MetaCatholic

A tremendously appealing statue from the Church of the Visitation at Ein Kerem. The many tablets around the wall show the opening words of the Magnifcat in different languages. Today, for those outside the liturgical tradition of the Church, marks the feast of the Visitation.

Church is strange. I know there are people who make heavy use of nearly contemporary music in worship who level this accusation at people who prefer more traditional patterns, but, truth to tell, just about everything Christians do when they meet together is either going to be exceedingly strange or reduced to entertainment. Corporate singing, talking to an invisible person (sometimes together), and reading out loud to adults are all decidedly weird activities.

There are people who talk about making it all accessible. The problem is, everyone has their own different idea of that. The church I was visiting today seemed to think that you made your worship booklets accessible by printing them in Comic Sans. (Ugh!) Shame they forgot to give the booklet any page numbers. 

Personally I think we just need to accept that church is strange, and people will need to be acculturated to it, especially while it’s evolving through a time of rapid social change. What we need are better relationships outside the liturgy, good opportunities for “halfway-houses” (on Sundays or weekdays, and in homes, cafés, pubs or churches) and, when someone does venture into a liturgy ancient or modern, a warm but non-patronizing welcome.

Although in yesterday’s post I deliberately (for the sake of concentrating on one point at a time) bracketed out the gendered language of the song “Father God…”. I was not at all surprised that the women commenting on it nonetheless zeroed straight in on the phrase “I am your son, I am adopted in your family”.

Most of the web discussions I’ve come across about gendered language seem to focus on Bible translation. While discussion of gendered language in liturgy and song covers much of the same ground, it is somewhat different in the immediacy of its in-(or ex-)clusiveness. That is, hearing the scriptures say: “so you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir, by God’s own act” (Gal 4:7 NJB) is different from singing as one’s own phrase “I am your son”.

As a question of translation, there are serious interpretative judgements to be made. The overall context of Galatians suggests that Paul saw this as an inclusive use of “son”, so it is quite reasonable to do as the NRSV does and translate as “child”. Equally, because the language is dealing with concepts of relationships as they were conceived in a very particular culture, and the metaphor of inheritance in that culture, one could make a case for maintaining the strong point inherent in describing women as “sons” at that time and in that text. Either way, in reading and hearing the scriptures, we are more aware that they are ancient writings in need of translation and interpretation.

It is, I think, different in the language of prayer and worship. Surely the whole point is that we need to learn ways of speaking to God out of our lives and our culture, and not simply put on the linguistic dress of a past age. I have got used to the fact that I say words that would sound hopelessly sexist today when I’m using the 1662 BCP. (I’d rather not use it all, but am not quite brave, powerful or autocratic enough to ban it completely.) But I am aware that in using it I am drawing on the linguistic and theological mindset of past centuries. But contemporary English is significantly different. Faced with a particularly stubborn congregation who didn’t see the point of changing our liturgical language, I invited my “fellow men” to stand. The men stood, the women remained seated. I asked them how it was possible for them to go on insisting that in the phrase “sinned against you and our fellow men” they really meant women as well.

Older hymns and prayers can often be adapted. Sometimes one is faced with the decision whether a hymn will lose its integrity or meaning if so adapted. Then we must ask whether we sing it as a period piece, or cease using it entirely. But there should be no excuse for contemporary songs and prayers being so full of inappropriately and outmodedly gendered language that people feel unable to use them. Ironically some of the more egregious offenders are more recent (the last half-century) where liturgy and worship has taken a turn towards the human, our world and our relationship to God. Older material focussed much more on the praises of God, and less on human feeling and attitude. Consequently it avoided many of these problems.

Our so-called worship songs might generally benefit from more of a focus on God and less on “God and me” feelings. This is one specific area where they might benefit most strongly. But the more a song presents itself as contemporary, the more the patriarchal linguistic associations of past phrases will stand out like a sore thumb, and the same words that were unexceptional in the poetry and prose of past centuries, will sound exceptional and excluding.

It seems to me that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, while significant in all the gospels, is perhaps most important in Luke’s. It is, after all, the climax of the journey to Jerusalem which has functioned as an organising motif since chapter nine. Luke also adds both some dialogue and details which help shape the narrative differently. By contrast the entry narrative is perhaps least significant in John’s gospel, partly because John has detached the temple incident and placed that story near the start of his narrative, partly because it is drawn into the larger and more significant Lazarus story.

It is then ironic that the day on which the triumphal entry is recalled is so widely known as Palm Sunday. John is the only gospel to specify palms (John 12:13 – τὰ βαΐα τῶν φοινίκων), whereas Luke, far from specifying palms, has even got rid of the branches (Matt 21:8 - κλάδους) or leaves (Mark 11:8 – στιβάδας). In Luke it is cloaks, and cloaks alone, that are spread on the road before Jesus.