...At the mail window today, an acquaintance mentioned to me this book, which will be making its debut shortly. I don't think she had an agenda in pointing it out; I took it as a surprising but nice gesture in trying to build bridges.
But I found myself in another conversation at the mail window, this one with a Trevecca Catholic. We picked up a discussion concerning the latest 'wreckovations' to the little and lovable McClurkan prayer chapel. In a not-so-unusual fashion, we Treveccans figured we would take a beautiful idea - an idea blossoming within the bosom of an ancient Church, an idea we'd completely forgotten to ignore for all 100 years of our denomination's existence - and, having taken this mere 'idea,' suddenly decide to enter the liturgical conversation with guns blazing. 'Stations'? Jesus dropping the Cross? What's that all that silly stuff about? Let's make it better; let's improve on it. Let's make a bucket of water with stones that will symbolise our worries (so we can 'attach' the 'worry' to the stones and then drop them in the 'sea of forgetfulness') and a wooden cross to which we can nail our sins.
The Stations transformed to party games and apple-bobbings - I am sorry, but while that started out very close on paper, it ended up with absolutely no cigar whatsoever. It is good we can recognise ancient energy flowing from the forms of higher liturgy and physical habits, but wearing these liturgies and physical practises like so many frail garments hardly admits the true nature of the issue: Nazarenedom is not Catholicism.
And there are all kinds of continuing conversations with fellow graduates and those who are still religion students here, sometimes at that little mail window. People continue knocking on my door with evidence that pockets and interest-groups within Nazarenedom are exhibiting 'liturgical beauty.' People keep making the case for 'reforming' the Nazarene denomination by pointing to the hope that comes with this development of 'higher liturgy.'
Show me the loosest and most flippant Mass, and I'll show you something that still finds its grounding in the Life of the Substance of God. What we as a people apparently don't realise (or don't want to realise) is that there is a 2000-year-old life energy and doctrinal narrative behind the manifestation of Catholic liturgy - something that the Nazarene denomination is just starting to realise (far too late in the game) that it needs to be concerned about. Liturgy is the manifestation of creed and disciplined spirituality, not a 'fix-all' we can strap onto church services to pull this disillusioned generation back into the doors of the churches. While 'high liturgy' is good and shows a sort of openness that may eventually creak wide open into a doorway for the full Truth, putting robes on everybody and reciting creeds we neither fully develop/breed nor fully believe ('communion of saints', 'one holy catholic and apostolic Church', etc.) isn't going to ultimately 'fix' anything. We're still playing games. We're still playing dress-up-as-Mass-day.
-Rick
