John D. Witvliet

Q Christ the King Sunday is new to me, and I’m not quite sure how it fits into the logic of the Christian calendar. Where does it come from? Does it duplicate Ascension Day? What about Christ as prophet or priest? A Christ the King Sunday is a common way to celebrate the final Sunday of the Christian calendar just before the liturgical year starts over with the four Sundays of Advent. In contrast to the ancient origins of the season of Advent and the celebration of Christmas, Christ the King Sunday is less than a hundred years old. It was added to the Roman Catholic calendar by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and was initially observed in late October. Pius XI had previously written the pastoral encyclical “On the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ” in response to the trauma of World War I. Building on that encyclical, the mandate to observe Christ the King Sunday ensured that the theology of Christ’s lordship would be emphasized prominently in worship every year. It was only in 1970, as part of post-Vatican II reforms, that the celebration was moved to the last Sunday of the Christian year. Later in the 1970s, the ecumenical Common Lectionary embraced this practice, and it has since been regularly observed in many Protestant contexts. Whereas Ascension Day focuses on a particular historical narrative, Christ the King Sunday focuses on a theme latent in the entire Christian year, one with strong connections to Christmas, Transfiguration Sunday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, and Ascension Day. Royal motifs run through Scripture texts for each of those days, and this choice of a date for Christ the King Sunday at the end of the Christian year conveys the conviction that Jesus’ entire life and ministry—as well as all of history—ultimately points to the reign of Christ, whose rule challenges all human authorities and supersedes all powers and principalities. Attending to the breadth and depth and countercultural nature of Christ’s lordship is a potent spiritual antidote to the travails of our age. Being invited by a large percentage of the worldwide ecumenical church to put this theme at the center of our worship just before Advent is a gift. Three Approaches to Christ the King Sunday With this in mind, consider three promising approaches to this day. First, consider framing the closing weeks of the Christian calendar as an eschatological crescendo that calls attention to the ultimate telos of Jesus’ reign in fullness. Many historical lectionaries feature an implicit emphasis on these eschatological themes, assigning texts about the emergence of false messiahs, the separation of sheep and goats at the last judgment, the parable of the wise and foolish maidens, and the “day of the Lord” to Sundays in November leading up to Advent. Today, most of us worship in Christian communities that are eschatologically undernourished. But ancient sources reveal their wisdom to us, mapping an approach to shaping worship throughout October and November that strengthens our Scriptural diet of these sturdy, gutsy, countercultural texts. Second, always celebrate Jesus’ lordship as one of several interrelated dimensions of his person and work. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches us to cherish Jesus’ identity as prophet, priest, and king (Q&A 31). While only the third of these identities or offices of Christ is singled out for a named celebration in the ecumenical Christian calendar, ecumenical lectionaries throughout November feature prominent readings from Hebrews about Christ’s high priestly role, and multiple texts throughout Ordinary Time feature Jesus’ role as prophetic teacher. In each case, Jesus’ three offices overlap and mutually reinforce each other. It can be instructive to name this explicitly, correcting false impressions that can too easily distort our understanding of Jesus’ person and work when we focus on one element of Jesus’ identity while ignoring other elements. On Christ the King Sunday, consider adapting this explanation: “We worship Jesus as Lord, knowing that ours is a Lord who expresses power by establishing peace, who receives our worship while offering priestly prayers on our behalf, and who invites us into kingdom work by instructing us in the ways of peace.” This challenges latent, culturally shaped definitions of “lord” or “king” that might otherwise limit or distort our understanding. Third, explore the more direct historical links between Christ the King Sunday and the violence of war. Here is a sampling of Pius XI’s pastoral reflections: “One thing is certain today. Since the close of the Great War, individuals, the different classes of society, the nations of the earth have not as yet found true peace. They do not enjoy, therefore, that active and fruitful tranquility which is the aspiration and the need of mankind. This is a sad truth which forces itself upon us from every side” (par. 7). “The inspired words of the Prophets seem to have been written expressly for our own times: ‘We looked for peace and no good came: for a time of healing, and behold fear’ (Jeremiah 8:15), ‘for the time of healing, and behold trouble’ (Jeremiah 8:19), ‘We looked for light, and behold darkness . . . we have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us’ (Isaiah 59:9, 11)” (par. 9). “It is possible to sum up all we have said in one word, ‘the Kingdom of Christ.’ For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one’s life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. It is, therefore, a fact which cannot be questioned that the true peace of Christ can only exist in the Kingdom of Christ—‘the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ.’ It is no less unquestionable that, in doing all we can to bring about the re-establishment of Christ’s kingdom, we will be working most effectively toward a lasting world peace” (par. 48–49). Especially when warfare dominates the headlines, it is instructive and inspiring to see how Christians in earlier generations responded to the heinous violence of war in their preaching and prayer. In the case of Christ the King Sunday, it’s not just that we are invited to take comfort in Jesus’ ultimate reign, but also that we are challenged to see how countercultural this vision of lordship is. Jesus reigns as the Prince of Peace. He is violently executed in order to bring an end to violence. And his rule extends over all of creation, challenging narrow nationalism and reminding us that our citizenship is heaven. What a gift it is to worship a Lord who is the Prince of Peace! Looking for Christ the King Sunday resources? If you are a subscriber to Reformed Worship you can use your account information to access all of our back issues at ReformedWorship.org. Type “Christ the King” in the search bar at the top right corner of the page to reveal numerous resources to get your planning started.

