GOOD FRIDAY

Psalm 22

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
why art thou so far from helping me,
and from the words of my roaring?
O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not;
and in the night season, and am not silent.
But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Our fathers trusted in thee:
they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
They cried unto thee, and were delivered:
they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
 
But I am a worm, and no man;
a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn:
they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him:
let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

But thou art he that took me out of the womb:
thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.
I was cast upon thee from the womb:
thou art my God from my mother's belly.

Be not far from me;
for trouble is near;
for there is none to help.

Many bulls have compassed me:
strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
They gaped upon me with their mouths,
as a ravening and a roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint:
my heart is like wax;
it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
 
My strength is dried up like a potsherd;
and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws;
and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

For dogs have compassed me:
the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me:
they pierced my hands and my feet.
 

 I may tell all my bones:
they look and stare upon me.

They part my garments among them,
and cast lots upon my vesture.


 

But be not thou far from me, O LORD:
O my strength, haste thee to help me.
Deliver my soul from the sword;
my darling from the power of the dog.
Save me from the lion's mouth:
for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

I will declare thy name unto my brethren:
in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.

Ye that fear the LORD, praise him;
all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him;
and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.

For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
neither hath he hid his face from him;
but when he cried unto him, he heard.
 
My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation:
I will pay my vows before them that fear him.

The meek shall eat and be satisfied:
they shall praise the LORD that seek him:
your heart shall live for ever.

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD:
and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.

For the kingdom is the LORD's:
and he is the governor among the nations.

All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship:
all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him:
and none can keep alive his own soul.

A seed shall serve him;
it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

They shall come,
and shall declare his righteousness unto a people
that shall be born,
that he hath done this.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne





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HOSANNA! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES!

This Sunday is the Sunday of the Passion still subtitled by its older and better known name, Palm Sunday.  It celebrates the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem and marks the beginning of Holy Week. This was always a big day in the church where I was raised. We didn’t process around as we don now, but everybody received a palm cross which was carefully preserved through the year.

I can’t remember any Palm Sunday when we didn’t sing the old hymn “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.”

All glory, laud and honor,
To Thee, Redeemer, King,
To Whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring.

Thou art the King of Israel,
Thou David’s royal Son,
Who in the Lord’s Name comest,
The King and Blessèd One.

Anglican clergyman John Mason Neale translated this hymn from the Latin poem of Theodulph of Orleans,

Gloria, laus et honor Tibi sit, Rex Christe Redemptor,
Cui puerile decus prompsit Hosanna pium.

Theodulph was and interesting cleric. He had come to prominence under the Emperor Charlemagne, rising from a Benedictine abbot to Bishop of Orleans. Unfortunately Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s son and successor, came to distrust him and had him imprisoned. He wrote his hymn in 820 while a prisoner.

The company of angels
Are praising you on high;
Creation and all mortals
In chorus make reply.

A legend is told about the hymn. On Palm Sunday the King Louis, passed in procession before the cloister where Theodulph was imprisoned.  The bishop raised his voice and sang his hymn; The king was delighted and released the singer restoring him to his see. 

Another song that we sang while I was a youth was the anthem, Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes written by Moravian Bishop Christian Gregor in 1765. Arranged for two choirs–children and adult. It was a great joy for us kids to sing “Hosanna” at the top of our lungs. I don’t think it was quite “sweet hosanna” on the “lips of children” that old Theodulph imagined.

And then there was the beautiful anthem The Palms by Jean-Baptiste Faure.   

O'er all the way, green palms and blossoms gay
Are strewn this day in festal preparation,
Where Jesus comes to wipe our tears away,
E'en now the throng to welcome Him prepare,
Join all and sing, His name declare,
Let ev'ry voice resound with acclamation.
Hosanna! Praised be the Lord!
Bless Him who cometh to bring us salvation!

