The Culture of our Religious Belief

This weekend I attended both a Roman Catholic and a Greek Orthodox Worship service with the Foundations of Worship class I teach on Tuesday nights. Wonderful services... very rich with symbol, ritual, and the gospel. If you listen to the liturgy... if you stay "attentive" as the orthodox priest kept telling us - the gospel is there.

For my students it was a mixed bag. One told me after both services... "not my style of worship". Which is totally fine and good. It surely isn't for everyone. But I was struck by something as I sat in the basement of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church eating a bounteous spread of bagels and Greek treats with honest to goodness Greek immigrants... Religion is such a cultural thing. We make such a big deal about our own religious traditions - about believing the right things. We split churches over it... and yet it seems what we believe and how we practice that belief on Sunday morning is primary influenced by the place and time and people into which we are born.

The priest told me he gets grief from his congregants if there isn't much Greek in the service. So he gives them more Greek. Yet... he realizes there is a generation of people in his church that doesn't know a lick of Greek. Tradition... All of our churches have them. And how many of them are rooted in cultural expression? Not all of them... but for sure there are a few. We hold on to them as if they are divine law... as if God spoke Greek or Latin... or Dutch. Yet, for the sake of the Church, for the sake of the next generation, for the sake of the world... tradition needs change. We need to speak the cultural language or we are rendered insignificant.

That being said... one of the beautiful things about Orthodox worship is that on a given Sunday morning... whether you are in Sioux City, Moscow, or Jerusalem... the liturgy is the same. The language, the culture, the place and the people may be different... but it's the same Divine liturgy and has been for quite some time.

Go figure...

Darkness

Last night I preached a sermon on Job 3. It's a dark text... shockingly dark. Job had just lost everything and he opens his mouth to curse his very existence. He wishes he had never been born - or at least that he had died in infancy. In our church we follow the reading of scripture with the traditional "This is the Word of the Lord"... 'Thanks be to God". I was struck as we said these words... "Thanks be to God"? Really...? For this?

I began my sermon by affirming our thanks for such a word. We need to hear about the darkness. We need to read Job 3 corporately... because there are so many people sitting in the pews who are caught in the darkness. Cancer... sickness... the death of a loved one... the loss of a job... depression... loneliness... all reminders of the continued presence of brokenness.

We live with a cultural Christianity that is obsessed with glossing over the difficulties of life... Christians aren't supposed to struggle. Christians aren't supposed to get depressed, be anxious... Christians aren't supposed to mourn or lament the loss of loved ones... after all "they're in a better place" we are told. Yet... here sits Job. Lamenting... crying out... wishing he hadn't been born. Here sits Job calling God out... demanding an answer... wanting God to give an account of Himself.

We need to acknowledge the darkness. We need to name it... call it what it is. Only then will we begin to see the work of God... the one who call forth the light that shatters the darkness. The one who brings forth life where there once was nothing... The one who brings forth creation from the depths of chaos. Thanks be to God...

Christ our mother...

During last week's Foundation of Worship class we discussed the development of worship during the medieval period.  We talked about the changes to the mass, monophonic and polyphonic chant, and mysticism.  I read a selection from the visions of Julian of Norwich - a 14th century English mystic - which made some people uncomfortable.

The mother may give her child suck of her milk, but our precious Mother, Jesus, He may feed us with Himself, and doeth it, full courteously and full tenderly, with the Blessed Sacrament that is precious food of my life; and with all the sweet Sacraments He sustaineth us full mercifully and graciously. And so meant He in this blessed word where that He said: It is I that Holy Church preacheth thee and teacheth thee. That is to say: All the health and life of Sacraments, all the virtue and grace of my Word, all the Goodness that is ordained in Holy Church for thee, it is I. The Mother may lay the child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother, Jesus, He may homely lead us into His blessed breast, by His sweet open side, and shew therein part of the Godhead and the joys of Heaven, with spiritual sureness...

Christ our mother... you can see why there was squirming in the seats.   My purpose here is not to address her use of mother as a metaphor for Christ - although the more one reads what she has to say I'm convinced the less squirming there need be.  What fascinates me is that Julian was never kicked out of the Church - she was never labeled a heretic.  At times the medieval church represented a "big tent" orthodoxy.  People held different perspectives... whether it be the nature of the Eucharist, mystical visions of union with God, or how God relates to the created world... there was room for all of it.  This is not to say things were perfect, or that there were never times when people were taken to task for what they believed, but there seemed to be more generosity regarding belief - more generosity regarding the expression of those beliefs.

So how do we reclaim such generosity?  How do we become less concerned with drawing lines that determine who's in or out?  How do we become open to differing expressions of belief while still holding on to faithful orthodoxy?  I think we need people like Julian of Norwich - people on the fringes.  Reminding us that we can never control or manage the Word of God... pushing us to see our faith in radically refreshing ways.