Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor's Page
Dear Friends in Christ,
Every now and then, a lay person shares their perspective on a church-related issue and after reading it I say, “I wish I had thought of that or had said it that way!” Such is the case now. A good friend, who is a lay person at a different congregation, shared the following thoughts with me, entitled “Apologetics for Liturgy.” It is well written so I’ll let it speak for itself. Enjoy!
In Christ, Pastor Don Meyer
Can we talk about liturgy? In practice, liturgy is about how we arrange our shared church life and worship time together.
We are liturgical people, even outside of church. We arrange our lives in repetitive ways. We wake up at the same time each day. We go to bed at the same time. Many of us eat the same breakfast, or enjoy the same cup of coffee on the porch each day, or read our Bible for the same amount of time each day. We attend or watch the same types of events on a consistent basis. Some of us have an annual “Superbowl Party” or fill out brackets during “March Madness” each year. Our daily lives are often centered around creating space for ourselves, our families, and our friends in a consistent, reliable, and comfortable way. There are routines and expectations to our gatherings. Our family holiday gatherings are often filled with food and traditions that trace back so far that no one knows exactly when we started doing it that way. How we gather, when we gather, has structure. That’s liturgical.
Sacred liturgies are small acts in a specific and intentional order that make up public worship in church life. The word liturgy comes from a combination of Greek words meaning “public” and “work or deed.” Liturgy literally means “public work” or “work on behalf of the people.” In Christianity, liturgy has evolved to refer to the communal worship pattern and calendar of the church. Liturgy is about the order of the service, the seasons, the celebrations and observances, the colors, and even how the space is arranged within the sanctuary. In a liturgical church, the people lead. We have lectors, those who light the candles, communion assistants, and other active helpers. Liturgy, when done well, tells the Story of Jesus. The seasons, the colors, the symbols, the candles, the rituals, the hymns, and the assigned Readings, all create a rhythm to tell the Story and shape our spiritual lives in Christ. Liturgy is the work of the people, led by the people. It’s about how we arrange our shared lives of faith together.
In a liturgical church, we are a congregation, not an audience. The Sacraments are consecrated and distributed from the Altar, not from a stage. Liturgy is worshipful, not performative.
But if we do the same thing all the time, it gets boring. Well, I kind of like that church is “boring.”
People and leaders that I admire will often talk trash on traditional and liturgical churches because, “Religion,” they say, “has some of the most interesting questions and topics in life.” Right? I completely agree! Religion is exploring really interesting things! And then those folks will say, “But the gathering itself is so boring.” I have heard this for the past several decades, over and over and over again. And I have some real pushback and beef with this thought process.
When did boring become bad? And when did entertainment become the benchmark?
Many people use “boring” to mean, “nothing exciting is happening here.” But liturgy is doing something very different from entertainment. It is designed to form and shape people over years, over an entire lifetime. It is not to stimulate people for one hour, once a week.
I want to reclaim the word “boring” and I want to defend liturgical and traditional worship styles that many people think are “boring.”
Liturgy asks us to enter into something larger than ourselves by joining in worship with our ancestors, with faithful believers, past, and present, and future. These are the words and the spaces and the prayers and the songs that our ancestors sang. And that our ancestors spoke. It is the same type of worshipful language. It’s important and it demands exploring.
Another word for “boring” is “consistent.” Both boring and consistency create space for depth. Every stained glass tells the Story. The liturgical seasons tell the Story. The banners and the colors and the order of the service and the sacraments and the hymns, all tell the Story. The most important things in life are consistent and boring: eating, sleeping, breathing, raising children, practicing an instrument, praying. “Boring” slows us down so we can embody that which we are engaged in. We live in a culture that rewards novelty and constant stimulation. Liturgy trains a different muscle.
Maybe liturgy is boring in the same way a deep ocean looks boring and calm from the surface. This lack of spectacle on the surface does not indicate a lack of depth. A liturgical church isn’t trying to surprise you each week. It isn’t trying to get you into a heightened emotional state. It IS trying to immerse you in the same consistent and true Story until it becomes your Story. It’s like learning a new language. The repetition feels boring and ordinary until one day you realize, “I can speak this language. It’s part of me. I cannot separate from it anymore.” That is what liturgy is like.
Church is not about constant novelty or emotional stimulation. Of course, new things can be experimented with. That’s not what I’m saying. But this idea that church needs to be entertaining and exciting and still somehow tell the entire Story in just one hour is such a sign of the times. Liturgical worship is something to endlessly explore over a lifetime. Every part of the service can be traced back to the ancient Biblical world. This is fascinating! And this is countercultural with the current empires that want us to be endlessly entertained, because that means we are endlessly distracted.
Boredom is where creativity and depth begin.
(Based on editorial commentary from Dr. Samantha Bise)
