SNARK ON PRAYER IN PUBLIC WORSHIP
The astronomers tell us that it is now officially summer, though sometimes it's hard to confirm that from the weather. It's been a cool late spring here, with lots of rain . . . a bit like a summer day in Oregon maybe . . . or perhaps like the first Thursday in August, when summer both comes and goes in Glacier National Park . . . or in Minnesota, which is, except for the lack of really high mountains and having considerably less snow, roughly the same in that it's not easily fit for human habitation in the winter. I was in the midst of such discursive ruminations when I got a call. The familiar ringtone of Ein feste Burg announced the caller before he did.
"Snark! Advocatus here. I've decided to take a brief ten-day vacation out of town in a few weeks and was calling to see if you could lead the worship service in my absence. I'll make sure the bulletins are printed and, since you're familiar with how we do things here on Sunday, I don't think you'll have any problems. Will your schedule allow you do this for your old friend?"
When a former adversary-turned-friend makes such a request . . . when he extends a good deal of trust . . . it's not something to take lightly. "Advocatus, I'd be delighted to do so. Are you all still using the Common Lectionary? Or should I select my own text for the sermon?"
"Well, Snark, I'd agree to the latter, but God only knows whether the text you selected would be from the Bible, or the latest novel you're reading! All kidding aside, Snark, yep, we're using the Common Lectionary. If you want to select a hymn or two just call the office and we'll get it in the bulletin. The same goes for your sermon title. Just . . . please, please, please, Snark . . . have mercy on my poor secretary and don't give her one of those ridiculous titles you sometimes come up with!"
"Why, whatever do you mean, Advocatus? Me, have a ridiculous sermon title?"
"Yes, you, Snark!" Advocatus laughed into the phone. "Like that time when you were in seminary . . . it was in the Sermonic Clinic class, I believe. You were preaching on the Second Coming. You titled your sermon, 'If I Should Return Before I Come Back, You'll Hold Me Here 'Til I Come Again!' That's what I mean by 'ridiculous,' Snark! I'm still trying to figure that one out."
"Well, Advocatus, it makes sense as long as you don't think about it too closely," I admitted. "At least my professor liked the sermon, Advocatus."
"Yes he did. And except for his enthusiasm about your sermon, I generally trusted his good judgment. He was a great guy, Snark, but he's been dead for some years now; and it was probably your sermon title that did him in. He likely had his fatal stroke in retirement trying to parse the meaning of it!" Advocatus paused while both he and I laughed. "But seriously Snark, thanks for pinch-hitting for me. Call me if you need anything before I get out of town."
"Will do, Advocatus. I can tell that just looking forward to your trip has you in a good mood!"
"You're right about that, Snark. It's been a long time since I got away. 'As a hart panteth after a flowing spring, so doth my soul panteth after' some rest and recuperation!"
"A splendidly ridiculous use of Psalm 42, Your Worship! Have a good trip! If you want, swing by Naked Toes on your way out of town and grab a bottle or two of Disambiguated Dry Detachment. On the house! It's a nice, semi-dry Riesling, of all things. Perfect for a lazy summer afternoon by the ocean. I can see you there now . . . lying on a beach towel, your crosier leaning against the cabana with your miter stuck over it's top scarecrow-like, your robe hurriedly cast aside on a chaise . . . ."
"Snark! Enough! You'll hurt yourself with all your foolishness . . . and if not, I will when I get back! See ya!"
So it must be summer after all, I thought. That's when Advocatus usually wants me to lead worship at his church.
Advocatus' church is a nearly 200 year-old high-steeple affair that sits on a lovely property just east of downtown. It's a church that has been quite typical of many churches in our nation. Its most recent heyday was in the 1950s and early 1960s. But the social upheavals of the late 1960s and 70s outpaced the church's ability or willingness to explore what those changes might mean for its own expression of the gospel. In the aftermath of 9-11, as new immigrants poured into the city, and in the currently poisonous climate of political conversation around important issues that affect nearly everyone, the church is just hunkering down. They try not to focus on things that are likely to cause controversy. After all, they reason, our membership is declining. Having a conversation about whether people leave because the church won't confront controversy is . . . well . . . too controversial.