Q I am new to a Reformed church. In the church’s sermons and prayers and other aspects of liturgy, I am struck by all the emphasis on what God does. There is so much emphasis on this that I barely hear anything about what we are supposed to do. What about all the Bible’s commands? A My first reaction to this is gratitude! A central dimension of worship is “remembering the wonders God has done” and interceding to God in all circumstances. Attending to God’s actions past, present, and future is indeed one hallmark of biblical, trinitarian worship. Seminary students at Reformed seminaries are often taught to learn how to form sentences with “God-active verbs” that stress divine agency—and rightly so. Reformed confessions introduce the sacraments by explaining what God does in and through them. This emphasis on divine action is especially important for our celebration of creation and justification—two of the many gifts of God that happen without any action on our part. Yet, as you say, the Bible also talks a lot about what we are called to be and to do—the shape of covenantal life with God. The Bible relishes imperative verbs, including commands about what we are to be doing in worship: setting our minds on things above, seeking God’s face, singing praise, giving gifts, and more. As you suggest, worship services rightly include rehearsals of these biblical imperatives in the middle of sermon, in the reading of God’s law, or in a “charge” spoken just before a concluding benediction. The challenge here is resisting a kind of zero-sum math about these commands. What we don’t want to do is to simplistically suggest that our sermons move from an 80/20 ratio of divine to human action verbs to 60/40, or vice versa. Throughout the Bible, we are taught to reject this zero-sum math and learn to perceive the ways in which both God and humans can be exercising agency at the very same time, where God’s help heals and inspires our actions. When the psalmist testifies that God “put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God” (Psalm 40:3), God is acting (giving the song) even though the psalmist is singing. When the psalmist prays, “Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise” (Psalm 51:15), the psalmist intends to act, but in a way that is prompted and enabled by God’s action. Isaiah reflects on the human activities of teaching and listening, amazed at how God makes both actions possible and fruitful: “The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue . . . [and] wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed” (Isaiah 50:4). In Philippians 2:12–13, Paul advises, “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling” (human agency), and then goes on to add, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (divine agency). Similarly, in Philippians 4:13, Paul states, “I can do all this” (human agency) “through him [Christ] who gives me strength” (divine agency). So I am agreeing with you that the Bible’s commands belong in worship, but also stressing that we do this in a way that does not diminish or replace the emphasis on divine action. This is why we respond to a call to worship with song lyrics like “Come, thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace” or “Come, thou almighty King, help us thy name to sing.” This is why we speak vows in worship with the phrase “We do, God helping us.” This is why a sermon on one of the Ten Commandments rightly features the command itself and its call on our lives while also conveying the sense that the command is a gift from God and that God offers us help as we seek to obey it. This is why at the Lord’s Supper we not only rehearse the Bible’s mandate to celebrate the feast, but also pray in a way that acknowledges the Spirit’s work in and through our participation. This is why a charge at the end of a worship service is incomplete without a benediction. In a famous sermon on Romans 8 that John Calvin later quoted, Augustine once preached: “Yes, you act and are acted upon. And if you are acted upon by one who is good, then you act well. The Spirit of God who acts upon you is the helper of those who act. The name ‘helper’ indicates that you also do something. . . . Grace does not destroy the will but rather restores it” (Sermon 156, on Romans 8:12–17, discussed memorably in Calvin’s Institutes II.V.15). What a compelling vision—the very idea that God’s Spirit is healing and renewing our capacity to act faithfully.

