Hocus Pocus - Article 24/39

XXIV. OF SPEAKING IN THE CONGREGATION IN SUCH A TONGUE AS THE PEOPLE UNDERSTANDETH

IT is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the Primitive Church, to have publick Prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understanded of the people.

The very language of Article 24 is not easily understanded of the people. But this is not about reducing clerical input to kids' talk; it is about doing it in English. That is its precision.

Latin had been the language of the church. And almost nobody understanded it. When the celebrant stood with his back to the congregation and said 'hoc est corpus meum' all the people at the nave end, separated by sanctuary rail, chancel/choir and rood screen heard (in the days before PA) was 'hocus pocus'. Which is as good a story of the origin of that expression that I have heard.

We still have many discussions in the church about the nature of religious language. From time to time I try to explain short words that have specific theological meanings – sin, the Word, saving. And any foreign words that we still use – hosanna, hallelujah, maranatha. Should we keep it simple? Or should we make sure we explain? Or should we ask people to make an effort to understand? That is its problem.

Church services should feel special, carefully crafted and understandable by ordinary people. That is its principle.

Worship and Personality Type

Using Malcolm Goldsmith's little book Knowing Me Knowing God (in which there is a longer and more complex version of the opening quiz) I produced a short Bible Study on worship and personality type for my small group last night. One or two people have expressed interest so here it is:

Introduction
Get answers to the following questions. Discuss any interesting differences:

1. When listening to a sermon do you prefer:
a) Your heart to be warmed
b) Your head to be challenged

2. When there are periods of silence in services do you:
a) Wish they went on longer
b) Wish they were shorter

3. Do you think the church should proclaim:
a) The unchanging historic faith
b) A faith that requires a different expression in each generation

4. What do you prefer to get out of worship:
a) A variety of colours, shapes, smells and experiences
b) A variety of ideas

5. What do you look for in a minister:
a) Practicality and being down-to-earth
b) Vision and idealism

6. When conflict arises at church do you think:
a) This is an inevitable part of being human
b) This is a regrettable failure of Christian love

7. Are you mainly:
a) Appreciative of your church and its ministry
b) Critical of your church and its ministry

8. A good approach to spirituality is one which addresses the subject in:
a) Considerable depth
b) Considerable breadth

9. Which image of the church do you prefer:
a) A pastoral community
b) A prophetic community

10. Does your Christian faith offer you:
a) Assurance, security and structure
b) Adventure, unpredictability and insecurity

Bible study
Read two key passages:

Romans 12:1-2
Luke 10:38-42

Which one says more to you about worship?
Which do you instinctively prefer?
If Luke, are you more a Mary or a Martha?

Conclusion
Describe a perfect worship service for you.

Which would be better, for everyone to contribute to every service or for each of us to devise a whole one every now and again?

Pray first for our churches and those with responsibility (wardens, clergy, PCC, staff, treasurers, project managers and ministry leaders) before doing our own list.

Fantasy Worship

This morning's fantasy worship set:

Alabama 3 - Let's Go Back to Church
The Strypes - Mystery Man
Roots Manuva - A Haunting
The Shins - Pink Bullets
Ten Years After - I'm Going Home

OK I'm off to church now.

Good Friday

If it is true that the cross makes a difference to everybody and everything then the 'last-hour' gathering we have enjoyed at Holy Trinity, Nailsea these last few years has been an amazing opportunity for me to curate (I think that is the right word) a worship activity. Here, juxtaposing old words and new music, we allow ourselves to be trapped in watching and waiting with only our thoughts for company. Across the reaches of time we hear a voice asking those of us who are unhappy in the silence, or with the choice of music, whether we could not watch and pray with him for just an hour.

And so this year we listened to:

Beginnings by Junip
Dream of the Rood by Erland and the Carnival
After the Ordeal by Genesis

All bookended by one of Eno's wonderful ambient soundscapes and with Josh Howard's knack for finding appropriate visuals to lift everything.

Numbers have fallen off dramatically this year, perhaps because we have another opportunity for alternative worship in the evening and a 'proper' meditation at 9.00 a.m. and so it may be the case that a new breath of life is needed into this next year.

If this has been my last one, it's been a privilege.

Quote Book Index 441-450

445. If you think your God's so wonderful, why do you sing such bloody horrible songs?
(James Jones' Postman)

Quote Book Index 221-230

I find I noted a few quotes in a row from Michael Cole's excellent book 'He Is Lord'. Appropriate for a church which has resolved to be Christ-centred in all it does, don't you think?

In worship, he says:

228. ...we shall need to distinguish between what we do from principle and what we do as a result of our cultural heritage and conditioning.

Radical Use for a Cathedral

I went to a National Trust House last Friday. In one of the rooms was a beautiful grand piano and a sign saying 'Pianists are welcome to play.' I normally feel a bit self-conscious on such occasions but Mrs T asked me to tinkle so I did.

It does change the mood of a stately home if a bit of live jazz-blues is happening. I got no audience save the woman who was on duty but she was kind enough to thank me. And given that the doors were all open I expect it echoed through the house.

