A frame to hold you.

For those who do not live in a monastic community in the mountains and attend daily worship -- this reflection may seem particularly bizarre.  "Liturgy" is a big 'ole church word used to describe the rhythm, flow, up and down of any worship service.  Hopefully, the idea of taking the ordinary and making pausing to be grateful and present it not such a bizarre notion. 

Last week my daughter brought home an activity she learned at school.  She instructed me to create a square using my pointer fingers and thumbs of both hands.  She then covered my eyes, turned my head and lifted my finger-frame in front of my face.  “Now…open!” she squealed.  I gazed past my dry, cracked skin into the frame that now held a small portion of the snow-capped

mountains above us and the rushing creek below us.  We were standing in the middle of the covered bridge that crosses Railroad Creek, a place where it is impossible to take in all the beauty of the earth.  It is a place we see nearly every day while living in Holden Village.  Looking through my finger-frame brought focus to the wonder; the border that suddenly appeared around the snow dusted pine gave clarity and importance to details that would otherwise be missed.  Even framing my sweet girl’s face helped me to see the masterpiece that was held in the frame, her deep brown eyes were somehow more enchanting.  All these sights: commonplace and extraordinary, overwhelming and yet captured in the frame of my hands.

Every Sunday night in this village we, as a whole community, gaze through another frame.  We shuffle into the Fireside room for our weekly Eucharist service and one pastor or the other introduces the liturgy.  The rhythm of the liturgy is what connects us to ancient worship practices and contemporary gatherings around the world.  The word “liturgy” means, the work of the people, and as the gathered assembly we become the workers who move through confession and forgiveness, Kyrie and Sanctus, hymns and canticles, prayers and broken bread. The liturgical frame has the same power as the simple finger-frame.  The liturgy takes the expansive nature of faith and relationship and offers focus and heightened awareness.  In the liturgy we can use infinite and sweeping words – Gloria, mercy, alleluia, confession and amen – and in the liturgy these infinite notions come to our immediate gathering. 

This past year at Holden we have lifted up a variety of frames through which we see a God come near, the masterpiece of the community, the power of the gospel promises to hold even us.  During the seasons of Advent and Lent, both seasons of preparation and promise, both seasons of wonder and waiting, we were framed with Jon Hermensons’ Is this the Feast? Jon first wrote this liturgy for Lutheran ministry called MercySeat in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  The title alone begs for ambiguity, the music invites the community to wonder, to listen and to sing – what a frame to capture the gravitas of the seasons, what a beautiful cradle for the work of the people.

There was another frame from MercySeat, yet another musician who built a frame that called the village to another time and place, Good News Bad News connected the village with the yearning sounds of southern gospel.  The frame carried us into the summer season, which was also construction season in the village for this year.  The strong off-beats that led us to sing “Glory to God on high…” and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” lifted the paradox of triumph and sacrifice – and the community awkwardly formed a circle for the communion meal to taste and see of the triumph and sacrifice.

The beauty is not in the frame itself, but in what is illuminated within the borders.  Martin Luther himself was firm in his belief that liturgy should never become law, the liturgy can and should change and flow in anyway or shape that will help the clear, bold and direct telling of God’s love.  The liturgy is not law nor is it gospel in itself.  The picture inside, the image of the body of Christ hearing  that message, that Word is what is the holy, captivating gift that our liturgy wraps in its frame. 

The liturgy is ordinary, so ordinary its shape as been maintained for centuries of practice and observance.  The people are ordinary, too.  Hippies in the mountains, hipsters in the city, hurting souls, healing bodies, feet that wander city sidewalks and mountain trails – together the great communion of all the saints is held together in the frame. When we gaze past our own broken existence and see through the frame of the liturgy, we are connected to a God who is both everywhere and right here, and we are connected to a community that is always and right now.

Liturgy: Commonplace and extraordinary, overwhelming and yet captured in the hands of God.