Q My question doesn’t come from a worship planning meeting, but from my Bible study. I have been puzzling over the fact that God would command worship through animal sacrifice in the Old Testament but then inspire poets to write psalms that say “You do not delight in sacrifice . . . [or] take pleasure in burnt offerings” (Psalm 51:16). I understand that the point is to insist on sincere worship of the heart, but why then all the prescriptions for external sacrifices in the first place? A You are in good company in puzzling over this. Back in A.D. 425, Augustine reflected on this very dilemma in his famous City of God (book 10, section 5). Augustine lingers over Psalm 51:16–17: “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” Augustine spotted a paradox—rather, he found a way, as he often did, to rephrase the point of the psalm in a paradoxical way: “Observe how, in the very words in which he is expressing God’s refusal of sacrifice, he shows that God requires sacrifice. He does not desire the sacrifice of a slaughtered beast, but He desires the sacrifice of a contrite heart. Thus, that sacrifice which he says God does not wish is the symbol of the sacrifice which God does wish.” In addition to carefully linking this text with Psalm 50:12–15, Micah 6:6–8, and Hebrews 13:16 (I encourage you to look these up), Augustine concludes, “A sacrifice, therefore, is the visible sacrament or sacred sign of an invisible sacrifice.” It’s worth lingering over this. That “invisible sacrifice” is indeed a wonderful gift. But so often when we insist on only that, we end up being allergic to paying too much attention to the “visible sacrifice.” Augustine’s formulation is like an antihistamine that squelches that allergy. What matters is not just the heart, but connecting the heart with the external action. What matters is a contrite spirit in an external expression. The inside and outside are inseparable. Indeed, a few chapters later Augustine concludes, “As to those who think that these visible sacrifices are suitably offered to other gods, whereas the invisible sacrifices—the graces of purity of mind and holiness of will—should be offered, as greater and better, to the invisible God, Himself greater and better than all others, they must be oblivious that these visible sacrifices are signs of the invisible, as the words we utter are the signs of things. And therefore, as in prayer or praise we direct intelligible words to Him to whom in our heart we offer the very feelings we are expressing, so we are to understand that in sacrifice we offer visible sacrifice only to Him to whom in our heart we ought to present ourselves an invisible sacrifice.” A more robust answer to your question would press on to say why this internal/external connection is so important. One reason is that external actions in worship can so often change and transform what goes on deep inside of us, shaping our emotions, our will, and our innermost thoughts. Augustine and John Calvin each believed that both the sacrifices prescribed for ancient Israel and later Christian worship practices were a “school of godliness.” External action is not just an inside-out expression of what is going on deep within. Sometimes external action is part of an outside-in catalytic transformation process. Sometimes all of this may be happening at once. The more I think about this question, the more I realize that this gets at something we don’t talk about enough. For all the thousands of books, articles, blogs, and websites about worship available today, the relationship between internal and external worship is a theme that seems all too rare. While it remains important to insist that deep, internal worship is essential, we should do so by celebrating how, by God’s grace, our external and internal acts of worship can connect and reinforce each other. Throughout this year, Reformed Worship has featured several articles on spiritual disciplines. Every single discipline depends on this internal/external connection. We are faithful to the profound message of the Hebrew scriptures when we do everything we can to resist separating ritual and heartfelt piety—simultaneously resisting “ritualism” and “pietism”—and to celebrate the concord or connection between what we feel and know and what we say and do. With all this in mind, the profound parallelism of Psalm 19:14 is even more powerful: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart [simultaneously!] be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer” (NRSV).

