It was one of those really uncomfortable moments for me as just minutes before I had sat there feeling like a completely unwelcome outsider as my fellow classmates joined in on mocking the church tradition I come out of. The banter had been meant in fun, more as a way to make fun of themselves than others, but it had still been an awkward exchange. Per new seminary policy, all the ordination track students had to participate in the seminary’s Triduum services over Easter – a very old-school high-liturgy that consumed their whole weekend. The purpose, as they explained to me, was so that they could be trained in the right way of doing vigils since the parishes they serve will rarely know the correct forms for such things. So as they came off of the Easter frenzy exhausted as classes started again, the joke that morning was that next year they should petition to do the whole thing low-church style. This started everyone in on joking what sorts of appalling low-church stuff they could do – from spending the whole service doing announcements to giving into the congregation’s consumer demands to sing hymns people actually know. It was all meant in fun so I just sat and listened to them mock the cultural church traditions I am used to, but as the only non-Episcopalian in the class it was hard not to feel like an outsider.

And then we started class and the question was raised as to how minorities at the seminary might not feel welcome. It was difficult to not speak up about the discussion before class – . Or to mention that every time I hear my classmates discuss things like Enriching Our Worship (liturgies that include prayers and hymns from other cultures) it is only to mock it. Or the incredulous gossip-like statements of “have you heard, there are some churches that actually use grape juice and crackers for Eucharist?” Or the arguments I’ve heard that only 17th century high-liturgy done with the finest of serviceware available is proper worship. Or that what feminists and blacks do is not true theology, but merely an expression of Christian spirituality. When one form of culture is upheld as the God-ordained norm and everything else mocked, then of course those who differ from that norm are not going to feel welcome.

The seminary is very white and reflects one segment of cultural worship practices of white middle class Americans. I knew as a post-evangelical I was an outsider going into seminary yet even as an outsider I respect the culture forms of worship practice that most of my classmates find meaningful and beautiful. But I struggle when such forms of worship get in the way (even unintentionally) of respecting the dignity of others. It is one thing to choose to participate in a particular cultural form of worship, but quite another to mock the forms of others or expect them to convert to your ways in order to be a proper Christian. This goes far deeper than silly worship wars, but gets at the very core of what it even means to worship God at all.

As I’ve come to understand it, to commit oneself to ascribing worth-ship to God one must embrace the patterns of life that God deems worthy. As the biblical prophets repeatedly assert, rituals of worship that seek to draw us close to God or that proclaim God’s worth are meaningless if we are not actually living in the ways of God. The purpose of worship is this pursuit of righteousness – being in right relation with God and in relation to all that God has created. As Isaiah declares, this involves more than just fasting or participating in convocations, but engaging in actions that work to right those relationships. We might be strengthened, or shaped, or comforted by our community’s rituals, but those are forms that should never be mistaken for the deeper function of worship. More significantly such forms should never prevent us from engaging in the ways of life God deems worthy. Ritual should never stand in the way of our caring for those in need, of respecting the dignity of others, or loving our neighbors.

It is difficult to see the pain of my classmates who do feel unwelcome at my seminary especially when it is it cultures of worship creating the division. Yet as an outsider myself it is similarly difficult to know how to work to help resolve this tension.

So there I was in a room full of a few hundred older, very reserved, and 99.9% white Christians who were singing a South African freedom song as if it were a 17th century hymn. It was in the middle of singing the song that I was stopped short by the thought that what we were doing there was the exact opposite of what we were proclaiming in song. How could we truly believe that the powers of oppression have no power if we weren’t embodying any visible sign of it? Beyond the oddity of having someone conduct our singing about freedom so as to ensure we hit the right pitches, the dissonance of the entire situation was unsettling. I couldn’t help but wonder if the act of appropriating a song of liberation from another culture and subduing and anglicizing it was not in itself an act of oppression of the song’s very power all for the sake of allowing us to feel multicultural an affirming of the “other.” Where were the acts of liberation? Where were the faces and voices of those others? Where in our midst was the struggle to turn the world upside-down, destroy the segregation of our churches, and humbly sacrifice our vision of how a worship service must function in order to make room for the hallelujahs of others?

These thoughts stopped my voice in the moment; I couldn’t finish singing the song. I did hear others grumbling about the song after the service. Either they had missed the explanations of the “he” referring to Satan and were upset that we would dare sing that God had no power. Or they were upset that they had to sing about the person of Satan since we all know he doesn’t actually exist. But I was met with blank stares when I suggested that I was uneasy singing a song of liberation in an unliberated space.

