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Dear saints,
25 years ago this weekend a pilot episode of a new TV show aired on NBC: 'The West Wing'. Through the years, much has been made of the degree to which that particular show was art imitating life, and maybe there have been a few occasions over the past quarter century when it has worked the other way. As I have shared before, our family is making its way through watching the show together when we can. We often combine it with an episode of another workplace drama, 'The Office', albeit one more awkward and if it is aspirational it is only in all the wrong directions.
One of the elements I have enjoyed about watching 'The West Wing' together has been the opportunity it has afforded us as a family to talk about what we hope for in real politics. While I think there are few of us who would realistically hope to ever see a Nobel Laureate in the White House, it is not unreasonable for us to wish to hold those in public office, and those who serve them, to a higher standard. Kindness and decency are not outlandish expectations of other human beings.
Yet, for me, the real value of art you can enter into for a while is how it helps shape our own living. The bishop who ordained me once described good liturgy as theater, not because our acts of worship are intended to be performance, but because they can be spaces wherein people can lose themselves for a while in order to rediscover who they are at a deeper level. That beautiful sanctuary we all enjoy at All Saints' should be a robust enough container for us to get lost. Some people criticize Episcopal worship for lacking spontaneity or creativity, but I feel the great gift of a drama that has been decided in advance is that we all can enter in without any one of us being in charge. You are free from the fear that one fine Sunday I will decide that I've had enough of the Lord's Prayer and will insert an improvement of my own in its place. That won't ever happen. Likewise, I am free from anyone else's ideas of what might be 'what Jesus really meant to say' during the last supper. As a seasoned priest friend of mine once said, the liturgy is not yet another exercise in great American democracy - and how wonderful that is!
So, here's my question: how is the divine theater at All Saints' on a Sunday shaping you? And I suppose to get to an answer to that, it is first necessary for each of us to ask how open we are to being shaped by our corporate life of worship. One of my rules of thumb for being at worship with you all is simply to let stuff happen. If the candles are not lit, then Jesus is still Lord. If the bread and wine somehow don't make it up the aisle for communion, well we know where that stuff is stored. Jesus is perfect so we don't have to try to be. All that is required of us is the decision to dwell in the presence of the Holy One, and let some new drama take life in us.
Of course, as our dear All Saints' friend, Barbara Brown Taylor, reminds us, the whole world is God's altar. You don't need special linens and candlesticks to set the stage for the worship of the Mystery that imbues all things. Just stop. Give thanks. And be.
See you at the intermission.
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