Greetings Dear Reader,
Years ago, I took a friend to a Lutheran church service
because he wanted to understand different denominations. His background was a denomination that did
not have anything close to a systematized service. I thought that I had prepared him well but I
was wrong. As the first hymn ended and
the pastor approached the front of the platform, I was thinking about remembering
the responses. The pastor canted, “The Lord be with you.” The congregation responded “And also with you,”
except for my friend. At the top of his
voice, he replied, “Amen! Preach it!”
It was interesting to see several hundred Lutherans turn to
look at him as if turning and gawking was part of their practiced liturgical response. The pastor smiled and commented that he loved
a drift from the common from time to time.
I quietly explained things to my friend as the service continued. When we consider liturgy, we understand that
the cants and responses have a pattern and rhythm that we discussed earlier in
the week. Part of liturgy as well is
that our responses are prescribed. We
read them from a book or memorize them.
In our Liturgy of the Common Man, we are much like the
congregation of that church when the responses are not what we are used to or
are acceptable to our ears. We develop a
series of social mores that dictate how we are supposed to respond to social situations. At some level that is a good thing. When, however, a society becomes divided as
ours is, political correctness and prescribed speech become the norm, it is a
problem.
A fractured society will push an agenda by choosing
what is an allowed response to situations and what one should think of feel. Sometimes, it is good to challenge the beliefs
and norms of a culture. If we are going
to live by the law of love, we cannot purposely be offensive. As a culture becomes more politically correct
and engages in a position of what is acceptable, the circle of what is
offensive grows larger. Offenses become
more onus and people become offended more easily. The day becomes carpeted in eggshells.
There are two responses here. One is to realize that no one gets to tell me
how I must respond to a situation other than the Father. He already has. We are to respond to everything in love and
kindness. The second is that we are responsible
to be unoffendable. We are to stand out
in the easily offended world by being lovingly unoffendable. Others may choose to be offended because of
my choices. I must not fight with others
over things that do not matter. I must
hold on to my love and humility.
The Liturgy of the Common Man tells us that our responses
must fit the approved words of the cantor.
The difficulty of this is that we are supposed to be salt and light in a
world that will become increasingly offended by the Gospel. We cannot change them. We can, however, realize that we can live unoffended
and refuse the liturgy that calls us to be anything other than loving followers
of Christ. It will result in the sound
of crunching eggshells as we go and we will tread on a few toes simply by refusing
to respond “properly” to the cant of the offended. I will refuse to embrace the liturgy of the perpetually
offended. I will do my best to love
everyone and be unoffendable. I may
stand out but I hope it is for the right reasons.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every
writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a
homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure
store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Contacts for Aramis
Thorn:
#aramisthorn
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