What time is? Or
better yet, how do we tell what time it is?
Many things in life tell us what time it is. If you have kids, the school calendar might
guide your life. You might work at a
business and are controlled by the fiscal calendar. Maybe you’re like me and counting down the
days until soccer starts again in Europe.
Personally, we count time by birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, or other
significant events. It seems like we
just can’t get away from time.
So, what time is
it? Perhaps a better question is whose time is it? The answer, of course,
is God’s. God is the creator and
sustainer of all that are, including time.
One last question, what comes to mind when you hear the word liturgy or the Christian Calendar? Does
that sound too “Catholic” and stuffy and boring? I hope that if it does, I can
show you how the liturgy and the Christian Calendar can be used to draw us into
a closer relationship with Christ.
First, we ought to understand just what the Christian
Calendar is and how the liturgy fits into that.
The Christian Calendar begins with Advent four weeks before Christmas
and moves into Christmas-time (12 days). After Christmas, the Church celebrates
Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. Seven weeks
after Easter, the Church celebrates Pentecost Sunday. After Pentecost, the weeks are called
“ordinary” time, or “numbered” time, until the year starts again with
Advent. If you’re not sure what all of
these things are, I can recommend a site run by a Nazarene: http://www.crivoice.org/chyear.html. Notice, however, that much of what the Church
celebrates is seasons, not days.
Christmas, Epiphany, and Easter are all seasons, not just one day of
celebration. Hopefully, that isn’t too
much information.
The Christian Calendar helps us to orient our time to God’s
time; it orients us to the right answer of whose time it is. The Christian Calendar has the potential to
orient our time around the life of Christ.
As we move from Advent through Christmas and Easter and even to
Pentecost, we not only tell, we actually reenact the divine drama in a sense. We anticipate with those who waited
desperately for the coming Christ. We
fast as Jesus did in the desert. We live
in sadness at the state of the world during Lent as we recognize our sins and
the sins of the world. We celebrate
Jesus’ resurrection and look forward to our own on Easter morning. Finally, at Pentecost, we remember that the
Spirit lives in us just as the Spirit did in the disciples. The Christian Calendar connects us both
vertically with all those Christians who have come before us and will come
after us, and horizontally with all those who currently celebrate Jesus Christ
every Sunday. As we partake of the
Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist, on Sundays we are joined at the Table not just by
Jesus, but by Peter and Paul, Augustine, John Wesley, C.S. Lewis, and my
grandma. We celebrate and are connected
with a great cloud of witnesses each Sunday as we celebrate a liturgy and
partake of the Eucharist which is much bigger than us or our local church.
Ok, let’s move back to what the liturgy is. The liturgy, or the “work of the people,”
refers to the actual service of the Church.
Each Sunday the lectionary is used in which four Scripture readings are
assigned each week. Some might say that
is too stifling for a pastor to be forced into a prescribed reading. Yet, I think the lectionary forces preachers
to use the width and depth of the Bible and not only focus on his/her favorite
or most comfortable topics. Also, the
lectionary is a powerful tool of Christian unity. Churches all over the country and the world
are reading and preaching on the same passages.
Finally, the lectionary ensures that Scripture is actually read every week
in church from four different areas and that the sermon will be biblically
based. I wish that didn’t need to be
said, but I think we have all been to services and leave wondering if we
actually opened or read the Bible.
Back to the liturgy-- often people think the liturgy forces
people into prewritten prayers and creeds and that is partially true. However, this isn’t always bad. Our churches should read and contemplate the
prayers and creeds of those who have gone before us more often. How can we do wrong by reading the Apostles
creed every week or saying the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday? Also, liturgy leaves
space for extemporaneous prayers and a sermon written by the pastor. I assure you that the Spirit can still work
and move in a liturgical service.
Let me end with almost a word of scolding to our Protestant
ancestors. Somewhere along the way
we/they threw the baby out with the bath water.
In our attempts to find the “Biblical” authentic Christianity, we lost
1,500 years of history. Rather than testing and discerning what was good and
bad, or helpful and hindering, we just threw everything out. After 500 years of Protestant history, we are
finally realizing our mistake. We’ve
kind of cut ourselves off at the knees are just now recognizing we can’t
run. I know some consider this move back
to liturgy as “hip” or a fad, but I truly hope it isn’t. I hope that churches, including my own, which
have moved away from the Christian Calendar, embrace it. I hope they turn back to the liturgy not just
to be hip or embrace the “emergent” crowd, but recognize the great historical
power in the Calendar and the Liturgies.
Remember, whose time is it? It is, always has been, and
always will be God’s.1
1If you’re interested in this topic and looking for a
good place to start no better place to start than Robert Webber’s works. I particularly enjoyed Ancient Future Worship.
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