Q In our church, we have long viewed Lent as a time to focus on confession of sin. While that is crucial, I have this sense that this isn’t fully adequate. How would you approach expanding our vision? A Let me start by affirming how crucial it is to name and confess sin and to celebrate God’s gift of forgiveness. Lent is an ideal time not only to teach about the lavish grace of God by which we receive forgiveness through Christ, but also to practice confession and assurance as a regular pattern in worship. With that Lenten cornerstone in place, there are dozens of ways to expand our vision. That is because union with Christ is a symphonic concept or image that includes many complementary aspects of the salvation God so freely offers us in Christ. Salvation is a multifaceted, many-splendored gift. In this brief column, I will describe just one practice to complement confession and assurance—a practice I sense is particularly urgent and spiritually crucial in a time of anxiety and discord. It’s the practice of entrusting. The practice is on vivid display in Jesus’ last words before his death: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). This is a prayer of attachment and trust, a prayer of relinquishing and resting. The familial address “Abba” (Father) echoes the opening of the Lord’s Prayer, placing tender, relational trust at the center of our theological vision. The praying person rests in the embrace of “the everlasting arms” of God (Deuteronomy 33:27). For centuries, Christian communities have insisted that faith is not merely intellectual assent to a set of ideas. Entrusting prayers lead us beyond mere assent and invite us to receive one of the best gifts of all: a sense of childlike repose. This prayer doesn’t displace attention to sin. Indeed, this act of entrusting explicitly resists the sins of pride, arrogance, and self-worship. But it complements our typical way of speaking about sin in Lent, which so often draws on legal language (e.g., we are “acquitted” in Christ, who absorbs the punishment we deserve) with language that is profoundly personal and familial. Indeed, the mystery and beauty of Christian faith is not only that God offers us forgiveness, but also that God adopts us as children. It is important to stress that praying “into your hands I commit my spirit” is a basic form of biblical prayer. Jesus did not make up those words on the cross. He recited them from Psalm 31:5. As a Jewish boy, he would have memorized those words and used them regularly—not unlike children today who are taught bedtime prayers. The apostle Stephen did the same thing, drawing on these words as he was martyred (Acts 7:59). And it is important to stress that this is not just a prayer for hospice units and bedtime rituals. It’s a prayer for morning as well as evening, for life as well as death. Praying “into your hands I commit my spirit” is a prayer for teachers, plumbers, pastors, and CEOs. It is a prayer for children, parents, guardians, and friends. If we had to choose a single one-sentence prayer to use each and every day of our lives, this would be a fruitful choice. Now to put this into practice! Try starting with a treasure hunt. Where can you find practices of entrusting? Search the Bible first: Psalm 131 for sure, and the Song of Simeon. Look for examples in Christian history: prayers of the martyrs and Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 1 (“I . . . belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ.”) Then create a list of songs, images, and artworks that convey this practice. Try skimming an entire hymnal or the CCLI top 200 songs in a night (a splendid way to spend an evening!). If possible, make this a group project, inviting others—even your entire congregation—to be on the lookout for compelling examples of this practice of entrusting. Then embrace this practice as a central aspect of how you introduce or frame the season of Lent. It’s important to be intentional about it early on because this vivid prayer of Jesus is not usually remembered in worship until Good Friday, when only a portion of a worshiping community is likely to be present. Here’s an example of how to introduce this early on without in any way setting aside confession and assurance as central Lenten disciplines: This Lent, we have the opportunity to grow in two central Christian practices by learning to say to God two things that don’t come naturally to us: “I’m sorry” and “I entrust myself to you, O Lord.” The latter is a prayer that builds on our previous approaches to Lent, which focused on the life-giving practice of confession, by adding a new practice of spiritual tenderness and rest inspired by Jesus’ very last prayer before he died. This year, may Lent be for us a “both/and” season—a season of repentance and a season of repose. In worship itself, much depends on how your worship service unfolds. If you prepare worship in a congregation with no set order of service, you have the freedom to choose a two-part discipline for each of Lent’s six Sundays—winsomely insisting, for example, that every week you will sing one song of confession of sin and one song of entrusting ourselves to God. If you do, identify them clearly as such so that worshipers will recognize the intent. Be sure to keep the focus on the spiritual value of each practice. This discipline is not an onerous burden, but an invitation to taste and see the beauty of the Lord. It is a “yoke that is easy.” If you prepare worship in a congregation with a set order of service, there are many ways to make this double theme visible: insisting that prayers of confession and assurances of pardon feature both legal and familial images, creating a music list of two kinds of Lenten songs that can be used in worship and also shared for personal use, and looking for iconography that corresponds with each. Further, I encourage beginning the prayers of the people every week in Lent with words that echo Psalm 31:5 and the prayers of Jesus and Stephen: “Almighty and loving God, how we long to entrust ourselves to you. Help each of us by your Spirit to pray, ‘Into your hands I commit my Spirit.’” In all contexts, be sure to look for ways to connect liturgy and life. Consider sending weekly or daily “learning to confess” and “learning to entrust” prompts for personal prayer or highlighting Bible texts that illuminate both practices.

