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| GOD spake these words, and said: I am the LORD thy God; Thou shalt have none other gods but me. |
"Misadventures in Liturgy"
I have been hounded throughout my life by harrowing experiences of liturgical worship. When I was a young novice homeschooler, just about knee-high to grasshopper, I was enrolled in Saint Demetrios Greek School, which took place in the basement of Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. Part of the curriculum turned out to be participating in a Greek Orthodox service upstairs, where the diminutive Greek scholars were herded by the Greek teachers to the front of the church one by one to receive a blessing from the priest. I was too awed by the unfamiliar, ornate architecture and the overwhelming Greek-ness of my surroundings to pay attention to what the other kids did once ushered to the front of the congregation. My gaze was fixed on the gilded icons of saints and martyrs and on the towering stained-glass windows. When my turn finally came, a white-haired priest in flowing robes pronounced a blessing in Greek over me, and then turned me to face a deacon holding a crucifix. I stood there, discombobulated. “filhste” the deacon prompted. Noting my lack of comprehension, he tried again, louder and more urgently, “filhste!” Unfortunately, I hadn’t actually gotten farther than the first few letters of the Greek alphabet in my one Greek class, so it was all— yeah, you know where that one was going. The deacon was visibly frustrated now with this dense third-grader lollygagging in front of him. The other Greek students were queuing up behind me, and the whole operation was in danger of going on the fritz. I was a monkey-wrench in the delicate liturgical machine. Eyes desperate, the deacon thrust the cross towards me and said in heavily accented English, “Keess eet!” Comprehension dawning, I gave the cross a quick peck and was hastily corralled away by the Greek Teachers. The liturgical gears could clunk back into operation.
It’s not just Greek Orthodox services that can fill the uninitiated with bafflement and awe. At my church, Good Shepherd Rosemont, we make Anglicanism into an extreme sport. As a youngster, I was once spotted hobbling down the aisle. When Mom asked me why I was sporting this limp, I explained I’d got it from genuflecting too vigorously. When I was old enough to acolyte at Good Shepherd, I was introduced to a whole new side of the Anglican liturgy. No longer did I just need to stand and sit and kneel and pray, now I had individual liturgical duties to perform: move the book, light the candles, ring the bells. It was as if I’d gone from being in the audience to being part of the show. But it was a show with scant time to rehearse. No theatrical production I’ve put on has ever been more stressful than doing an acolyte position for the first time at Good Shepherd. There is so little practice and so much that can go wrong. A family friend tells a story that at her church, the Advent wreath was accidentally lit on fire. The priest reportedly quipped it was the most heated worship they’d had in their service for a long time. At Good Shepherd, I learned the hard way to avoid the pitfalls of acolyting, such as not accidently smacking the cross against the top of the doorframe when exiting in procession. Oh, and you really want to be careful about the thurible, the incense-filled metal censor suspended from chains. That thing has lit coals in it to make the smoke, so it is really, really hot. If the Thurifer is swinging that while walking down the aisle, all other acolytes and choir members want to give him a wide berth to avoid a singeing thwack across the shins. I really don’t know why they trusted me to use that thing. I’m always afraid I’m going to hit someone with or forget to close it properly and get burning incense all over Father Moyer.
Now Father Moyer would call the myriad aspects of Anglican liturgical life facets of “the beauty of holiness.” And that is liturgy at its best. So what’s the liturgy at it’s worst? Here’s a surprise: it’s not when someone inadvertently smacks the cross into a doorframe or when the youngest acolyte trips and gets candle wax all over the altar cloth. Jesus’ salvific work does not depend on the smooth running of the altar-servers. No, the worst is when the liturgy stops pointing to God and starts getting in His way. The liturgy is not doing its job if people see God as the deacon at Saint Demetrios: authoritarian, incomprehensible, impatiently wroth at our pitiful human flaws. So I say bring on the liturgical mishaps and thurible malfunctions. Don’t be afraid to muddle up the standing-sitting-kneeling-and-praying. God has a sense of humor; for Him, it’s better we offer the foibles of human worshippers than the rote perfection of mechanical ones. Some people think God has a little checklist of actions and beliefs you need to do or have and if you get enough, you’re all good. But that’s not how He works. He doesn’t smite us with Zeus-like thunder for fumbling the thurible. It’s a statue, a symbol, not Jesus Himself, who is one the cross inadvertently walloping the doorframe. Jesus is here with us in the congregation, sympathetic and encouraging, and wearing a joyous smile.