I supposed this one really sounds hokey today, a relic of the Romantic age, but I miss it. I wonder what the chances are that just once more in my life I’ll attend a Palm Sunday Service and hear all three of my favorites again?  Fortunately, I can pick up the musical scores and hear them again in my mind.

Hosanna! Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!

May the Lord who came to us bless you on your journey and bless you on your arrival.

Wayne






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ALL THE CHURCH IS A STAGE

More than 25 years ago I attended a conference “Designing the Worship Environment” sponsored by the University of Florida College of Architecture and the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture. It was a tremendous event. The best features were presentations by the late Nils Schweitzer, probably the number one church architect in Florida, and an intriguing lecture on historic synagogue design by Benjamin Hirsch. One presentation was slightly disturbing to me: “Worship–Evangelical Distinctiveness.” I wasn’t aware of what bothered me until the panel discussion that followed, but looking back even these many years later, I can see what troubled me.

One topic covered in the presentation dealt with elements of Evangelical worship.  First off was “The Centrality of the Spoken Word.” Had it said the Centrality of the Word, I as a Lutheran would have agreed immediately. In Lutheran understanding Word means first of all Jesus Christ. Secondly, it means the Scripture. Thirdly, it means the proclaimed Word. Because of the first meaning we Lutherans would included the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion as expressions of the Word. They are sometimes called visible Words. Both Sacraments were instituted by Christ, commanded by him, and have a promise attached to them. If only the spoken Word is central to worship, my feeling is that the worship is impoverished.

Furthermore, while it is not impossible to have public worship without music, Lutherans would feel that such worship was quite strange, missing something almost essential.  There is the famous quote from Martin Luther: “Next to the word of God, only music deserves being extolled as the mistress and governess of the feelings of the human heart.”  And often the lyrics to what is sung during worship is taken straight from the Bible so that the Word of Scripture is sung as well as spoken.

This different view of what is central or important to worship dictates different expectations for design of the worship space.  The triple foci of pulpit, altar, and font have to be taken into account. Provision has to be made for music, especially singing which leads to the architectural nightmare of designing a space that is dry enough acoustically for speech and lively enough for music. (Haven’t you noticed how much better your voice sounds singing in shower that elsewhere in the house? That’s the advantage of a live acoustic.)

During the panel discussion following the presentation, someone made a remark suggesting that the church building itself in some way communicates what worship was about. The presenter objected to this idea. I understand why. He was very much fixed on a rational understanding of the Word, so the possibility that the Word would be communicated non-verbally was foreign to him.

This brings me to something that has come up in several blogs lately, church as theater. This refers to both a concept of what the people of God at worship are about and what kind of building communicates what they are about. Let us say for a moment that worship is theater. Who is the audience? This is a critical question. If the audience is the congregation, then worship is primarily an activity in which some people perform while others watch the performance. But what if in worship God were the audience? Wouldn’t then the whole congregation (not just a select few) be the performers? Of course, that cannot be literally true because God does not need to be entertained. Maybe it would be better said that worship is an act (still a theatrical term) performed in the presence of God. If this is true about worship, then none of the people at worship are mere spectators. They are all performers, and the whole church building is the stage. That reminds me a bit of Jaques’ speech in As You Like It

    All the world's a stage,
      And all the men and women merely players.

This is why I am sold on liturgical worship; the very word “liturgy” means “work of the people.” Worship is not something that is done on stage by a few, but is done by all who have gathered. When I was a choir director, I insisted that the primary task of the choir was not to perform anthems, but to support congregational song. The instrumentalists do not lead the singing, but support it. The pastor does not lead worship, but merely presides at it. I cringe when a worship leader invites me to join him or her in singing as if they were doing the singing and we are welcome to come along for the ride. The attitude that worship is being done “up front” arises in traditional and contemporary worship, in free worship and even in liturgical worship, although in that case I would insist it has ceased to be liturgical–the people’s work–at all.