I am fully aware that no one there, especially not those who planned that liturgy, had such motives in mind in choosing that song. In fact I am sure they assumed that the choice was one for diversity and inclusion that challenged assumptions about what constitutes proper hymns. But as I reflected on the moment my unease remained. It made me wonder how often in the church we make that promise of freedom into a hollow platitude. Like when we spiritualize the call to release the oppressed and free the prisoners into being simply about overcoming our personal demons. Or twist the call to love our neighbor as ourselves to really be about just loving ourselves. Or preach that Christians shouldn’t be distracted by politics, or economics, or corporate greed (since addressing those issues might require us to live counter-culturally…). We speak of liberation and freedom as if they are facades. They make us look great on the outside, but are so impotent of concepts in our theologies that they do nothing to affect who we actually are. But the veneer of liberation only serves to further hide away the oppression still inside. The most empowering thing for racism is for people to believe it has been dealt with. But that isn’t true freedom.

Liberation cannot be just a guise. Inclusion cannot be trivial. Freedom from oppression cannot be spiritualized away. I had to stop singing because I felt like I was participating in the very act I was claiming to have overcome. There were voices missing in that space and I knew I couldn’t say Satan had no power in the midst of that absence. But even so, all I could do was not sing.

How can Mary sing that the Lord has done great things for her? It's a little crazy: how can this young, lower-class girl who finds herself knocked up sing that God has already–in the past tense–ended injustice and oppression? All she has to do is look around her to find evidence to the contrary.

I answered the question, working in the requisite readings. But days later the question is still haunting me.

What intrigues me is the gap between what the song proclaims and how the song is commonly used. As the exam question implied, we tend to get confused about the song's verb tense. It isn't simply past tense, announcing the fulfillment of the eschatological vision in which rulers are brought down and the lowly are lifted up. Nor is it simply a future hope for a time when all will be made right.

Instead it's both; it's the already and not yet. This can be hard to understand, in part because English lacks the aorist tense. The Magnificat testifies to God's work to reconcile all creation, work that has already begun and will continue forever. Like Mary, we are invited to be intimately involved in this work.

Mary wasn't crazy. She was carrying the hope of the world inside her; she knew that God had entered the world in a dramatic way. This changed everything–but to accomplish the change, the hope had to be proclaimed with assurance. We don't just place our hope in a past event or a future reward; we live into it.

When God sent Jesus to the world to reconcile all things, his incarnation and work on the cross did the job. Salvation dealt with the world's injustices and oppressions. But as humans we could not be transformed all at once–that desire is what got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden. God works gradually in our lives and world, helping us grow up into the hope that is already there.

Like Mary, we magnify the Lord for already overcoming injustice and oppression–and we also work to end such evils. Mary trusted so profoundly in the reality of the baby she carried that she asserted God's fulfillment of hope in the past, present and future. Her faith challenges me to join her in magnifying God by making this hope a reality.

I grew up attending Bible and Baptist churches; now I generally identify with the emerging church. So I've had quite a learning curve at the Episcopal seminary where I'm studying. Between balancing prayer books and hymnals and crash courses in chanting, I've frequently felt like a stranger in a strange land.

I am open to learning this new rhythm of worship, however foreign it feels at times. But I am discovering that I struggle with the observance of the Eucharist. My issue isn't theology but method: as I pray the same words each time I partake, I feel constrained and long for something more. I'm not bored or looking to be entertained, I just feel the need for our remembrance of Christ's sacrifice to reflect the infinite diversity of the body of Christ.

I didn't grow up with diversity in eucharistic practice. On the first Sunday of the month we were instructed to search our hearts, confess our sins and then grab an oyster cracker and a plastic shot glass full of juice (always juice). Only in the last few years has the act of taking the bread and cup moved me to accept the call to live eucharistically in the world. This happened only when I saw the Eucharist set free from its traditional rituals.

In the house church I helped lead for a time, we closed with the Eucharist every week. In that small setting, the way we transitioned into sharing the bread and juice (yes, still juice) depended on the day's lesson. If we had explored the stories of Jesus' healings, our breaking of the bread would point us to how we could share our resources to help heal the body of Christ. In weeks where we talked about community, we would sit at a table and together mix the dough to bake our own bread.

