I argued yesterday that rather than trying to stop being alien to the world and start looking normal on its terms, we need to be forthright about our alienness; rather than trying to tame the strange language of Christian faith, we need to actively teach it to those who don’t know it. This afternoon, I sat down to read Mark Galli’s article in the latest Christianity Today, “A Deeper Relevance,” and found this:
A closer look suggests that something more profound and paradoxical is going on in liturgy than the search for contemporary relevance. “The liturgy begins . . . as a real separation from the world,” writes Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann. He continues by saying that in the attempt to “make Christianity understandable to this mythical ‘modern’ man on the street,” we have forgotten this necessary separation.It is precisely the point of the liturgy to take people out of their worlds and usher them into a strange new world—to show them that, despite appearances, the last thing in the world they need is more of the world out of which they’ve come. The world the liturgy reveals does not seem relevant at first glance, but it turns out that the world it reveals is more real than the one we inhabit day by day. . . .In what’s now an old essay, F. H. Brabant put it this way: “All liturgical acts . . . have a double function: one directed Godwards, expressing in outward form the thoughts and feelings of the worshippers, the other directed manwards, teaching worshippers how they ought to think and feel by setting before them the Church’s standard of worship.”We have to pay attention to cultural context, no question. The history of liturgy has been in part about finding words and ritual that help people in a given culture express their thoughts and feelings to God in ways that make sense. The liturgy has always had freedom and variety within its basic structure.But it has steadfastly refused to let the culture determine its shape or meaning. Liturgical churches know that as profound a reality as is the surrounding culture, there is an even more profound reality waiting to be discovered. The liturgy gently and calmly gets us to open our eyes to the new reality, showing us the “necessary separation” from the old. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, we find our gaze directed away from ourselves and toward God and his kingdom. When we return to our homes, we are never the same.
That’s thick stuff, and profoundly important for the health of the church. I look forward to the article going up; what’s more, I look forward to reading the book from which the article was adapted, Beyond Smells & Bells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy. This is a message the American church needs to hear—and not only the “contemporary” churches that have stripped their liturgy down to the bare minimum, but also those churches being told they have to abandon their liturgy to be “relevant.” Relevance is not about coming to the world on its own terms; to the contrary, we are most relevant when we tell the world what it needs to know and does not, and when we give it what it needs to have and does not. May we have the courage to stick to that mission.