I love visiting other churches. Since I used to be the person who made the bulletins, of course I am interested to see how those are done, but now it is definitely a relief not to sit and search for typos like I did when I was reading my own work. I look at practical stuff, like how readable the font is and how well things are spaced out on the page. Is there cover art? Where did it come from and does it somehow point us to the theme of the texts for the day? Does the office have a folding machine or is there another lucky person with a “folding stick” just like I used to make those nice creases?
Beyond the obvious stuff, I also wonder about the planning that went into it. Do they print out every word that is spoken by anyone in the service or provide a basic outline that is supplemented by a hymnal or a projected slide? What impact does that choice have on the involvement of the congregation in worship? Are there lay people leading parts of the service or is this church content to let the pastor run the show alone?
Who chose the hymns and do they mesh with the scripture? Do they sing all the verses? If not, then how do they decide which ones to leave out? Why does one church choose to include the psalm while another one doesn’t? Why do they confess the Apostle’s Creed at church A but not at church B?
This past Sunday, I had my first encounter with a Lutheran church equipped with kneelers. That was a bit of déjà vu for this former Catholic kid. And it wasn’t a good feeling. It took me back to the days when the emphasis was on doing things one way, the right way. Make your sign of the cross correctly. Up, down, left, then right or you go to the back of the line and do it again. Don’t think you will get by with saying “In the name of the Father and the Son…” because if you forget an “of” you will go to the back of the line again. Don’t smile when you say it. Don’t do it too fast.
At some point, I started to wonder how much of that really mattered. Then, just recently, Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well that we read in our women’s bible study brought that question up again.
20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 25The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ 26Jesus said to her, ‘I am he,- the one who is speaking to you.” John 4:20-25
Doesn’t she sound a lot like us? “We’ve always done it this way.” Her people have been worshipping in a certain place in a certain way for a long, long time. It’s important to her. It’s part of who she is. That’s hard to let go of. Even though Jesus has already revealed that he knows things about her that are pretty intimate, she doesn’t seem quite ready to accept that he really has any authority to be telling her how she should worship.
Thanks, anyway, Jesus, but we would rather hold on to what we know than have you tell us anything new. We’re quite comfortable, so don’t be rocking our boat. You kind of scare us when you touch us so deeply like that, so we feel better retreating to the safety of our rituals. They’re so familiar that we don’t even need to engage ourselves. Once we start, the words just come flowing out of our mouths. It’s great when we don’t need to look at the bulletin because we know it all by heart.
Jesus has reached past the first wall she put up, but she just throws up another one. First, he seems like he’s going to give her some time to get used to the idea, “The hour is coming…” then comes right at her with “…and is now here.” Still, she wants to buy some more time, “I know that Messiah is coming…” Jesus doesn’t back off. “I am he – the one who is speaking to you.” Even a direct approach isn’t going to fully convince her. Later on, she doesn’t trust what she has just heard from Jesus himself and says to others, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ as though maybe she wants to believe it, but just can’t. It doesn’t fit in her mind. Even though she has had a very personal encounter with Jesus, she continues to resist.
Before we shake our heads at this woman for acting so deliberately dense, let’s ask ourselves if we have ever been confronted by Jesus in a way that was new or different or unexpected? How did we respond? Were we so sure that it couldn’t be Jesus because it didn’t sound right to us? We’d like to think we are always eager and ready to hear his voice now, but will we still listen if how he speaks to us is contrary to what we think we know?
We can’t really blame the Samaritan woman. After all, we read earlier in the story that it was a cultural no-no for Jesus to be talking to her at all, much less ask her for a drink. Why should she listen to someone who obviously doesn’t know how things are supposed to be done around here? She must think he’s stupid or crazy because she points out that he doesn’t even have a bucket to carry water.
Are there any other times that Jesus says something that the people listening don’t understand? Sure. The gospels are full of them. His own disciples didn’t seem to get him most of the time, even though they apparently wanted to. We have the advantage of hindsight and the context of the scriptures to help us make some sense of what he has said. But what about now? Are we hearing him?
I am not anti-liturgy. I actually enjoyed reading “Beyond Smells and Bells” by Mark Galli. The liturgy can serve to help bring us outside ourselves, into the place where we can encounter God. All of our senses are avenues through which God speaks to us; the things that we see around the sanctuary, at the altar, the sounds of music or singing, and obviously the spoken Word. Even our posture, standing, sitting or kneeling, what we do with our hands, the way we bow our heads, all send a message to us and those around us. The tradition has worked for hundreds of years, so there must be something to it.
All I’m saying is maybe we need to recognize that sometimes Jesus shows up in a place he’s not expected, at a time he’s not expected, chooses to speak to someone who’s not prepared to listen, who doesn’t deserve any special attention. He forces them out of the insulation of their comfort zone, speaks to them in ways that they often don’t understand, and is persistent about it.
That someone could be you. It could be me. It could be a lot of people. It might just be the one person you are sure it isn’t.