One of the things causing increasing controversy recently is the groundswell of spiritual ferment that has been building for the last fifteen or twenty years, and which is the harbinger of a new and promising epoch of spirituality. In this emerging, new articulation of Christianity, "The Guy in the Sky" image of God . . . which, theologically, is often called "theism" . . . is replaced by a "God-in-all-things and all-things-in-God" image which can be called panentheism. Most of the church's mystics . . . and those of Judaism and Islam as well . . . have been attracted to this way of thinking about God. But most of the members of Advocatus' church exhibit the same head-in-the-sand reaction to this controversy as they do to others. Instead of being in dialogue with it, they outwardly ignore it. Privately, often enough, "they take an adversarial stance and are quick to label its beliefs and believers 'heretical' or 'New Age.' They view this epoch as Godless, its philosophy devoid of values, and its adherents in need of returning to the fold." *
Don't get me wrong! The people there are a friendly lot, but sometimes that bon homme comes at the expense of being real. As with many of the "status" churches, the ruffling of feathers is seen as something just not done amidst the polite people who worship there. Sadly, the dynamics of faith seem not to be much on their radar; and many of the members seem to just be going through the same kind of motions that they might at the country club or the Junior League. Conscious thoughts of how their faith might inform their life together and their involvement in the world seem to be relatively infrequent.
Amongst pastors, it is conventionally understood that visiting preachers should not rock the boat. Such a breach of etiquette would only cause problems for the returning clergy and undo any good benefits of their vacation.
But Christianity, when it has paid attention to Jesus' lead, often has an uneasy relationship with the conventional. Its ancient wisdom frequently rocks the boat of etiquette, of politeness, and ruffles not a few feathers . . . sometimes in very high places. Why else was Jesus executed, if not for that?
So I wrestled with this tension between wanting to challenge Advocatus' congregants and yet respect the old man's clear need for some rest and recuperation. Eventually, I decided to make a few changes in the worship service itself. Since the lectionary's texts were appropriate for it, I preached a sermon that led them through a brief time of Colorful Prayer of the sort you may have already read about. In fairness, the service was therefore a bit unconventional. I hoped that my efforts would stir up only useful conversation within the congregation, but imagined that I would, nonetheless, hear from Advocatus upon his return.
My hopes were not in vain. Neither were my imaginings.
* * * *
Three days after his return, my phone rang. "Sure, Advocatus . . . tomorrow afternoon at two? Yes, that'll work. Your place or mine? Sure, Elsewhere's fine. I'll have some coffee or tea ready for us. See you then."
The conversations generated by the worship service hadn't taken long to reach Advocatus' ears. He didn't sound exactly angry, and this was a change for him. In the past he might have flown into a rage. Now it sounded more like consternation and a felt urgency to figure things out.
"First off, Snark," he began after he'd taken a sip of his tea, "thanks for leading my congregation in worship last Sunday. I do appreciate your doing that . . . . " his voice trailed off as he looked for the right words. "But you surely stirred things up! Most of the folks who've talked to me weren't at all angered by the changes. But they were . . . how to say it . . . thrown a bit off balance by them.
"You haven't created a bunch of brush fires I have to put out . . . and for that I'm grateful! But I'm not sure how to respond to their questions and comments, either. Some of them seem . . . almost glad about the changes. But they don't have anymore context to help them understand the rationale for the changes than I do. I thought that if we talked together, it might be helpful to me and to them."
"Advocatus, I'm pleased to hear about their reactions . . . and certainly glad that your vacation memories won't get incinerated in congregational conflicts initiated by me! So say some more: where should we begin?"
"Well, Snark, at the start of the service there is the Invocation. It's words are not printed in the bulletin since it's left up to the worship leader to come up with one. From what some people told me, you asked God not to be present! I expect they may have gotten that a bit wrong . . . I can't imagine even you praying that! What on earth did you say in that prayer?"
