When I reflected on why this was, my thoughts went back to the worship that I came to see as the epitome of a modern church problem. As much as I loved the experience, it was much like visiting a museum. In fact, the church claimed its liturgy was unchanged since Jesus delivered it orally to the apostles. Regardless of how inaccurate this is, it also testifies to its disregard for how God’s Word changes to address our historical situation.

But even more problematic was its totally priest-centered nature. Much of the service was enacted behind the icon screen; many of the words were uttered silently by the priest; and almost all the responses were offered by cantors. In fact, the congregation’s inattention was taken for granted as some sentences of the liturgy called on the people to “pay attention” to this part.

But perhaps the best indication of the lack of laity involvement was the attendance pattern. When the priests’ public preparation began at 8:00, four people were in the pews.  When the service itself began with no perceptible indication at 9:30, there might have been 25 present. Right before the sermon another 50 showed up, but the larger numbers arrived afterwards. By the time the Communion liturgy began, the congregation might have been 175, but people kept coming. Some did not arrive until The Distribution that was offered only to the Orthodox whom the priest knew. By that time we had about 225.

My Orthodox experience only epitomizes the failure of every Church branch to acknowledge what is going on with lay people in our democratic society. I have been suggesting one way to start correcting the problem might be to add conversation in the community to the classic standards the church has used for discerning God’s Word; charisma, canon, creed, custom, clergy, and ceremony. In fact, I observed lay people are already making this their most used standard as they customize their faith.

Bob thinks our readers should list various ways this conversation might take place. After making a magnificent analysis of the Internet, he concluded, “Those in the religious world must learn to use effectively electronic forms of communication to disseminate information.  At the core of religion, however, is the personal and intimate — love. Fritz’ idea of small dinners to communicate among the faithful is an example of an attempt to carve out an intimate area of interaction in an increasingly impersonal electronic environment. There is no one answer. We need to supplement his opening gambit with other ideas. The intimate and the emotional are essential spheres for religion so religion must find ways to speak God’s word through preserving these spheres.”

He followed this up with an email: “I think we need a list of many possible initiatives.  House Churches are another possibility, but a longer list is needed.” So let’s see if we can come with ways the church might encourage creative conversation with God and each other. Perhaps some of our readers might report experiences they have found beneficial.

Lupe responded with an email that covered very well what I intended to say this week. I suggest you read her observations in the comment I added to last week’s post. She acknowledged the power of words and Word, showing how basic they are in expressing and sharing ourselves. I think they also have a creative power in shaping the minds of the listener and speaker.

She also provided a transition to what I wanted to say next. “Today’s challenge…is how to have “real” conversations, meaningful exchanges, in the global internetized Babel. Not in spite of it -as you and I would probably never have conversed in a different time- but in and with it.”

Scholars speak of three stages in language’s development: oral, textual, and electronic. Christianity has always given priority to the oral or spoken word. We believe face-to-face conversation is more dynamics in not only transmitting information but also changing people. When we proclaim, “In name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit I forgive your sins” or  “The Lord God bless you and keep you” or “The Body of Christ, given for you” or “God loves you” or for that matter “I love you” or “I forgive you” my words change our lives forever. In a sense, every Word of God leads to repentance. Remember it originally meant “changing our minds”.

The second stage, epitomized by the printing press, led many to equate God’s Word with the Bible. In fact, a recent paraphrase was entitled The Living Word, a rather strange title for a fixed text. Christians thought their role was to find the one and only true meaning of a biblical passage. God’s Word was unchanging. This led some to a fundamentalism that regards the words in the Bible as literally spoken by God. Gone is the idea of the Bible as a record of how God spoke in the past that serves as a standard for judging how he speaks in the present.

Now the electronic third stage, as Lupe observed, presents a new challenge: how do we speak God’s Word on the Internet. Like face-to-face conversation the electronic is always changing. We write, update, erase, and improve. All is fluid and open to creativity.

