks and allows it.
The brief liturgy of Holy Saturday is a continuation of the emptiness of Good Friday. We come to the church and simply remember Jesus’ death, and our own dying to self.
In our parish, the primary liturgy of Easter is the Great Vigil, which begins in the darkness of pre-dawn on Sunday morning. We gather outside and light the paschal flame, signifying the powerful grace of God who brings light into darkness. Following the deacon onto the dark church, candles are lit throughout. During the long rite of readings, which chronicle the many death and resurrection events of the people of Israel before Jesus, the pre-dawn light increases. As the sun rises and shines triumphantly through the stained glass, the gospel of Jesus’ victory over death is chanted.
We have walked together this Holy Week journey from initial triumph to humble servanthood, from betrayal to emptiness and death and finally to the enlightenment of new life. There are no guarantees that we will feel the sentiments of these realities as we carry them out liturgically. But acting out this passion play every year, we spiral down deeper and deeper over time into the heart of life, of ourselves, of God. When we come up against circumstances that require our death and resurrection, we are more and more likely over the years to know what to do. We learn, through practice, how to surrender to God’s grace.
During the Easter season, we stumble around in the light, recovering from this journey. For seven weeks we hear stories of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances and listen to the accounts of others who have passed from spiritual death to new life. We bathe in it week after week. Towards the end of the season, we celebrate Jesus’ ascension into heaven. This is the acceptance of his departure, knowing that we cannot forever have our mentors and examples by our side. We must finally stand alone. To make this spiritual solitude possible, we remember that God is within us, a powerful force of love and life. This the feast of Pentecost is celebrated, when the disciples had an ecstatic experience of sacred presence after Jesus’ departure.
From the Feast of Pentecost until Advent, we go through what the Roman Catholic Church calls “Ordinary Time,” which it is. Our focus changes from week to week, with no overall theme. Feast days are celebrated on Sundays in the midst of it: Trinity Sunday, our Patronal Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, All Saints, Christ the King, etc.
The cycle is complete. We begin with Advent’s reasonable expectations and hope in the ultimate goodness of God-in-life. During Christmastide we celebrate the enfleshment of God in this world. Our realization of the incarnation of God in this world is spread out to others like the light of Epiphany. We undertake a Lenten journey of self-reflection and turning to God, culminating in surrender and Easter resurrection. Finally, we move out of this cycle with the Pentecost knowledge that God is within us to make all of this manifest in our day-to-day life.
End Document — St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church