The parish liturgy committee decided to adopt the contemporary version of the Lord’s Prayer for use during worship. From now on, at least at one of the services, we’d be “sinners” instead of “trespassers.” The next Sunday a distraught man cornered me. “You’ve taken the Lord’s Prayer away from us!”
I was shocked. What did he mean? We’d been preparing and educating people for this small change for years. How could changing a few words “take away” the Lord’s Prayer?
I thought: maybe the Lord’s Prayer was not part of this man’s daily spiritual practice. If it were, he might be using as many versions as he wanted in as many languages as he wanted or even paraphrases of his own. But maybe instead of praying it in his own time, he viewed Sunday worship as his own time, rather than as a gathering together of diverse and dissimilar people in continual growth and flux. After I came to this realization I begin hearing more “I” language: phrases such as “I came to get my ashes” on Ash Wednesday and “I had to get my palm” on Palm Sunday. My parishioners were consumers of prayer! Like customers at vending machines, they’d slide their dollars into the slot for the week’s allotment of praise, thanksgiving, intercession and petition followed by coffee hour. The formulaic general confession served as the sole opportunity for soul cleansing and maintenance. There was no preparation, no aftercare, no angels rejoicing over this one repentant sinner out of 99, no fatted calf or cloak or ring, no popping of a champagne bottle celebrating a moral victory won over self.
This is almost too precious, too separate from reality to characterize readily. Of COURSE they’re consumers of religion, just the way people in hospitals are consumers of health care and students are consumers of education. What does one go to church for if not to find a quiet place where one can find something he really wants at a price he can afford. The man at stake here has been comforted by the ritual of a beloved repetition. Why should he not be? And when it is taken from him, why should he not be upset?
No popping of champagne corks indeed. Please.
WTH is a liturgy committee?