However, cognitive scientists report the proliferation of information bombarding us has overcrowded and even physically changed some parts of our brain, making it difficult to think deeply. We have an excess of information but a scarcity of wisdom. “Facebook talk” is very self-centered, filled with what the writer is doing, thinking, and feeling. As Norma reminds us, it seems to have led to the dilemma of people interpreting the same biblical passage radically different. “Celebrity speak” can go on and on but leave us asking, “What was that really all about?” But perhaps the worse limitation is the loss of vulnerability. I can say “I love you” to someone on the other side of the world, but it does not have the commitment of the words spoken to someone standing physically before me.

Let’s see if we can help one another appreciate how this new electronic media, that is rapidly taking over our lives, can be used to speak God’s Word.

The Bible presents Christianity as an ongoing conversation between God and his people. God communicates through words, so much so that Jesus is portrayed as the living Word. Prayer makes clear faith is a two way conversation. Even more extreme examples are Abraham (Genesis 18: 22-33) and Moses (Exodus 32: 11-14)  reasoning with God and the Canaanite woman teaching Jesus (Matthew 15: 21- 28).

Traditionally God has spoken through selected leaders in the Bible and in our parishes. I can see many reasons for changing that symbol from the pastor proclaiming God’s Word for a gathered congregation to the community sharing the Word with the pastor’s help. First, as Bob also observes “the pastor talking at the congregation has not had a lot of effect”. Second, there is question whether a lot of the leadership is equipped to be the only authentic voice in our time. Although we all know education does not make a person religious, there are still good reasons to expect adequate training if people act as experts in specialized areas. “The Christian Century” recently published statistics that show only 58% of pastors speaking to groups larger than  4,000 a week have advanced theological education. I noticed this trend when doing research on The Power of Positive Thinking School. The founder, Norman Vincent Peale, had very respectable seminary training. Joel Osteen, the present major spokesman was an undergraduate at Oral Roberts University for only two years.
 
A third reason is the role of many pastors as celebrity in our day. Increasingly, we find religious celebrities speaking as experts on political, social, and financial issues. I just finished reading a news article citing Franklin Graham, the CEO of Billy Graham Evangelism, making awful claims about Islam. Graham hardly qualifies as a scholar of that religion. He had a very difficult time even getting an undergraduate degree.  

It reminds me of a member in my congregation, who wanted in the worst way to get into seminary. Although he was rejected a number of times, he sometimes wore clerical clothing when out of town. On one of those occasions, he was watching Bill Clinton’s inauguration parade when CNN interviewed him as a voice of he church.

And maybe a fourth reason is the democratic culture in which we find ourselves. Parishioners already listen to the sermon or church teachings and then decide for themselves what they shall practice in their religious lives. Making the community conversing around the meal a symbol of the modern church would simply acknowledge what has already taken place.

Myron observed, “Most of the “conversation” is not conversation at all but shrill polemics that advance the dialog not one bit but seems to fix people even more firmly in their unyielding positions.  Now, if the institutional church could break through that cacophonous battle, maybe something could be accomplished.  It’s not just evolution and creationism that we can’t have a decent dialog about; abortion, guns, health care, war…I begin to despair.”

Bob also expressed doubts. “I am dubious about the extent to which we can go back to the simple idea of gathering around Jesus’ table and sharing our thoughts. I find this to be one of the lovely images from the early church that we can’t recapture on a large scale. I would love to be wrong”.

Obvious this is not going to happen with our present understanding of Communion as a magic meal conducted by a magician priest or with our current practice that mimics fast food meals. And it might never be practical in large congregations unless they enable the dynamic Word encountered at the table to inspire conversation in the narthex and small groups. However, I think we can begin by seeing the Communion as the archetype of all meals. We confidently experience Christ’s presence around his table, because he promises to be there, and this enables us to see him present at all our meals. The sacrament reveals that all meals are sacred as it fills the everyday with meaning. Of course, this should be happening in Christian small groups whether a priest is present or not.

Two experiences have played a major role in my understanding. The first is how very young children responded to my lead-in question during First Communion classes. When I asked what they did at dinner, fully expecting they would talk about eating, they almost without fail responded, “We talk”. As I heard this year after year, I began to appreciate what eating together is all about. We not only share our food so all have enough; we also share ourselves. We speak of what we have done and what we plan to do and elicit the response of those whom we love.

