The Importance of the Liturgy

A good quote:

"People are uncomfortable with mystery (God) and mess (themselves). They avoid both mystery and mess by devising programs and hiring pastors to manage them. A program provides a defined structure with an achievable goal. Mystery and mess are eliminate at a stroke. This is appealing. In the midst of the mysteries of grace and the complexities of human sin, it is nice to have something that you can evaluate every month or so and find out where you stand. We don’t have to deal with ourselves or with God, but can use the vocabulary of religion and work in an environment that acknowledges God, and so be assured that we are doing something significant."

(Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, 48)

My thoughts: The importance of the liturgy and liturgical preaching is that it is not programmatic. It ushers messy (sinful) people into the mystery (the presence of God for us), not so that we can do something significant – but so that God can: the forgiveness of sins. And this we do not evaluate, but receive, for it is gift. And our standing with God is assured, not on the basis of what I see or feel in myself, or what I have accomplished, but on the rock solid basis of His Word and promise (Rom 3:23-24).

Perhaps this is what makes the liturgy so polarizing in the church today, between those who live in it and those who do not. This simple fact: program and liturgy do not go together.