It is amazing how differently things seem once you move outside a sphere of influence, or you exit the bubble or the bubble is burst for you by some outside events.
Last weekend Roger and I attended a 140th anniversary of Presbyterianism in a town near us, lets call it Anytown The first church in the town was built on a promontory above the river which bisects the town.
Where the first church was built later became known as East Anytown as the main township developed on the south west side of the river. Here in the 1920s, a hall and then later, in the 1950s, a substantial brick church were built. (At the time the minister staunchly refused to have the hall and church linked architecturally and so in the late 20th century it cost over a $180,000 to achieve a connection between the two!)
St Andrew’s, as this ‘new’ church was called, birthed a daughter church in West Anytown when schools were being built there. East Anytown Church then closed in 1991, leaving a fairly broad minded central church and a more evangelical daughter church. Now St Andrew’s has dwindled to an older congregation singing hymns to an organ and her daughter church is the one with the contemporary drum set. Though St Andrew’s could not be described as evangelical, it is nevertheless traditional and conservative in that wider sense of conventionality of faith.
The weekend was extremely convivial and well organised. I found the Sunday church service, however, a painful experience. Analysing it later, I realised that every hymn and other components such as the Apostles’ Creed and the traditional Lord’s Prayer (complete with ‘trespasses’) were all focused upwards, in a ‘heavenly’ direction – what I would call ‘vertical liturgy’. We here on earth, or Jesus’ time on earth, or God’s interactions with the earth and humankind were hardly ever mentioned, apart from the prayers of adoration and confession. I noticed the usual Prayers for Others did not appear at all, perhaps another symptom of this heavenly preoccupation with glory and praise.
I thought about the superb organizing of the weekend, and wondered how such a pragmatic, practically minded group of people coped with such heavenly-minded, ungrounded wording, especially those words of the hymns. Did they check out of life as we know it, welcoming an escape from the worries and cares of life lived during a pandemic, or did they let it wash over them and simply enjoy the ambience of being in a familiar place again? I find it hard to believe that the words actually connected in a meaningful way with their lives.
I am not one for dumbing down theology but I am one for connecting it, contextualising it. A friend and I were discussing the current use of the East Anytown Church. It has been sold to the local Council who are developing it as an artist’s studio and residence for visiting artists. We were discussing how it was an example of a resurrection; that before you can have a resurrection, you need to have a death. The congregation left at East Anytown moved out in 1991. The building was sold. Now it has a post resurrection body. Just as in the original Story, it is a very a different body from the body which had existed pre-resurrection.
Only where there are graves are there resurrections.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
I think Neitzsche had it right. I often wonder when I see churches hanging on for grim death, fighting closure and redevelopment, that considering the Christian faith has resurrection at the very core of its Story, the various denominations are curiously (though perhaps understandably) reluctant to allow death. They seem like cancer patients ‘fighting’ the illness in a sometimes vain attempt to stay alive no matter the cost. (and using up a lot of money that could be used for redevelopment in the process.)
Like I said at the beginning of this post, when you remain in the bubble you continue thinking along the same old bubble lines. You cannot imagine the other world which can lie beyond. It reminds me of the story of tadpoles seeing their fellow tadpoles leave the pond as their legs developed, but unable to imagine what they were leaping into. Its like a caterpillar having no idea what it might be like to be a butterfly.
I was glad as I sat through that Sunday service that I had found going to church a difficult choice on retirement and so had chosen an online option. It has shaken me out of familiar patterns. I am realising however, that the new space I and some others inhabit is lonely, sparsely populated and maybe always will be. Part of the pain of that Sunday experience was the feeling of being alone and an outsider in a place where formerly I had been ‘in’.
As yet too, this new space lacks words and stories, meanings and metaphors which uniquely describe this new world. The words I’ve already written to familiar hymn tunes get some of the way, but I want to spend some time on new formats and different rituals. Watch this space. It may take some time.
I heard today that the latest Special Assembly of the PCANZ did not discuss whether or not to approve the government’s recent ban on conversion therapy (smart idea) but did decide to work on the Church’s inclusivity divisions. This sounds promising, though as one person has already suggested has the danger of being long winded. This is what the Church finally did with women’s ordination – they studied the issue in a thorough way. I’m hoping We’re All Equally Human might help in this discussion. (The books have arrived on my doorstep and its the last day today to get the pre-order pricing, by the way).
Let’s, in the meantime, keep on talking, even with those with whom we disagree, hopefully in the process dispelling inaccuracies and myths in people’s (mis)understandings.
Just as an antidote to the ‘vertical’ hymns I heard at the weekend, here’s a verse or two from Progressing the Journey (sung to the tune Jerusalem):
- And did those feet in former times,
walk upon scree and tussock brown?
And did the man, Jesus the Christ,
cross mountains high and rolling downs?
And did he know the morning mist?
And did he know the harbour’s sheen?
And did he love the cityscape,
its terraced streets, the urban scene? - And does he still walk this our land,
talking and laughing with us yet?
And does he know that stab of need,
when neighbours snub, and worse, neglect?
And is he there when wine is poured?
And is he there when bread’s prepared?
And does he smile when good is done?
And does he weep when conflict’s flared?
Go well into the Post-Easter part of this year.
I will try to remember I am not alone.
If you remember you are not alone, we can be befriended together even at this internet devised distance.
Grace and peace and groundedness be with us all
Susan
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