The second was a discussion with Ivan Illich who observed we really do not know what Jesus meant when he said, “This is my body”, because we can not observe his body language. Illich suggested he might have extended his arms to indicate that those gathered around the table were his body, affirming the early Christian understanding that the Church is the Body of Christ. His hope was that we could recapture the spirit of Jesus’ meal by emphasizing the role of friendship in our day and seeing friends as companions who share their bread with one another sitting at a round table. 

It seems to me emphasizing these aspects of the sacrament will enable us to come closer to the Servant Church about which Lupe and I spoke last week and the Church as Family about which Rita and speak constantly.

Other denominations agreed conversation was the key but reversed the order. For instance, the Roman Catholics and Lutherans entered theological discussion hoping it would eventually lead to institutional union. We discovered once we cleared up the language, we usually believed the same thing. However, again the dream was never realized.

I still think the conversation that takes place in community is a primary means for discerning God’s Word. Norma wonders how decent Christians can read the same biblical passage and get completely different understandings. Certainly one reason is in our present structure people are not reading together and sharing their different takes. We shall always have different perspectives, but we shall never come to a more common understanding until we begin to share these in creative conversation. 

This break down in conversation is partially due to other developments that began in the 1960s. Churches began to divide rather than unite. Typical of what happened was the great increase of Baptist congregations in our small borough. When I observed his denomination seemed to be flourishing, a Baptist pastor responded I was missing what was really happening. There was no growth. Those new congregations were simply his members who got angry over minor conflicts and left to start their own churches. 

All of this took place when the Holy Spirit was bringing about some of the fastest social changes in history. The society was debating the civil rights of African Americans, women, immigrants and homosexuals. Some churches have hardly moved since the 60s and others have radically changed. All claim “Gott mit uns”. This crisis has led to such conflict that people such as Anne Rice announce they are leaving, because they do not want to be associated with the resultant mean-spirited hate mongering.

I find some hope in the current movement that seeks recognition of each other’s communion and ministry. It is not interested in institutional union but rather in gathering around Jesus’ table in the manner Juan described a couple lessons ago. When people share food, they also engage in conversation that shares their thoughts. They compare ideas about where Jesus’ Spirit might be leading his family.

I saw what that could mean when Gustave Weigel, a prominent Roman theologian, and George Lindbeck, a Lutheran observer at Vatican II, discussed issues separating their communities back in the 60s. Realizing some were disappointed they had not reconciled all their differences in three days, the two went to great lengths to end their conversation with a public embrace, giving a sure sign there was hope in Christ to realize the dream.

I felt somewhat the same thing last year when I spend two weeks with a very, very conservative Roman Catholic layman. Even though it was obvious we were at the extreme opposite ends of almost everything we discussed, he departed asking me to do something nobody else had ever done. He bowed his head before me with the words “Bless me, Father”. That is what shall save the Church in the end, recognizing each of us has something to say to one another, especially when we speak in the name of Christ.

Dorothee Sölle was a free thinking German theologian who died in 2003. She spoke out against the Vietnam War, the arms race of the Cold War and injustices in the developing world.  Between 1975 and 1987, she spent six months a year at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she was a professor of systematic theology. She regarded herself as a radical Christian who refused to leave the Church, because no matter how much it disappointed her, it was home. 

She is often cited as coining the term “Christofascist” to describe fundamentalists.

“Those who welcomed Peter’s message were baptized…They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Read the entire passage in Acts 2: 42-47.)

The fellowship described in that First Church is what I mean by community. The baptized gather around a meal to converse about what it mans to follow Jesus, and they check what they think by the teaching of the apostles who were there during the ministry and the resurrection.

The challenge is how to do this in our time. We have made the Church more and more an institution with leaders who control it as managers control corporations. We defer to them as the experts who are the only ones who know the true Word of God. However, when we find they fail to speak to our real life, we simply cut and paste what they say, trying to find something that relates to the lives we live.

Some of this stems from being uncomfortable with conversing with people who are unlike us. We have been taught to be tolerate by never speaking about religion or politics.

