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...
4 comments:
I appreciate the post, and it's funny how your blogs keep seeming to have so much relevance to my experience in Uganda....
However, one question I have is in regards to styles of worship... You say its "all fine and good" that people all have their own style of worship, but that is something I am really struggling with. If that is all "fine and good" how does that bring unity to the church, all it does is allow people who like each other to do things together and those who don't like that group go off and do their own thing and there are just as many schisms as before. I'm not so convinced that anyone in the orthodox church or from any other tradition would really say it's all fine and good that everyone has their own style. I'm sure I'm wrong here, but I haven't been able to make it all make sense in my mind... it seems like everyone just does whatever the hell they want to in church anymore because it feels good and somehow that doesn't seem all "fine and good."
Thanks for your thoughts Mr. Lief--good stuff.
Justin, if you haven't already you should read Kuyper's thoughts on uniformity and diversity. It doesn't answer all your questions, but basically the piont is that unity can come through diversity. Different styles of worship and culture do indeed lead to different churches, but through the diversity there is unity. Unity doesn't mean uniformity or that everything has to be the same. I don't say it nearly as well as Kuyper, and I realize there need to be boundaries. But maybe this will help clarify your thoughts a little.
This post reminds me why I read the TODAY.
haha
The Coptic Orthodox Church (which I attend on a nearly weekly basis here in Egypt) has been trying to bring more Coptic (a language derived from Greek) into their worship service. It is the product of a movement called the "Sunday School Movement." The goal has been to revive the church by returning it to its roots. Churches used to be empty. Now, they are PACKED... and this is for a 3.5 hour service...
I have had the opportunity to attend lessons where priests teach the parishoners the Coptic alphabet as well as a bunch of words. Then, next week, they get to use their new skills in reading the liturgy.
Tradition has saved the Coptic Church.
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