We were the body of Christ, and the act of Eucharist became the vehicle through which we understood our role in that body. Breaking the bread and sharing the cup changed week to week–it assumed the role of shaping us into who we were called to be.

The church I attend now similarly re-imagines what it means to take and eat in remembrance of Jesus. In discussing Jesus' encounter with the disciples on the beach before the ascension, we partook of a communion of fish tacos–pushing us to reflect on the disciples' experience. In a recent new leaders' meeting, we were charged to humbly accept our call to serve the church through an invitation to partake in a humble communion of pretzel snack packs and juice boxes.

A recent worship gathering focused on us all being members of the body who have something to give. We were invited to an empty table. There the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 was told, with the interpretation that the miracle was that after seeing the boy's gift of bread and fish, the people shared what they had brought until they all had resources in abundance. So we were asked to share whatever we had with us–gum, granola bars, soft drinks, Goldfish, Altoids. The table overflowed with abundance, which we served to each other.

Eucharist pulls me into these moments of remembering what it means to be a disciple. It is ever evolving as it speaks to a church that is always advancing the kingdom of God. I know the stories I've told here may be offensive to some, and I respect the traditions that find meaning in engaging Eucharist in one set way. But I've seen a world of meaning open up when the Eucharist is allowed to be as dynamic and diverse as our creative and infinite God–the God I respond to in remembrance when I take and eat.

I’ve long been interested in archaeology, particularly biblical archaeology. So it caught my eye when the Jerusalem Post reported this morning that the oldest known example of written Hebrew was discovered about eighteen months ago and recently deciphered. Written on a piece of pottery shard, it was dated to the 10th century BCE, the time of King David.

Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa, who deciphered the text and determined it was an ancient form of Hebrew, explained that “This text is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows and orphans.” While not definitively determined as a biblical text, the inscription certainly could be. Prof. Galil’s reconstructed translation reads:

1′ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2′ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]3′ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4′ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5′ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

I’m not surprised to learn that this three-millennia-old inscription links worshiping the Lord to pleading for the poor. From the earliest days of humanity writing down God’s instructions, worship and justice were linked. It was true then, and it is still true today.

Duane Shank is the senior policy advisor for Sojourners.

In my introductory statements on how I see mission and worship as being one and the same, I brought up what the Bible says about justice and worship.  In Isaiah 1 God says he hates our worship gatherings – finds them meaningless and detestable – if we are participating in injustices and not seeking justice for the oppressed.  And in Isaiah 58 we are told that the sort of worship practices God desires are those that "loose the chains of injustice, and untie the cords of the yoke, set the oppressed free, and break every yoke. To share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood."  Worship has to be about serving God by serving others.  Worship is mission which is seeking justice for the oppressed.  The Bible is very clear about that and I think we have strayed far too far in the modern church from this biblical conception of worship.  While most Christians might admit (hopefully) that worship isn't just the singing of songs, I think very few realize that feeding the hungery is an act of worship and devotion to God.  It is something the church must reclaim.

So I made my assertion that a missional church will be seeking justice as an act of worship and I got an interesting response from the audience in return.  One man said that these days he sees certain students caring so much about serving others that they neglect the acts of piety like doing devotions and praying so we need to be careful about encouraging things like seeking justice.  I actually didn't get a chance to respond to the statement as one of the other panel members jumped in and claimed that practices of piety should always be at the center of our worshiping practices.  My first thought though was, "did this guy miss the part in the Bible where God says he DESPISES our acts of piety if we are not seeking justice at the same time???"  But my next response was to feel heartbroken at how in the American church we have so equated worship with cultural habits that we fail to see how biblical worship is even worship at all.

I know I probably don't score very well on the typical evangelical worship meter.  I don't do the singing endless praise choruses thing.  I don't put "Praise the Lord!" in my Facebook status update at least once a day.  I don't do fill-in-the-blank "bible studies."  I don't read spiritual devotiony sort of books expecting a paragraph or two of religious sounding words to fill me up each morning.  I don't meet for marathon prayer sessions where I have to pray for someone's neighbor's cat or something.  I know all those things work for some people to help them celebrate God, and they used to work for me too, but I've realized that I cannot limit worship (and God) by insisting that those cultural habits are the only or best ways to worship God.  Sure, I dig deep into scripture, I pray, and I celebrate God, it's just that my acts of piety don't fit the 20th Century American Evangelical Contemporary Christian Subculture box.  And because of that I've been accused at times of not being a Christian.  Or at least reminded of what my faith and worship habits should be looking like.