Perhaps the first thing we have to do is acknowledge until the Kingdom comes we shall always have diversity in the Church. That is what we are about, bringing together the disparate. The glory of the Bible is it retains all the differences of opinion from the ancient past. The prophets insisted the Word of God was about ethics; the priests believed  ritual deserved that spot; the kings just asked us to accept their word as God’s; and the scribes, well the scribes played the role for which lawyers are ridiculed in our day. They took no positions; they simply pretended to analyze old absolute laws. 

We see the same thing in the New Testament as the Church preserved four versions of the Gospel rather than one. Paul was obviously constantly calling for unity, because his churches lacked it. And Jesus himself never asked us to adopt one definition of how things are. When asked to define something, he always told a story that began with “It is something like this…” and then went on “On the other hand, it is something like this as well…” 

The second thing we have to do is make sure we have plenty of small groups in our churches where people can converse honestly. Many say the secret to the growth of mega-churches is their building community around small groups. 

Next week I’ll like to suggest some ways we can involve the community in the decision-making of our churches.

When I want to check whether an inspiration is really God’s Word, I begin by asking my wife. It is not that she is infallible, but she shares my faith and knows our situation. If I am still not sure, I check with the rest of the family and my trusted friends. I might do that in casual conversation or more organized groups, such as Sunday School classes or theological seminars.

This is one way the community that Paul described as the Body of Christ helps me hear God’s Word. We so often use the term to describe one of the elements in the Communion meal that we forget it primarily refers to the people who gather to share that meal. Jesus speaks of this role played by the community when he promised to be present when two or three gather in his name.

The Church has usually agreed that the ultimate way we test an individual charisma is how it plays out in the Body of Christ. That does not mean the majority rules or that we need to form a consensus. God can certainly speak a special message to an individual.
It also does not mean the community operates without taking into consideration the other parts of the tradition, such as canon, creed, custom, ceremony, and clergy. However, in most cases if the community rejects the inspiration, it is suspect. Even Pope Benedict in a former life wrote that the individual conscience remains the ultimate standard.

Some warn this concept is dangerous, because it leads to “relativism” and “situational ethics”.  They argue it enables secular society to determine God’s Word. In fact, some sophisticated theologians say Christianity should never claim to be relative. My response has always been what good is it if it does not relate to the people, time, and place of my real life.

One of those theologians recently published an article about how he has changed his mind. He wrote when looking back over many decades he finds his theological developments followed his life experiences. He then traced them by referring to national and world events. My wife, realist and sometimes cynic, laughed with a “told you so” She had always observed his work reflected his life experiences, no matter how much he claimed to be objective and even absolute. With another laugh she observed he still was not being totally honest with himself, because the experiences that marked his development had more to do with the events in the life of his daughter that of the nation.

That rings true for me. I find the Holy Spirit has often led me through my relationships to new insights that I identify with God’s Word. I am sure one reason I feel as I do about homosexuality is because so many of my dear friends have homosexual children.  Come to think of it, this is exactly the way the Holy Spirit operated throughout the Acts of the Apostles in opening baptism to Gentiles and Europeans. It led in new directions by providing new experiences.

In the later stages of that ministry people were more interested in creativity than continuity (Marlin’s terms) as they tried to understand the new directions in which the Holy Spirit is leading us. With the overall loss of authority and radical democracy in our society, they came seeking my opinion that they would then consider as they formed their own positions. They were not only interested in my teaching, but even more in the integrity of my life as it served as a witness for them that the Gospel could be practiced. I found myself struggling to live by faith in the uncertainty of our contemporary society. More and more I felt I was called to be prophetic in these uncharted waters.

The office of clergy was originally established for some continuity to overcome the abuses of the early charismatic prophets, self- appointed lone rangers who channeled God’s Word.  Without denying that God can speak directly to individuals concerning their situations, the Church needed the office to serve the needs of the community. Very interestingly, when Paul laid out the guidelines for their selection in I Timothy 3: 1-13, he made character primary. Pastors were to be persons respected by those in and outside of the Church. They were expected to be moral, kind, and wise.