What does this concept say about the worship space? For me it means that the worship space should communicate that worship is indeed the action of all people. One of the best examples I have seen of that is the Benedictine Mission House in Schuyler, Nebraska, designed by Astle, Ericson and Associates.

The congregation sits in a semi-circle around the altar and pulpit so they can see each other. The cross over the altar forms a focal point so that even when no one is in the building, one gets a sense of what this space is for. The whole design suggests community at worship. Of course, this is only a small chapel, but the basic plan can be used in a larger setting.

Here is St. Nicholas Church, Venlo, Netherlands, designed by G. J. Van der Grinten.

Straight off, I admit it is an ugly interior. It looks like a warehouse, but it is the seating that interests me.  Here is the floor plan.

This building seats 800 people with no one more than 60 feet from the center. Maybe the greatest short-coming is the dreadful partial partition wall behind the altar. It reminds me of a badly done theater flat that makes you wonder what’s going on back there. Nevertheless, it isn't bad at including everyone as part of the worship

Why am I so concerned about how people worship and what the space is like? I’ll give you the Latin explanation. lex orandi, lex credendi, the rule of prayer is the rule of belief. How we worship shapes what we believe. If worship is done by a few people with everyone else as a spectator, then Christianity itself may become a spectator religion. It implies that a few people are supposed to be the “real” Christians while everyone else watches.

Well, this has gone on far longer than I originally intended. It’s something to think about next time you are at worship. Am I worshiping God or only watching others worship God?

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne








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STORMY WEATHER . . . NOT AGAIN!

I have often heard stories about General Patton. I knew someone who served in his tank corps. One famous story is about his request for a prayer from a chaplain. Here’s how Msgr James H. O’Neil tells the story.

“The incident of the now famous Patton Prayer commenced with a telephone call to the Third Army Chaplain on the morning of December 8, 1944, when the Third Army Headquarters were located in the Caserne Molifor in Nancy, France: "This is General Patton; do you have a good prayer for weather? We must do something about those rains if we are to win the war." My reply was that I know where to look for such a prayer, that I would locate, and report within the hour. As I hung up the telephone receiver, about eleven in the morning, I looked out on the steadily falling rain, "immoderate" I would call it -- the same rain that had plagued Patton's Army throughout the Moselle and Saar Campaigns from September until now, December 8. The few prayer books at hand contained no formal prayer on weather that might prove acceptable to the Army Commander. Keeping his immediate objective in mind, I typed an original and an improved copy on a 5" x 3" filing card:

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.”

It’s a good thing I wasn’t the General’s Chaplain or I would have been court-martialed and maybe shot.  I have absolutely no success with religious matters and the weather.

I first became aware of the problem almost 20 years ago. A family at my church in Miami asked me to bless their new house. I was delighted to do so. I don’t get to do a lot of house blessings. I blessed the house, and all were quite pleased. Four weeks later hurricane Andrew swept through and demolished the house. Not a good sign.

This week I was reminded of my limited abilities. I was invited to give a devotion at the start of a work day at a Habitat for Humanity build. That’s a wonderful program that I encourage people to look into. This week a team from the University of Pittsburgh were working. I came up with a clever idea of using a scripture from Genesis about Noah and the ark. That should produce a puzzled reaction for most people. Why would you tell the story of Noah? These people weren’t building a boat. Ah, but neither was Noah. You see, an ark is not a boat; it is a box. Indeed, when you read the description from Genesis there is very little that is boat-like about it–no rudder, no tiller, no sails, no oarlocks. Instead the description is more like a house–walls, roof, floors, interior rooms, a door, a window.  What Noah builds is a house, albeit a floating house. Now you go into a floating house on faith. There’s not a lot you can do to control it. And so life should be lived in faith. And a house should be built in faith. I thought it was a clever approach.

I concluded with a prayer blessing everyone. Casting an eye at a darkening sky, I included a petition for favorable weather. I was pulling away in my car as the first drops of rain fell. As the day progress the rains got harder, the winds picked up, and tornado warnings were issued. Such is the curse of my prayers for blessing.

