The REAL work of the people...

Two very different thoughts swimming around my mind this morning: a most excellent open letter to parents with young children (see link below); and a few closing reflections on the recent "Jazz as Liturgy" conference I attended last week.  First, the open letter, because it gets it ALL right:

+ This little "gift" puts the costs and joys of parenting into brilliant perspective.  Children do not learn about deep community in Christ by being segregated and entertained.  Nor do they acquire habits of the heart that will mature over time along with their bodies and minds. No, children learn the way of Christ by participation and practice.  I know this is hard work for stressed and sometimes overly busy families. I know the world has changed radically since the time I had two little ones at home, too.  But, as Ernest Boyer, Jr. states so clearly in his book, Finding God at Home, "family life IS a spiritual discipline" not unlike the vowed life of monastics, clergy and deacons.

+ Here is the way Jamie Bruesehoff put it in her open letter first posted in the Huffington Post: You are doing something really, really 
important. I know it's not easy. I see you with your arms overflowing, and I know you came to church already tired. Parenting is tiring. Really tiring. I watch you bounce and sway trying to keep the baby quiet, juggling the infant car seat and the diaper bag as you find a seat. I see you wince as your child cries. I see you anxiously pull things out of your bag of tricks to try to quiet them.

And I see you with your toddler and your preschooler. I watch you cringe when your little girl asks an innocent question in a voice that might not be an inside voice let alone a church whisper. I hear the exasperation in your voice as you beg your child to just sit, to be quiet as you feel everyone's eyes on you. Not everyone is looking, but I know it feels that way.

I know you're wondering, is this worth it? Why do I bother? I know you often leave church more exhausted than fulfilled. But what you are doing is so important. When you are here, the church is filled with a joyful noise...

I see them learning. In the midst of the cries, whines, and giggles, in the midst of the crinkling of pretzel bags and the growing pile of crumbs, I see a little girl who insists on going two pews up to share peace with someone she's never met. I hear a little boy slurping (quite loudly) every last drop of his communion wine out of the cup, determined not to miss a drop of Jesus. I watch a child excitedly color a cross and point to the one in the front of the sanctuary. I hear the echos of "Amens" just a few seconds after the rest of the community says it together. I watch a boy just learning to read try to sound out the words in the worship book or count his way to Hymn 672. Even on weeks when I can't see my own children learning because, well, it's one of those mornings, I can see your children learning.

(Read the whole letter @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-bruesehoff/parents-kids-church_b_3909085.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm
_ref=false#sb=5241625b=facebook)

One of the truths that Ms. Bruesehoff grasps - but often elluded some of the speakers and organizers at the recent Jazz as Liturgy conference in Cleveland - has to do with the very meaning of liturgy.  Leitourgia once literally meant the "work of the people" - it had to do with sharing time and resources to care for the common good.  As the community of faith took shape and form, it applied this old Greek term to both the language and movement of public worship.  The ancient church knew that the upside down wisdom and ethics of Christ needed to be practiced, experienced and renewed.  The way of Jesus, you see, is not a collection of isolated and arcane ideas, but a whole way of living. It has a rhythm that needs rehearsal and it has a blessing that is born of sharing.  In a word, the liturgy helps us practice how we are to live once we leave the safety and beauty of the worship space.

Within the context of the "Jazz as Liturgy" conference, I found this basic truth to be under-valued (and perhaps misunderstood?)  First, the words of our printed liturgies were too often cute and/or trendy rather than poetic and deep.  Kathleen Norris has written extensively on this matter - how word heavy contemporary Protestant worship has become often with no respect for silence - wherein the words of worship become "church lite" rather than reverent.  When the printed/spoken word is trite it suggests an encounter with the sacred that is equally trivial. It also emphasizes only the horizontal aspects of the community - the body of Christ physically present in the moment - without any intimacy or connection with the vertical or transcendent blessings of the Lord. If jazz is to be liturgy - the work of the people - the words need to be saturated in beauty and truth.  

Second, the use of music in this conference - while always beautiful and expertly performed - rarely embraced a working principle of jazz: taking something familiar and making it new.  Almost none of the music came from within the church's story.  Don't get me wrong, many of the tunes were stirring and stunning in their own majesty.  And I truly appreciated the players' commitment to breaking down any false distinctions between secular and sacred songs.  Nevertheless, why not do what the jazz innovators once did when they took big band show tunes and deconstructed them with new rhythms and insights on the way towards creating something new out of what was once old and even worn out?  The absence of the historic tradition left me feeling ungrounded.  Small wonder why the jazz masters who have been asked and/or commissioned to bring jazz into an explicitly worshipful context ALWAYS start with the ancient liturgical words and forms.  Think: Paul Winter, Duke Ellington, Deanna Witowski, Wynton Marsailis, Mary Lou Williams.   

Third, a well-crafted liturgy evokes both deep rest and playfulness.  Too often the jazz liturgies of the conference felt like an artistic and emotional crazy-quilt with some moments that were well considered and others that were off the wall.  What's more, not every element of these liturgies fit next to one another.  For example, after being invited to go inward and discern a "word" that captured something of our experience at the symposium - an act that requires quiet contemplation and time - we were immediately assaulted by a LOUD gospel-like song urging us to PAY ATTENTION TO GOD'S CLUES!  It was a great song - it was played with zest and verve - AND it was totally wrong for the liturgical moment.  It often seemed that the worship began with a few key tunes and everything else was built around them.  That is both backwards and unhelpful.  It is not good liturgy - the work and practice of the people - because it subverted anything but passive frustration.

Often my experience in contemporary Protestant worship is unsatisfying and leaves me wondering:  does anybody understand liturgy any more?Some go into worship without any deep preparation - winging seems to pass for spontaneity - and always comes off sloppy and ill-prepared. At other times, cute passes for culturally aware - and as the TV prophets on In Living Color said so well, "Homey don't do that shit no more!" There are others trapped or addicted to worn out worship forms that plod on until I find myself literally praying for the Lord to come right now and take me home so I don't have to endure this cross anymore. And then there are some that are a crazy quilt of good and bad ideas, music and theology.  (Small wonder that I often find myself slipping into an Anglican church when I am on vacation.)

Well, that's enough for now.  We are going to pack and head off to visit our grandson - who offers us a whole new experience in learning and being faithful.