I laughed heartily and reassured the old man that some had indeed bollixed up what I had said. "Actually, Advocatus, I remember well the Invocation that I prayed. I figured you'd ask about it, so I printed you up a copy." I picked up the prayer and read it to him.
"Holy Mystery, in whom we inescapably live and move and have our life, we do not ask that You would be present with us here this morning . . . (lengthy pause) . . . for You were here long before we arrived . . . and You will precede us as we leave.
"Rather, Mysterious Holy Presence, we ask You to somehow invoke our presence . . . our attention . . . our engagement with You. For, we confess, we are often half-asleep, pajama clad . . . moving through Your world oblivious to Your Presence that is in and underneath everyone and everything . . . unaware that it is Your world . . . forgetful that you love it by being one with it. We are your sleepy servants, Holy One . . . sleepwalking through the Mystery of our days and ways.
"So we pray that, in this time together, You would wake us up! Have Your angels blow reveille! Arouse us from our slumber! Invoke our awareness of You . . . and thereby . . . of ourselves . . . and one another. Amen."
Advocatus sat quietly and sipped his tea for a couple of minutes, taking in this strange Invocation.
"Snark, it appears to me that you've stood the Invocation on its head. You've made it all about us and not God! There are already many forces in our culture that encourage us to live as though 'it's all about me,' and I know from our prior conversations that we are in agreement: that this is a spiritually destructive stance. Your Invocation seems to add to that, yet it does seem oddly appropriate . . . even if it turns the focus away from God and onto us. It's quite paradoxical."
"That's an astute observation, old friend," I replied. "Our ways of structuring worship have, from the very beginning, been informed by what we might call the Priestly Tradition. That tradition focused on worshipping in a way that is pleasing to God. It probably has its Biblical roots in Abraham's hometown of Ur. That's in present day Iraq . . . about 225 miles southeast of Baghdad near the town of Nasiriyah.
"The priests of Ur did what priests nearly everywhere did . . . and all-too-frequently still do in our own time . . . they tried to gain the attention of a distant and otherwise unconcerned deity, and then undertook, by certain words and deeds, to convince the deity that the priest and the people were worthy of the deity doing something in their behalf. Things like sending rain for the crops, healing for the sick, and success in battle against the people's enemies.
"Those might all be worthy objectives for which to seek assistance. But the character of the God who is being addressed simply doesn't square with the character of the God Jesus knew so intimately that he addressed God as Abba or (quite accurately) "Daddy." In the Priestly tradition, we first have to invoke God's attention, convince God to pay attention to us, inform God of our needs, and fairly bow and scrape before God in the hopes that God will look kindly upon us . . . or at the very least not 'smite' us! We pray as though we had dared to disturb The Great Oz!"
"Snark," interrupted Advocatus, "I was following you until you began to pick up speed and got all snarky . . . calling God 'The Great Oz!' Down, boy!"
"Relax, Advocatus! John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, could be as straight-laced and severe as anyone who ever lived. But even he allowed that 'a long face is the Devil's religion!' Besides, I think that we sometimes act as though we do picture God as The Great Oz whom we dare not disturb. I tried very deliberately to direct the prayer of Invocation to a very different sort of God.
"I'm not alone in having this perspective, Advocatus. One of the poem-prayers by the Roman Catholic priest, John Shea, satires both our need to obsequiously bow before God even as we make our prayers all about us. It's called 'A Theologian At Prayer' and it goes like this:
O
(that is the vocative
of a cosmic disclosure)
Thou
who cannot become
an It,
Being in whom
all beings participate,
Absolute Future
who masters every present,
Origin and Destiny
of every concrescing actuality
whose Primordial Nature
cannot change
and whose Consequent Nature
cannot sit still,
Unknowable Mystery
who knows us,
Transcendent Third
in every duo,
please help me get tenure."**
Advocatus and I both laughed noisily, and other guests at Elsewhere turned their heads to see what had so convulsed us. "I'll share it with you later, gang!" I said to them, wiping away some tears of mirth. When we had settled down, I continued.