So when I hear a pastor warn against following scripture in order to encourage these cultural habits, I get uneasy.  Worship cannot be confined to a box – be that the box of evangelical devotions or praise music or reformed liturgy or Catholic Mass.  And following the biblical mandate to worship God through seeking justice isn't in opposition to, but is instead part of personal piety and devotion to God. We are loving God, celebrating God's greatness, and reflecting God's glory by participating in the acts of service we are instructed to do.   It isn't that I seek justice some days and worship on others – it is all worship.   How I meditate on God's word and how I seek justice for the oppressed will of course look different than how others do it – but we are all still worshiping.

Worship is much bigger than ourselves, and I think to truly be a missional church we need to get over ourselves and our allegiances to cultural habits and start integrating what God said he wants from our worship into what we do.

"I understand in theory how liturgy is meant to feed and fill worshipers"

But that’s just it — liturgy isn’t meant to do that. Expecting to be fed and filled is part of the consumerist mentality.

Liturgy is “the work of the people”. It’s not directed towards the people; it is done by the people, and directed towards God.

And that is the chief difference between liturgical worship and other kinds. Non-liturgical worship may directed towards the people, to instruct them, to edify them, or to entertain them. But liturgical worship is done by the people, and directed towards God. So it’s definitely not “seeker sensitive”.

Now I've confessed here before that I am a very low church mutt. I grew up not only thinking denominations were bad, but that Catholics and Orthodox weren't really Christians. I didn't even start attending "big church" until I was in 6th grade and instead spent the worship hour hearing stories told by puppets and singing songs with motions. My first liturgical experience was at a Vespers service at Westminster Abbey when I was 12. And, I kid you not, I spent the whole time thinking I was participating in idolatry because of all the kneeling.

At the same time I seriously can't stand singing songs in church for worship. I liked it back in youth group days when that involved upbeat rhythms that prompted a somewhat uninhibited letting go of the self. But honestly there is much more a sense of that in pagany drum circles than in any church. And while in theory singing songs is a way to worship, thank, or praise God – I generally hear people mention how singing connects them with God. It is a personal relationship issue, using things they like to help them feel close to God.

So it is with this low church "worship as personal experience" lens that I look at liturgy. I know it's technically the "work of the people" and like low-church worship theoretically directed to God, but I have a hard time really understanding that. In one sense I'm uncomfortable with the system having never participated long enough to become accustomed. Recitation, repetition, kneeling, standing, crossing oneself, putting to the same flat music any number of different hymns or verses – none of it seems done by me. Instead I feel directed to perform and scorned for not knowing the right steps.  How exactly is it "my work"?  Is it a ritual meant to be done by me but in spite of me?

But beyond my unfamiliarity, my underlying questions are what is the purpose of this work and why do those who abide by various forms of liturgy insist that theirs is the best (or only) way of doing church? I don't understand how some 17th or 18th century program represents the highest calling of the people. How exactly does chanting verses fulfill our call to serve others? If it's not meant to "feed" those doing it, how can it be for the benefit of others? Similarly I've had Catholics, Orthodox, and Presbyterians quite forcefully tell me how their formulation of the liturgy is the only real way to worship. To an outsider if often seems like they are insisting that the correct incantation and sequence of pew calisthenics is the magical formula that (abracadabra) creates worship. Or that God is too small to be found outside of whatever century's chosen formulation they happen to settle upon.

So all that to say I'm confused about liturgy. I'm not one of those who want to push some crappy low church model instead, to me insisting on the rightness of any form seems culturally imperialistic and a far cry from worship. So I'm honestly asking those that participate in liturgy why. Why do you do it? How is it the work of the people? What is it's purpose? Is it the only or best way?

Now growing up I always heard the lecture in church that one shouldn't lie in song. You know the whole "don't tell God you love him and want to give your life to him unless you really mean it." Just because the words are powerpointing across the screen and everyone is singing doesn't give you license to lie to God. Over the last few years I took that sort of idea to heart, but pushed it beyond the personal spiritual application to a theological level. If I had an issue with the theology or message of a song, I just wouldn't sing it. And in all truth it surprised me how many hymns and praise choruses had me shutting my mouth for one line or another. It wasn't so much that I didn't want to lie, but that I didn't want to be compelled or manipulated into affirming things I didn't believe just because everyone was doing it.

