Working at Worship

Writing on the original meaning and use of the word liturgy Nicholas Wolterstorff considers how “leitourgia never did mean action of the people. It meant action for the benefit of the people.” According to Wolterstorff the liturgy was actually considered “a type of public service.” (Wolterstorff, Major Themes in Reform Tradition, p. 274) Precisely because the liturgy is meant to benefit Christians Janet Walton heralds art as being one of the forms that should be utilized towards this public service. In her book Art and Worship Walton recognizes how the content of worship functions as a way of shaping God’s people. Liturgy, therefore, is not just a program to follow. Instead, Walton encourages churches to introduce “forms that will connect the revelation of God with the most poignant needs of the people who constitute the church.” (Walton, Art and Worship, p.56)

Indeed, Tim Keller relates how reason may tells us about truth, but we “really cannot grasp what it means without art.” Keller goes on to say how “the sensual expression of truth allows you to hear the truth, see the truth, to taste it, touch it, and smell it.”  (Keller, It Was Good, Making Art to the Glory of God, p.121-122) Yet the random insertion of art into worship many times reads as novelty, not revelation. Perhaps this penchant for novelty in worship can be bypassed if congregations begin to embody a theology of the arts. Part of this theology must take into consideration the corporate nature of art. Churches must ask what will inspire creative and regenerative corporate worship that will move beyond the doors of the church into the hearts of its people in order to shape their everyday lives.

By grace art bridges God to men and gathers people to one another. One must also consider the humanizing element of art which allows us to bring everyday experiences into worship. This makes worship and art more relevant, dynamic and contextual. Conversely, art in worship can certainly reverberate into our daily life. A theology of the arts recognizes the symbiotic relationship between theology and art. Thomas Franklin O’Meara speaks of the importance of this relationship when he relates how “Theology is the discernment of the presence of the ‘More’ amid sin and grace. Like art, when theology is only a symbolism, it is empty—devoid of prophetic, existential, and spontaneously transcendent dimensions, and ready to be passed over quickly.” (O’Meara, Art, Creativity and the Sacred, p. 215)

Quite frankly art is not the primary theological form we must consider when we talk about corporate worship. Consequently, we should ponder Marva Dawn’s assertion regarding art and worship by focusing on “the biblical picture of the Body of Christ [a]s the preeminent image for guiding this aspect of theological formulations. This metaphor primarily reminds us that Christ is the Head; he must remain the focus, and his self-giving presence determines everything that we do.” (Dawn, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, p.130) Art, therefore, is the medium that springs forth from discourse regarding how the incarnation, resurrection and ascension define elements of our corporate worship.

Richard Rohr wisely reminds us how God likes us despite our rituals. “God doesn’t need them, but we need them to tenderly express our childlike devotion and desire—and to get in touch with that desire.” Ultimately, true worship is God’s gift for his people.

Let’s work at worshiping our Triune God with all of our being.

--Maria 

Glory Be

Spend any serious amount of time working in the arts and you're bound to stumble upon one or two or more moments of glory: a triple turn on point, the high C at 10am finished with a buttery vibrato, the character writing himself into your novel as you sit in your pajamas at midnight surrounded by rough drafts. It's all too easy to live in the lingering echoes of such moments. It reminds me of a lonely astronomer sitting in her observatory in the Arizona desert (ok yes, I'm thinking now of Jodie Foster in Contact but I had the generic image first!). I wonder if many of us would continue creating if we could not be refreshed by such blips on the radar.


I suppose the same could be said about our search for God. Much like the observatory, we wouldn't be looking if there hadn't been a contact made at some point. But in the arts we tend to latch onto to these moments don't we? It's more than a blip on the radar, it is our defining moment. The way in which we learn to respond to such anomalies will undoubtedly determine our experience in the arts. As Elizabeth Gilbert so graciously shared in her TED talk, we must learn to attribute these experiences of glory to a divine source outside of ourselves or else we will fall under the burden of re-creating such a feat on our own.


The exact opposite conclusion about glory is expressed by Oscar Hammerstein in the Sound of Music. One of my favorite songs from the score is Nothing Comes from Nothing. This languid ballad celebrates the unanticipated glory and grace of falling in love. Captain von Trapp and Fraulein Maria declare their love by moonlight and ponder that so rapturous and wonderful a love could come to them. The only explanation simply must be that they are the most deserving people on the planet or else it wouldn't make any sense for them to receive such a gift. Nothing comes from nothing...nothing ever could. So somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good. It's a logical conclusion I suppose, but as an artist I immediately think "If this good thing came because of exemplary behavior which I cannot now recall then I'm up a creek from here on out! I can never repeat that glorious moment and I'll be living in its shadow forever!" Does this sound like the way you view God's gifts sometimes, even the gift of your art? You seem to have many experiences of glory in which you create something truly special and share it with others, and yet there's no guarantee that you can produce or experience it ever again. Does it ever cause fear, even anger, that you will never have a sustained experience of glory?


I think these feelings are justified, honestly. God never meant for us to have mere blips and spurts of glory. He created us to live with him in perpetual, radiant glory as his beloved. The fits and starts of creating beauty in this life are like pulling the start cord on an old lawn mower or turning the ignition on an engine that needs some repair. But what Christ accomplished by dying in our place is that we can now get our lives back through his life and our glory back through his glory. As 1 Corinthians 5:14 reminds us, One died for all, therefore all died. And Paul elaborates on this revelation in his letter to his friends in Colossae when he writes, For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears then you will also appear with him in glory.


At our next InterArts Fellowship, Cherith Nordling and our own Maria Fee will help us explore how our work as artists, though now in fits and starts, will one day be fully experienced and shared in Eternity. That God has won back our lives on the Cross is a fact that sweeps our art work into a true, living and eternal hope.


Kenyon