Strangely Warmed

When I say I love Christian liturgy - and that I think it is important for the life of the church - I am often misunderstood. People think I mean that I like to read words aloud that are printed in a worship bulletin. That’s not quite right.  What I mean is that I like the prayers, songs and other acts of worship that have deep roots and broad usage in the church. In other words, I value the liturgy we have inherited from our Christian forebears. One of the benefits of a set liturgy is that you memorize large parts of it through repeated usage. Eventually, you don’t need to read the words from the bulletin or the hymn book. You know them. They are a part of you. They rise up within you as you recite them. I really don’t really like to recite words composed on Tuesday for use on Sunday, to be thrown into the recycle bin on Monday. Of course, some contemporary liturgies are even worse if you actually reuse them. Few of them are weighty enough to endure for hundreds of years or to u...

The word "liturgy" can mean several different but related things, depending on context. Cultural Liturgy . If liturgy is a community's habitual practice of certain rituals to impart meaning and instill desires, then liturgy is everywhere. It’s not just a church thing. Cultural liturgies attempt to shape our hearts and minds in much the same way that Christian worship does. The writings of James K. A. Smith explore this topic in detail. The secular world may not call them liturgies, but Christians recognize the patterns of religious worship when they see them. Religious Liturgy . Every Christian community has a worship liturgy. It’s not just a high church thing. The Baptist church to which I first belonged sang “Just as I Am” to conclude every Sunday service. They never would have described the ritual as "liturgical," but it was. If your church has a pattern of worship that it regularly follows, that’s its liturgical form. Shouting “Amen” during the sermo...

Many Christian are aware that the Greek word liturgy (λειτουργία or  leitourgia ) derives from roots that mean “work of the people.” This is one of those cases in which etymology can lead you astray. In its civic context, the word originally referred to any public service which a citizen performed at his own expense. Although the work or gift could involve supporting the public religious cult, the word's use was not limited to religion. Any work of public service or civic good could be a  leitourgia.  The word acquired its distinctively Christian usage, however, through the early Christian scriptures. The Greek translation of the Old Testament (commonly known as the Septuagint) was the Bible of the early Church. In the Greek version of Exodus and Joel,  leitourgia  is one of the words used to describe the ritual service of the temple and its priests. Similarly, in the writings that would become the New Testament,  leitourgia  also refers to wors...

A Means of Grace In his sermon On Visiting the Sick , John Wesley begins by calling his readers to look upon the act as a means of grace . He explains that the means of grace “are the ordinary channels which convey the grace of God to the souls of men.” They include works of piety , such as hearing and reading the Scripture, receiving the Lord's Supper, public and private prayer, and fasting. And they include works of mercy , such as feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, relieving the stranger, and visiting those who are sick or in prison. Here, Wesley follows Jesus’ Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46. That just sounds like a sweet thought until one realizes exactly what Wesley is saying. The means of grace are not add-ons to the Christian faith that earn you brownie points in heaven or offer you a richer spiritual experience on earth. The means of grace are not optional. The walking herein is essentially necessary, a...