Written by Eleanor Kingry
For a few years, I attended an Episcopal school. Many of their traditions were beautiful and reverent, yet there were a few with which I had to take issue, their method of prayer being foremost among them. A prayer before a meal often consisted of Latin, and some quickly spun off memorized words. I could not provide an amen to a prayer that carelessly threw some
words God’s way, half of which were not understood by the people supposedly praying them. I sincerely believed that the same man who spoke them would be incredibly offended, should someone speak to him the same way he spoke to the Lord. So I was silent.
One might think that these things were consequences of a church that leaned too far Catholic, and believe that my complaint is against non-conservative churches — but this diagnosis could not be further from the truth. I believe they would be sorely incorrect in absolving even the most conservative of the Churches of Christ of these offenses. Many times I have attended a Church of Christ service, during which a member prayed without reverence, describing generic and oft-repeated thanks and desires, between at least a dozen occurrences of “just,” a word used to fill gaps, one which would certainly not be used if asking something of a material person of governance. We also sometimes sing hymns that glorify ourselves, or entertain us, rather than hymns that offer glory to God. There is certainly great value in giving children fun ways to remember the precepts of the Bible, but there is also a context in which this must be exchanged for reverence, even with children. The sum of their education in Christ cannot be that they can list the apostles, and know how to prettily color nativity scenes.
I attended a church last year which sent children away during “children’s bible hour”, which coincided with the sermon and its surrounding songs. The idea was to prevent the children from having to sit through a sermon, assuming it would be non-applicable to them, and that it would bore them. I hope it does not reveal me as too much of a curmudgeon to claim that boredom may be part of the point. Before our generation became so in need of constant entertainment, people used to say that patience was a virtue. If we don’t want to take this instruction from our parents, we should at least take it from Jesus’ rebuke of his disciples, who sleep as he prays at Gethsemane. They were exhausted, a condition quite familiar to the college student, falling continuously asleep, as they had nothing to do but keep watch. Of course, I have often felt my eyes droop listening to dear Dr. Sandlin, or any of our teachers within the church. But we should know that Jesus’ response to us is: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Likely someone reading to this point has just shaken their head, incredulous at the idea that worship services should be boring and dreary. One might say that we are called to mutually edify, and part of edification is joy. The apostle Paul would likely agree, as he responds to Jewish persnicketiness about the Gentiles’ food with: “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Surely we are not asked to be so regulated to the point where we stiffly reject our fellow saints, believing their traditions are
“too happy.” The idea would be comical, were it not a view held by a rare collection of members of the church.
But here we must make a divide between joy and fun. Biblical joy is a source of spiritual strength and peace. It comes not from indulging the flesh with activity, but from a reverent love for God. Ecclesiastes, a poetic book all about the uselessness of pursuing even the most respectable diversions, posits that “for everything there is a season.” There is a time for entertainment, yet there is also a time for quiet and reverence, and if we cannot accomplish it on the first day of the week, as we remember the mournful death and glorious resurrection of our Lord, when will we? If spending quiet time with each other and God quickly tires and frustrates us, perhaps we now have cause to hear Jesus’ words at Gethsemane; perhaps we will set down our amusements for a moment, to exchange them for the patience and joyful peace which venerate the Lord our God.