"Advocatus, in our no doubt earnest attempt to show an appropriate respect for the Holy, we often wind up needlessly and inappropriately diminishing ourselves. I think that's insulting both to God and to us. That's why I changed the congregation's responses in the Prayers of Intercession."
"Yeah, I noticed that you did, Snark. And quite a few people commented on those changes. Some were a bit upset, saying that the new responses broke the rhythm of the prayers by requiring them to think. Others thought that was an improvement."
"Well, thank God for the latter, Advocatus! Perhaps those who were upset wanted Sunday worship to be an extension of their Sunday Comics over bacon and eggs: a pleasant, soporific, semi-stuporous interlude before they had to return to 'real life.'"
"I guess Wesley would like that comment! But you're right, Snark: worship should be more than that. But why the changes in the Prayers of Intercession? The denomination's worship leaders worked very hard on composing those prayers that we use each Sunday."
"Agreed, Advocatus. They are truly finely crafted. Their well chosen words summon up vivid images and heartfelt concerns so that we can all focus our attention upon them. I'm grateful to those who labored over their creation in our behalf . . . even though I want to make some changes to them.
"My beef with these prayers has to do with the congregation's response to each intercession and the pace with which we pray them. That fast pace is why I inserted '(pause)' between each intercession: our minds need to linger a bit on what we are saying. It takes some time and effort to become conscious of their meanings. When we rush through the prayers as though we're in a NASCAR race, then we might as well be using solar-powered prayer wheels: nothing is then required of us. Prayers that we rush through seem to me to be more for God's benefit than for ours, and that's the Priestly tradition's emphasis. I am drawn, instead, to the Prophetic tradition."
"Well, Snark, some of the prophets didn't have much good to say about worship in the temple. No wonder you find yourself drawn to their tradition! But let me see if I'm catching your drift.
"The prophet Amos, for example, lived in the 8th century, B.C. He was a rustic . . . from the rural parts of the country . . . and when he came to Jerusalem, he was most assuredly critical of what he found there. He observed the greed of the well-to-do, their lack of concern for others and, as you might so pithily put it, 'reamed them a new one!'
"When it came to how his countrymen worshiped Yahweh in the Temple, where the priests sold unblemished animals to be sacrificed and burned on the altar there, he fairly foamed at the mouth. As I recall, he said something like:
'The Lord says, "I hate your religious festivals; I cannot stand them! When you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will not accept the animals you have fattened to bring me as offerings. Stop your noisy songs; I do not want to listen to your harps. Instead, let justice flow like a stream, and righteousness like a river that never goes dry."' (Amos 5:21-24)
"If that's the Prophetic tradition about worship, Snark, then why even bother convening on Sunday mornings for public worship?"
"Quite so, Advocatus. And, by the way, your memory of scripture never fails to astound me! The quote you chose does express the Prophetic take on worship, but I don't think it would be accurate to draw the conclusion that we should therefore dispense with worship."
"Well, finally . . . some relief for an old man like me!" Advocatus grinned as he poured some more tea for the two of us.
"You bet! Rather, I think what Amos said was later enlarged upon by Jesus when he observed that 'Man is not made for the Sabbath; the Sabbath is made for man.' That's squarely in the Prophetic tradition, Advocatus, because it does make worship all about us.
"But not 'us' as the center of the universe. Quite the contrary! What Amos and later on Jesus were saying, I think, is that what we do in worship is distinctly not for God's benefit, but for ours!
"In a Prophetic understanding of worship, the faith community gathers to say and do some things with the goal of furthering the transformation of those who have come to worship. The music, the prayers, the sermons, the bread and wine and water . . . it's not for God. It's for us! It's intended to help us remember who we are . . . that we share divinity with God . . . and what we are to be about . . . loving others (even our enemies) as God loves them.
