Breath of God

Breathing,
We speak the name of God.
Breathe purposefully,
and know God's presence.

Breathing,
The life breath of the Creator fills and empties us.
Breathe purposefully,
God is with us.

Breathing,
We connect with the Divine.
Breathe purposefully,
And act in grace.

- D. Conway, April 2009

Sinners All

I have a good friend that worked as part of our liturgy team designing and assembling liturgies for a contemporary service. I remember her muttering -- at least once a meeting -- her objection to our use of the word "sin" in the service. And I understand and agree with her viewpoint here. Another member of the team -- also a friend, of a more traditional nature -- could be counted on to respond sarcastically "I'm glad to hear that nobody at the contemporary service ever sins."

Argh! Talk about missing the point -- this (predictable, repeated!) response does just that. In our culture, the word sin comes loaded with so much unhelpful baggage that it has become a useless way of talking about how to transform ourselves from creatures that plod through the ordinary, willfully manipulating it to our advantage into beings that see and strive to bring God's kingdom to the world. It is an issue of learning to be and to do, rather than one of living in guilt and learning to don't.

When I read what Jesus taught, I see him talking about redefining our lives and actions to align with a path into wholeness and health for all of the world. "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and "Follow me" are all examples calling us to leave behind self serving choices, and to move to a place of being -- be a peacemaker! -- and doing -- seek God's righteousness! -- in order to be fulfilled.

That is also what I see when Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery to "go and sin no more." I hear his call in these simple words not to stop, but to start living a life of love and respect for one another, so that we can be transformed into beings that show God's grace to the world.

Yes, we are all sinners. But God's call and desire for us is that we focus on becoming instruments playing out God's grace in a broken world.

Thoughts on Worship Services

I walked into a house of prayer, I didn't feel so welcome there.
I was looking for the hand of God when it struck me hard I was hit by fraud.
-- k.d. lang, "Jealous Dog"

I tend to read a lot of communications that are not particularly Christian, from both the scientific community and other sources. In these sources, the mistreatment of gay folks, denial of any validity for evolution and global warming, lack of support for sexually transmitted disease control through proven means like distribution of condoms, and a host of other social issues get categorized as the way Christians behave. Not fundamentalists. Not evangelicals. Not conservatives. Christians. For the more liturgically based Christian sects, those that use the traditional language of the church and those that apparently require an element in their services focusing on sin and repentance are all grouped together with those that demand that members of disenfranchised communities change themselves before they are welcome. In other words, to many secular groups and to groups that have been most damaged, liturgical services that always include text demanding repentance sound like services that do not meet seekers where they exist today, and therefore are not inclusive communities. That is the way the church is viewed in the world when we do not present alternative liturgical settings that focus on grace, using language that the unchurched or those raised in fundamentalist communities can see as inclusive. I do not believe that that is the way of Christ.

Acting Locally
It seems like whenever I hear the song quoted at the top of this post, I sigh. k.d. lang is a gay performer who began her career singing country/western music, and moved into more vocal (“torch song”) pieces over time. The song quoted here is from her 2008 album, “Watershed.” The words speak of her rejection by the Christian community because she is gay, even though she was seeking spiritual sustenance. I believe we should be doing better as a global community. The only way to bring about the type of change that is needed, though, is through the actions we take locally.

For me, there are three components to a contemporary service that address these needs. These elements are the language of the liturgy, the style and substance of the music, and active congregational participation in the service. I’ll attempt to describe each component here.

Language of the Liturgy
This element is, perhaps, the most sensitive of the three, so I’ll tackle it first. I did not grow up in a liturgical tradition, so I may not quite get what others do out of the liturgies of the Episcopal Church. I do often find the language to be rich and beautiful, but also find it to be missing some of the meaning I desire it to have. Sometimes I find the text to be so focused on getting the dogma correct that it misses the call to bring God’s reign into the world through the way we live our lives. To me, that is the crux of Christ’s message – the kingdom of God is with us now, so we need to live and act in a way that exemplifies God’s presence in the world today. Quite frankly, I find matters like the question of the virgin birth to be quite secondary to Christ’s call to feed the poor, clothe the hungry, and care for the world. I think that is what is meant in 1 Cor 13: “So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” If we agree that this is the crux of the message, it seems to me that it should also be the crux of our liturgy.

There are several elements that I want from our liturgies for a contemporary service. They should:

• Speak to us about God’s ongoing creative work in the world
• Provide a sense of life
• Call us to act and live in the way of Christ
• Encourage action based on God’s grace towards us
• Speak to seekers in language that they can understand
• Use modern language and context
• Allow for times of silence and contemplation, as appropriate

I have found it quite challenging to find liturgical texts that meet these criteria in the standard Anglican prayer books.

Music and Timing at the Contemporary Service
Music provides me with an avenue to immerse myself in something larger than ordinary life. It provides me with refreshment that I do not get any place else. I value the times where I can relax and sing or listen to music without other distractions; it provides me with a contemplative sense that I do not usually get by other means, and, in a service settings, it often provides me with a sense of contact with God.

There are several things that we can do with music in a contemporary service that will help to build a feeling of connection with God’s presence. Here’s my current list:

• Use music from a variety of traditions, not just hymns. In fact, for the contemporary service, I’d tend to use few hymns and instead use selections from the St Louis Jesuits, Taize, John Michael Talbot, and similar more contemporary sources than are typically found in the 1982 hymnal.
• Allow the music to guide the flow of the portions of the service where it is a primary component, rather than having other elements drive things. I’m not sure that what I mean here is clear, so here is an example. During communion, we should have enough music selected to cover the distribution of the elements, and we should let the music reach resolution afterwards, rather than try to be sure both components of that portion of the service are timed to end at the same time.
• Select music that matches the theme of the service and the time of the liturgical year
• Allow for times of silence and contemplation, as appropriate

Okay, that last bullet is a repeat from the previous section. However, sometimes it can be quite meaningful to have a short time of silence after a song or choir anthem.

Active Participation
I view the work of the clergy as one of preparing the laity to do God’s work in the world. That is how I read the passage in Ephesians 4: “…for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ…” I do think that one goal in the Sunday services is this equipping, and that the members of the congregation need to be active participants in being equipped. To that end, my preference is that the service as a whole includes portions that engage the congregation, through singing, responsive reading, and other activities that connect us with one another and with God.

Summing Up
Finally, I think it is important that we design and plan our services to honor the words of the psalmist: I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the Lord." (Psalm 122:1) That should be our goal, creating services that invite folks in to meet the Divine.

MLK Tribute

Here is a small video I prepared for a service dedicated to the civil rights movement, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in particular, a couple of years ago.