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I can recall with precision what the church in which I worshiped as a child looked like. I can recall the feel of the pew cushion, the slightly musty odor, sun streaming through the stained glass window of Jesus praying in the garden Gethsemane. I spent a lot of time looking at that window, wondering at how young Jesus looked, how seemingly unconcerned with what was happening around him—you could see the vague shape of Peter and his friends sleeping in the background—at how clean his white robe was. I can recall Mary Wertz playing the organ up in the loft, of singing with my parents "Holy, Holy, Holy," "For the Beauty of the Earth," and "This is my Father's World." I can recall the people who sat around us—my Uncle Charles and Aunt Helen always on the aisle, the Crawfords immediately in front of us, the Winters directly behind us—Diane, and Paul, who is now a jazz musician and artist in residence at St. John the Divine, who recorded and plays with whale songs and wolf howls and who, although standing outside the church and traditional theology, finds a way to bring Bach and Isaac Watts and "Abide with Me" into his music. I remember staring at Mrs. Crawford's fabulous fox fur which she wore wrapped over her shoulders. The fox head, with glass eyes, was directly in front of me, and he and I spent many an hour staring at each other. I recall mints from Mother's purse, and Dad's railroad watch which he took from his vest pocket and wound, a little too ceremoniously, when he decided the preacher had gone on too long. I recall the small door in the chancel through which the robed minister emerged—from what I thought must be a mysterious holy of holies—and watching him bow his head and put his head in his hands to pray during the prelude, an act of very impressive piety. I recall the Elders, on Communion Sunday—when Elders were elderly, older men, with white hair—walking solemnly and reverently to the first pew, to sit around the table. I recall Betty Troxell, with a soprano vibrato at least a major third in breadth, who recruited her husband, Harold, the County Coroner to sing with her. When my Dad told me what Mr. Troxell actually did for a living I could never stop thinking of that every time I saw him, especially on Christmas Eve, when he and his soprano wife knocked me out cold with a powerful "O Holy Night."3 A lot about who I am, and what I believe, was put in place, or at least framed, by that experience of worship. Our greatest challenge in the overwhelmingly narcissistic context of postmodernism is to hold on to a novel idea: namely, that worship is not a consumer product. In fact—and this is somewhat shocking—worship is not even "for" the worshipper. Worship is "for" God. Kierkegaard had it right when he said that people ordinarily come to worship in the frame of mind they would if they were attending the theater. They come as an audience to enjoy a performance put on by a professional cast: preacher, organist, choirs, sometimes dancers, bell ringers, actual chancel drama, and poetry readers. God, he said, was—one hoped—the prompter, standing off stage and occasionally giving the performers some lines. The actual rubric, Kierkegaard said, was theater, to be sure. Only God is the audience, the professionals—clergy and musician as the prompters, the congregation as actors—are people who have come to do an act of worship. Sherer: One of the guiding principles I try to keep in mind every Sunday is that I am one of the prompters. The worship leaders are the prompters, the actors are the congregation, and God is the audience. If you keep that priority in focus, it sets in motion a wonderful series of events. If you get that out of focus and begin to think of the congregation as audience, a lot of problems begin to come into ministry and worship leadership. As Brother Roger of Taizé said, "Liturgical music must be like John the Baptist, always pointing to Christ, never pointing to itself." |
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