Compared to the normal keep off, don't touch, curl-up-and-die-now vibe you often get in such places I felt welcomed and affirmed. Come to think of it all the room attendants were helpful and friendly. Well done Stourhead.

But it was the sense of being allowed to do my thing in someone else's space that felt nice. National Trust houses don't all have to sound and smell the same. But in the sense that they are all given a specific historical spin, decorated for some period in the building's history, we know that they will not remain modern for long even if some whipper-snapper inflicts the blues on a piano which was expecting Mozart. He'll be back. Mozart not me.

Most cathedrals around the country are happy to throw their doors open from time to time for youth events and alternative worship events. It is like being allowed to play in the big kids' playground when they are off on a school trip but having to go back to our own safe space later. It's not your piano and it's not your room.

Why have all our cathedrals developed the same, choral tradition?  Would one, any one, dare to be different? Not for one night only, but for ever. Is there one which would be prepared to farm its cathedral school out to another local church and mine a different musical tradition? Could there be a capital of progressive, modern, contemporary worship and theology somewhere? Johnny Baker for Dean; Pete Ward for Canon Theologian where we rock the ordinations, give Gospel the keys to the PA cupboard, stage several symbolic acts before breakfast, unpack the Lenten ambient labyrinth and just well, experiment damn it.

I can't believe such unilateralism exists in our country. And no archbishop has any power over any Dean to require it - they only go to cathedrals by invitation. Really.

So I'll leave it in the world of ideas for now, another case of Carlsberg don't do church, but if they did...

Wouldn't it be great? Join the conversation.

The pictures are of Stourhead. Great lake.

Idols and Sacrifices - Romans 12:1-2

I enjoyed preaching on Romans 12:1-8 yesterday. You can hear what I said here if you want to. I have been carrying on thinking about two specific things.

On one level it is true to say that the Gospel changes everything. But for a good Jew at the time of Jesus there would be a need to work out what precisely needs to change concerning sacrifice and idolatry. Everything, something or nothing?

Romans 12:1-2 is where sacrifice and idolatry meet.

Genesis 1 describes people as being made in the image of God. The Law later explains how inappropriate images, especially graven ones, are. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. Why not? Because human beings are the pinnacle of God's creation. If you want to know what God is like you should see more clues looking at a person than an idol. We are the idol. And the understanding of an idol is that it is the object of worship.

The Law also describes, in minute detail, the appropriate sacrifice for particular sins or occasions of uncleanness. The sacrificial animal industry was quite developed by Jesus' day and it was probably such marketeers that Jesus drove from the Temple Courts.

So Romans 12 introduces the idea that our very image, our body, should not like an idol be what is worshipped but what does the worshipping. This idol offers to God; it does not receive as if it were a god. How? Not by sacrificing but by being alive.

And that will involve a massive change of mind-set. The one who felt unworthy and needed to strangle a pigeon to be acceptable is now able to worship by serving, by going about, by simply being human. If you need a massive change of mind-set you need to allow God to work that in you. Let him transform you by the renewing of your mind. Not do-it-yourself but let-it-happen.

Then, amazingly, the second half of v2 suggests you will get to the point where you know, you actually know, what God's will is. After testing and approval sadly so there is no short-cut.

But those two verses were bad news for shepherds. Remember, the demand for sacrificial lamb can go down as well as up.

Collecting Symbolic Stuff

Do you have a problem with cards? Someone sends you a thank-you card. When do you throw it out? What about a love letter? Do you keep it? I have some old ones stashed away but I have never re-read them and probably never will.

I am pretty much a minimalist now. I chuck stuff away without sentimentalism. This creates a slight tension with the working style of one of my colleagues - everything he does seems to need to have a symbolic take home item.

I thought of this just now when a small polished stone fell out of my bag. It was the souvenir of a symbolic act of worship or dedication or something we did last week. Trouble is I can't remember what it was meant to be symbolising.

My study was becoming full of written on bricks, named stones and sloganed stakes of wood. I've just put them all in the bin. Felt good.

Not for nothing did Jesus do an eat this drink this rather than a keep this piece of symbolism. Clever chap. I hate clutter.

Quiet Music

Have had dangled before me the possibility of playing some 'quiet worship songs' during part of the archdeacon's visitation (non-Anglicans, don't ask, it'll take all day and the outcome will not be edifying).

What do you think they mean? 'Psychosomatic ecstasy dressed by Laura Ashley' was one of my old mentor's descriptions of the sort of stuff that was done under this pretext in the 1970s and 80s. Recognisable twee choruses played instrumentally without too heavy a hand, the dancers long departed through the 'great worship experiments with which we didn't proceed' double doors.

Once again I will have to resist the temptation to play my own preferred quiet worship music (an evolving jazz progression around a minor seventh plus fourth - the sound of angels praying for the soul of Ramsay Lewis) and try and anticipate the preferences of the archdeaconry.

I think pitching it somewhere between the background music for Lillettes and Dulcoease will be about right. Pass it on.

St Brendan

Enjoy Mark Berry's (Way Out West) St Brendan meditation, especially the responsive liturgy.