I’m scared to death to pray about the weather. I could probably cause a typhoon in North Dakota. Every once in a while someone will ask if I can do something about the weather. I always reply, “I’m just in sales, not in management. You’ll have to talk to the Boss.”

Whatever your way, may it be filled with many favorable days. And may the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne






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GOING BANANAS

Sorry, I have nothing insightful or enter- taining this week (as if I ever do). It’s been one of those mornings that I would have been better off staying in bed.  Friday is laundry day (as it has been for 12 years now changing a longer tradition of Monday laundry that went back to at least my grandmother’s day.) For two weeks we have been unable to use the big laundry room because they were redecorating. That meant using the crummy little laundry where the driers don’t work, at least they haven’t in the 12 years I’ve lived here.  For two weeks I played dryer roulette, lost, and had to hang my clothes all over the apartment to dry. Those days are over, I thought. New laundry room open today. I must say it looks nice with a new tile floor and fresh paint. The washers and driers, however, are the same old, beat-up equipment that has been there since Noah’s grandmother did laundry.
    
Washing went all right, but as I was taking things out, I heard a clunk from a pair of trousers. Trousers shouldn’t clunk. I discovered the cause: my cell phone was in the pocket. AUUUGGHHH!!!!! Since this was not the Lloyd Bridges model (extra points if you are old enough to understand that reference), it was deader than a door nail. (Which reminds me of Dicken’s remark in A Christmas Carol where he wonders why door nails and not coffin nails are the deadest piece of iron mongerry.) Well, I knew I’d have to replace it–the phone not the door nail.

I went online to check my phone account to see about a new phone, but I couldn’t connect. I was informed my account was already connected. How could this be, I wondered. A quick phone call to the church which produced a busy signal revealed the problem. Somehow I was still connected to the Internet at the church. But I knew I had signed off before I left the day before. I couldn’t call anyone at the church to tell them to check the computer, which meant I’d have to go down there to do it myself as soon as the clothes were dry.

Back to the laundry room to unload the dry clothes, only they were still wet, warm, but wet. Evidently the heating part of the drier worked, but not the part that tumbles the clothes. So for the third week in a row my apartment looks like Molly the Washerwoman runs a business here. Then it was down to the church where I discovered that the computer had frozen in the process of signing out and turning off. Now, most of the time when I am online the computer loses connection all by itself several times a session, but not this time.  I shut the blamed thing off and went back home.

I tried for sometime to figure out how to order a new phone online, but was stymied. If I signed into my account, I couldn’t order a phone, only accessories. If I used the online store, I couldn’t associate the new phone with my account. I gave up and went to the phone kiosk at the mall. A very nice young man found me a phone that would suit my needs and he made it work with my old account and phone number.  Not only that, but the phone was on sale. It has more features than my old phone and cost less. I brought it home and have begun trying to work through the instruction manual which is about as long as War and Peace and as hard to decipher as ancient Sumerian. I guess I’ll have to resort to my usual method of having a nine-year-old show me how to work the thing.

What disturbs me most about all this is that I was disturbed by all this. In the big scheme of things drowned cell phone, wet laundry, and stubborn computers are not very important. In a world filled with natural disasters, wars, and economic collapse, I let myself become discombobulated over nothing. Where is my sense of perspective?   How can I profess myself to be a Christian, yet allow such tiny blips to trouble me? What will I do when something serious happens?  

I think I need to study the Psalms some more, listen to them, pray them As the Psalmist says: Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God” (Psalm 42:5).

I must go now; it is difficult for me to type with this bandage in the way. I decided to do some more work on my model building to relax and stuck an X-ACTO knife in my thumb.

My the Lord God bless you on your journey over little hills and high mountains, down gentle valleys and deep chasms–helping you to understand the difference–and may he greet you on your arrival.

Wayne




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