Pentecost & Liturgy

This past Sunday was Pentecost Sunday. While I'm still getting used to the idea of Liturgy (let alone any particular liturgy such as the Roman Catholic liturgy), I've come to appreciate and look forward to it. Well, to be honest, what I've found is that I love it and, in reality, desperately need it.

Being "in between" (ecclesiastically might be the best way to describe it, i suppose) has been very difficult. I'm between Protestant and Catholic, between formal and informal, between formal tradition and informal tradition. To further exacerbate the problem, i've come to believe that, for the rest of my life, i'll always be in between. What i DON"T want is to always be contentious and argumentative - what i think i've been for an awfully long time. But that's not what this post is about.

I currently spend most of my corporate worship time/experience in a Brethren in Christ congregation of which i am a member. The BiC (as they frequently identify themselves) is not, as one of them has put it, "a liturgical Church." This past Sunday we had a "sharing" service. Basically what this means is that the focus was to be on "sharing" what God was doing in our lives. This means that we sang more than usual and people in the congregation spoke extemporaneously, "sharing" with others so we could, together, praise and honor God for what he has done and is doing in each other's lives about which we might not otherwise know. While i believe this type and these times of sharing are very valuable to the Church, i'm not at all in favor of them taking the place of regular worship.

Even more bothersome to me, however, is that Pentecost was completely overlooked (forgotten or ignored, i'm not sure which). However, Memorial Day was not. While it wasn't planned, near the beginning of the "sharing time," a congregant "shared" his thought that we ought to honor the veterans in our midst that morning by clapping for them. Towards the end of the service, i "shared" my extreme disappointment that Pentecost was completely absent from our "celebration" that morning. I read from the beginning Acts 2 and reminded people that today was NOT Memorial Day (I wanted to say that corporate worship was NO place for such a thing but didn't), that without Pentecost, the birth of the Church, we wouldn't even be here, that because of Pentecost lives were given... and taken, and that there were more martyrs in the 20th century alone than in the previous nineteen centuries combined. In a sense, i suppose i chastised both the congregation and, perhaps, more specifically - but indirectly - the pastoral staff.

So far, i have received only one bit of chastisement. But it has led me to write out some things. Much of what follows is taken from my journal entry from yesterday.

I get the feeling that people who oppose liturgy are opposed to it as if liturgy, itself, is at fault for “not much witnessing being done” and a general lack of spiritual "awareness" by people who are in churches who hold to such a view of liturgy. I have to wonder if the lack of liturgy in worship is not precisely the reason (and problem) with why so many congregations have eliminated scripture reading and prayer from regular corporate worship.

Liturgy is like the frame of a house. It obviously is not the house itself but it provides a necessary structure. In another sense, it’s like a wineskin or a bottle. You’ve got to have something in which to carry the wine.

It’s not that non-liturgical churches are not liturgical altogether but that they have a minimalist view of liturgy. And I think they do precisely because they believe that liturgy itself is to blame for a sort of spiritual apathy among many who are liturgically oriented. The only problem I see with liturgy is whether or not it is sufficient for the amount of wine to be carried.

One understanding of Pentecost is a comparison to the incident at the Tower of Babel, that Pentecost is about a reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel. The former event divided people. The latter event united people. The former event gave witness to division and disunity due to of Man’s perceived self-reliance. The latter event gave witness to unity and oneness due to God’s self-revealed power and mercy.

But Pentecost was more than that. Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” That power is directly related to being Jesus’ “witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” But is not the power to be a witness more than just an ability to speak? Jesus himself said that the world will recognize a true disciple (of Christ) by their love. The very definition of love is revealed for us, not by what we say or do but by God in Christ: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” But John’s thought is not complete with that statement. He finishes it by saying: “And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” Pentecost is what makes this possible.

Consequently, to suppose that the regular and formal observance of Pentecost is not important, it seems to me, is a terrible mistake. I know there are many who say that our formal annual observance and celebrations of Christmas and the resurrection are nowhere commanded in the Bible. They are right. But to then further suggest (even directly) that we ought not bother with them in any way is tantamount to saying that we should not do anything that the scriptures do not explicitly state we should do. In that case, prescription meds are out as well as cars, most careers and lots of other things in contemporary life!

Non-liturgical churches may not have an explicitly stated liturgy but they have adopted “parts.” Most often, however, the “adoption” is, at best, a catch-as-catch-can approach; at worst, it’s, take-it-or-leave-it. In other words, any liturgy is completely optional.

My contention is that most of the liturgy such churches have adopted (like the observance of Christmas and Easter) is largely culturally received. Christmas is a huge deal because it is (now) a huge business and social deal. (Besides – there’s a baby involved. Everybody loves babies.) Easter isn’t so big but still affects our cultural activities (despite the horrible corruption of the “Easter Bunny”). Pentecost does not fit at all in our culture. That’s because it belongs squarely in and solely to the Church. Pentecost is the birth of the Church, the mysterious yet real birth of God’s Kingdom in this world. If there is any “holy day” that belongs to the Church more than any other, it is Pentecost. Christmas is God coming into the world for the world. Easter is Christ’s death (by and for the world) and resurrection. Pentecost is God’s “deposit” of His Kingdom in the world, the birth of the Church, the transformation of ordinary “believers” into saints.

This is why the observance of Pentecost is important. The telling of the story of the Church is incomplete without it. And if we do not know our story then we do not know ourselves. And if we do now know ourselves, then we are not free to be anything we want to be; we are condemned to be, at best, nothing at all.

This, then, can be understood, not just as a justification and defense for the liturgical observance of Pentecost but of liturgy in general. The real question for churches is not one of whether or not they are liturgical but one of how liturgical they will be. That some/many people seem to be inclined to cease to give a clear and passionate witness to the gospel where there is a strong liturgical framework is not due to liturgy itself. The constant is not that liturgy is bad but that people are still affected by sin. Liturgy is not sinful. People are.