"Worship in the Prophetic tradition seeks God's help to create in us the mind that was in Christ . . . a mind that was focused on 'justice flowing down like a stream and righteousness like a river that never runs dry.' So, while worship is all about us in that sense, it's really about helping us to get back into our rightful mind and to stop confusing our egos with the divine image in which we are made and which is our true identity. Does that make sense, Advocatus?"
After a pause, Advocatus responded. "Well, Snark, it does. Yes. Even though you have a way of going around Robin Hood's barn to get there, you get there! This is, I think, a helpful way to think about worship. I think I'm beginning to see some of what you mean about the Priestly and the Prophetic traditions of worship. But tell me some more about the congregation's responses to the Prayers of Intercession."
I pulled out a couple of bulletins from last Sunday's worship service at Advocatus' church and we turned to those prayers. They began with the words spoken by the leader:
"Teach us to treasure and nurture the world around us, and reawaken our sense of wonder at the miracle and brevity of life."
In the original prayers, the leader would then say, "Lord, in your mercy," and that would be the cue for the congregation to respond, "hear our prayer." This would be the pattern after each prayer.
What I had done was to change this last sentence. The congregation's new responses were printed in bold-face type.
The new response to the prayer above was May what we pray for happen in our lives.
To the prayer that went, "Give hope to those weighed down by fear and worry: the unemployed, the depressed or suicidal, those who are ill, in pain, or in any way overwhelmed," the response was Lord, help us to be Your answer to our prayer.
And to the prayer that went, "Open this congregation to the new things your Spirit would bring. Give us fresh vision and renewed energy to invite our neighbor to journey with us," the response was Lord, give us the courage to do so!
"Advocatus, unlike in the Middle Ages, when this form of prayer was invented, your congregation benefits from being literate and having the prayer and responses printed in the bulletin. Now there's no need for the leader to give a cue to the congregation, and also no need for the response having to be the same each time.
"Furthermore, I think that the leader's original cue to the congregation and their response is just dreadful! 'Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer' smacks of that bowing and scraping before The Great Oz. If God is . . . as Paul once said . . . the One 'in whom we live, and move, and have our being,' then God doesn't need to be implored to hear our prayers! Once again, worship should take account of the character of the God to whom we pray . . . and it should be for our benefit and not God's!"
Advocatus was thoughtful for a moment. Then with a look that seemed filled with both concern and determination he ventured, "Snark, you make a persuasive argument. But if I were to buy into that and put it into practice . . . why, I'd have to re-examine the entire service . . . have to choose the hymns to make sure they expressed this new perspective . . . probably have to find new hymns altogether . . . maybe write new ones ourselves. We're talking here about a monumental transformation!"
I smiled at Advocatus and said, "Well, my old friend, since 'monumental transformation' is what worship is all about, let's you and me get started! Pour us some more tea, Advocatus!"
____________
* Finding God Beyond Religion: A Guide for Skeptics, Agnostics & Unorthodox Believers Inside & Outside the Church, Tom Stella (Skylight Paths Publishing, 2013) pp. 115-116. This is an excellent book to introduce readers to the kind of thinking that many seekers have been engaged in recently. (See our review here.) For those who have not read writers such as John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and Robin Meyers, Stella's book will provide a portal into their sort of thinking. A former Roman Catholic priest, Stella is a pastoral counselor for hospice patients, and leads retreats and workshops. This same sort of material informs the vision of Christianity explored in Last Supper Red, an e-book novel that uses improbable characters (including Snark and Advocatus) and a healthy dollop of outrageous humor. Last Supper Red is available for free download here. Those of a more serious bent will probably appreciate Stella's book as a more conventional starting place. ~ Editors
** The God Who Fell From Heaven/The Hour of the Unexpected: Encore Edition in One Volume, John Shea, (Thomas More Press, 1992) p. 83. Be sure to read the introductory essay on prayer in The God Who Fell From Heaven. It's title is "Music, Laughter and Good Red Wine." It's a splendid introduction to prayer and its insights quite applicable for what Snark chooses to call "Prophetic Worship." ~ Editors