What amused me today was that while I had no problem belting out the lyrics to "I Kissed a Girl" or "Puff the Magic Dragon" (although I have never kissed a girl or frolicked with a dragon), being untrue to myself theologically did bother me. I am not a dualist eagerly awaiting the day I can leave this mortal life and escape to God's celestial shores. I don't buy that theology, but, I realized, as with the other songs I can affirm a certain story. The song's origin in the story of slaves seeking a joyous end to a harsh and oppressive life makes sense and is something I can affirm. It becomes about telling the story of particular theology in its historical context.

Affirming and celebrating those particulars in such ways is part of my journey of the moment. Overcoming the sour taste leftover from those particulars being pushed as absolutes is a harder endeavour. But primarily I'm enough of a pragmatist these days that whatever calms the baby gets affirmed in my book – so I just kept on singing.

I may never march in the infantry, Ride in the cavalry, Shoot the artillery.
I may never fly o'er the enemy, But I'm in the Lord's army. (yes, sir!)

or

I will never march in the infantry, Ride in the cavalry, Shoot the artillery.
I will never fly o'er the enemy, For I'm in the Lord's army. (yes, sir!)

I grew up singing the first version, complete with motions involving us pretending to shoot each other. In fact this was one of my favorite songs as a child. In my strictly non-charismatic church motions with songs were the only opportunity to be physically involved in worship. Plus it was just fun. I had no idea the more pacifistic version existed until recently. From what I've read the pacifist lyrics may even be the original lyrics. Which version one is familiar with seems to depend on one's denomination background and, interestingly, on which side of the Atlantic one resides. Apparently, the pacifistic version is much more popular in England than America. At least this implies that some churches do occasionally think about the messages we send to children…

The first topic came up as part of our conversation at up/rooted last night. The accusation what that emerging church leaders are all too intellectual and focused on cognitive ideas. They try to change people's hearts by presenting ideas instead of helping people have a relationship with with Jesus. It was mentioned that the books and the blogs are heavy on theology and ideas and not on worship and contemplation. These books give theological reasons for why we should say help the poor instead of encouraging us to pray for conviction or just go out and serve. Someone also mentioned that they were really disappointed in how at the Midwest Emergent Gathering last summer all the big name leaders skipped out on every worship session to blog or hang out. In essence, the charge was that the EC is just about ideas and not about being in a relationship with God.

I personally saw some underlying truth in that argument, but disagreed with some of its assumptions. The basic flaw in the argument, in my opinion, is the assumption that people can't worship or connect with God through books, discussion, and theology. Those things apparently teach one about God, but only prayer, contemplation, and worship can help one actually get to know God. This is an argument that I've heard many times before and one I strongly disagree with. I do connect to God through things like books and theology and I find things like singing and contemplation forced and hollow. I've been told my whole life that the only real way to connect with God is through those acts and that there must be something wrong with me if it wasn't working for me. And when I did draw closer to God through intellectual pursuits I was informed that I wasn't really engaged in worship or true relationship. It all served to make me feel rather inadequate as a Christian. But those assumptions just aren't true. My experience and the experiences of others I know demonstrate that intellectual paths are just as meaningful and valid ways of relating to God as the more emotional and mystical. Discovering things about God and what he has done does connect us to him. I won't deny that basic reality any longer and I refuse to let others invalidate my spirituality just because it doesn't look the same as theirs.

That said, I think there are a lot fewer people who connect to God intellectually than emotionally or mystically. And most of us who do connect intellectually have ended up in positions where our voices are the ones that get heard – pastors, speakers, bloggers, writers… When people hear emerging church leaders, the life of the mind is generally the primary option presented. Add to that the voices accusing us then of not being truly spiritual and problems arise. Unless we want to be utterly ineffective in our message or scare away those with different spirituality languages, more of a balanced perspective needs to be presented. I don't like the false accusation that I am not spiritual, but I also can't assume that everyone should connect to God intellectually (although intellectually learning about God is necessary, but that's another day's topic).

So what does this mean on a practical level? I think it will take some willingness to accept others by everyone. It might take some leaders affirming practices they might personally find trivial (praise choruses and prayer journals spring to my mind), but it will also take the majority of Christians being willing to expand their conceptions of spirituality as well. Continuing to dichotomize the life of the mind and spirituality is not healthy for the church or the emerging movement. Affirming these different paths to God so to speak may be the only thing that will lead to mutual understanding and appreciation. At least it will acknowledge that God is God and isn't limited in how he connects with each of us.

Tags: Emerging Church, emergent, worship, spirituality