Too often the clergy has promoted the institution rather than the community as they reacted to losing their authority in recent times. The Roman Catholic “restoration movement” tries to return to a long bygone era when clergy could control laity with a centralized power structure. In some ways, they have gone beyond those old structures by promoting the “infallible” teaching office. (Check out the great talk sent by Rita) The Pentecostal Churches describe themselves as “restorative” claiming they return to the offices and charisma of the first century. Pastors operate without checks and balances, much like the early prophets. They speak Words of Knowledge that are supposedly direct messages from God, their own kind of “infallibility”. Some Mainline clergy pretend they can go back to a time when they were among the very few educated people in town. That supposedly makes their ideas orthodox, the standard for what real Christians must believe. Others avoid any challenges by preaching positive thinking rather than prophecy.

These efforts to regain authority are rather futile with all the clerical scandals in all branches of the Church. Although the pedophilia of the Roman Catholics gets most of the press, every denomination has high officials involved in scandals of infidelity, adultery, embezzlement, fraud, and deception. No matter how much we insist authority goes with the office not the person, we all know Paul was right, character is an essential witness. The consequence of all this has been many people report they have faith in the church but not the hierarchy, the teachings and practices but not the leadership.

I see the way clergy operate in the liturgy as the model for how they should help us determine what God’s Word is. The sermon applies the fixed canon to the present situation where we live life. Next week I’ll take a crack at how restoring a sense of true community in which the laity engage creatively in decision making might help the contemporary Church.

The weekly liturgy passes on proven tradition, but also provides a means for modifying these customs.  It’s probably a good thing that people respond very cautiously and sometimes angrily to the changes. By questioning new translations of the Lord’s Prayer, a new three- year cycle of assigned readings, or the use of modern music, they are attempting to separate good and bad tradition.

And well they should. The quality of the responses to recent posts makes clear our readers understand both the light and the dark sides of tradition. Check out this article in the National Catholic Report that Rita sent me for an example of how a misuse of tradition can distort our mission. I came to understand that in relationship to liturgy early in my ministry. Out of curiosity I marked in a Bible all the Gospel readings in the old one year-lectionary used by the liturgical churches. It immediately became clear that the passages omitted were overwhelmingly Jesus’ many, many words about money. Obviously there was some questionable judgment in establishing that hallowed tradition. It made sense to develop a new three-year cycle of readings that corrected this.

Remember I am trying to offer insight into how we “discern God’s voice. Are we hearing God, demons, or our own selfish ambitions?” (To use Juan’s words) I am observing, “The duty to thoughtfully pursue one’s course in life according to what is best (and often difficult), seems to get lost in a barrage of catchwords, slogans, peer-pressure inductions and politically motivated agendas.  That, coupled with a frantic consumerism that equates wealth with happiness and sees possessions as assertion of self-worth, would seem to be antithetical to the principles of Christianity, born in austerity, grown in adversity and, with Luther, “Reformed” against such things as the ungodly accumulation of wealth by those sworn to holy poverty.”(To use Lupe’s words) I’m suggesting we sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, use the interplay between canon, creed, custom, ceremony, clergy, and community to gain clarity. None of these alone are enough. Each operates as check and balance on the others. 

You see these in our ritual. The liturgical churches give the clergy control of the Word and Sacraments, but also recognize it is the “work of the people” (community). It should always enable the laity to express themselves, reflecting their tastes rather than that of the clergy. Heavens, even today a number of the clergy prefer to do it all in Latin. Talk about the nonsense of tongue speaking. The ceremony also uses assigned lessons and the church year (canon) to prevent clergy from focusing only on their own opinion and tastes. It would be much more difficult for televangelists to use the same few texts all the time and to twist Christian truth if they used the classic worship patterns.

The critical question should be whether the liturgy proclaims the Gospel in word and action. For instance, it is far more important to share Paul’s concern that a Eucharist teaches participants to share their food (I Corinthians 11: 17-22) than to insist on a certain kind of music.  The current argument about whether contemporary music is acceptable too often is about people’s tastes and fashions rather than Christian proclamation.

Next week I’ll go in another direction by looking at the role of the clergy.