Q Our church has embraced a minimalist approach to the Lord’s Supper. We introduce it with very few words. We linger there, but only for about ninety seconds. Then we’re on to the offering or benediction. The meaning of the Lord’s Supper seems clear, but also strangely thin. What can we do? Q I’ve been reading books about how the Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli gutted the Lord’s Supper of mystery and wonder, leaving so many Protestants with a fairly dry, intellectualist approach to the Lord’s Supper. Yet I can’t seem to track with the mystique that so many people attribute to the Lord’s Supper. What’s wrong with Zwingli? A These questions have helped me name and better understand one of the central dynamics I’ve discovered while teaching about the Lord’s Supper: the vast differences each of us brings to richly symbolic artifacts and experiences. After graduation ceremonies, some graduates proudly display their diplomas while others toss theirs in a desk drawer. After a grandparent’s funeral, one cousin will cherish a small memento from his grandparent’s belongings while another will quickly donate hers to a thrift store. Some wedding ceremonies unfold with one poignant and symbolic gesture after another; others breeze by en route to the reception. Some of us even from a young age seem wired with a capacity to perceive profound meaning in a given artifact or symbolic experience, but others aren’t that way and find it hard to imagine why other people would be. This helps me make sense of why some churches are content with quite thin celebrations and why some leaders are baffled by those who approach the Lord’s Supper with reverential, mystical language. Theologians typically diagnose all this in terms of the different theological ideas about the sacraments that have shaped communities and how those ideas prime us to anticipate, notice, and affirm the different kinds of experiences we might have at the table. Across the spectrum of Reformed traditions, it is typically asserted that John Calvin’s theology of the Lord’s Supper is more evocative of mystery than Zwingli’s. Indeed, to be lifted up by the Holy Spirit to heaven, where we feed on the ascended Christ—Calvin’s view—is nothing short of an astonishing invitation. And yet anyone who has read what Zwingli said about the virtues of sacramental participation would also be astonished by the boldness of his vision, even if his focus was more on how the supper is primarily an occasion for our mental remembrance of Jesus. Personally, I hope we keep reading both theologians—and that we deeply embrace the profoundly mysterious vision of Calvin that is inscribed in the Reformed confessions. These ideas do matter. Year after year, I discover people who affirm Calvin’s vision but then seem perfectly satisfied with rather casual, brief, and “not-too-big-a-deal” approaches to the Lord’s Supper. I can’t help but think that we all need some help when it comes to experiences of astonishment, wonder, and amazement. These emotive expressions are right at home in the Christian faith. Jesus’ parents (Luke 2:48), disciples (John 4:27), and Jewish contemporaries (John 7:15) were astonished by him. Jesus promises that we will be astonished by all the works God will do (John 5:20), echoing Old Testament prophecies (Habakkuk 1:5; Isaiah 52:14). Yet it seems as if in public worship we tend to squelch experiences like these or try to coerce them through contrived or inauthentic invitations. I have been musing lately about all the ways that we humans, across cultures and time periods, experience amazement and astonished wonder. Colloquial phrases like “take our breath away” and “rendered speechless” begin to show us how embodied an experience can be. We stretch the English language to its limit, using words like “dumbfounded,” “flabbergasted,” or “gobsmacked” to convey experiences of astonishment. The more I look for this kind of experience, the more I see it: as people travel to a national park, hold a newborn baby, learn to notice an exceptionally compelling birdsong, or experience a stunning athletic accomplishment, musical composition, or work of art. Quite a few social media posts I see feature testimonies of astonished wonder about something. If a really good theological vision is not enough to warmly invite people into amazement and wonder at the table, what can we learn from all this? One common element is that when people talk about amazing experiences, they can’t help but testify: “Now that is a remarkable rainbow.” “Holding that baby is pure joy.” “That high-jump performance was breathtaking.” And testimony seems to be a contagious form of speech. A rookie tennis fan sits in the stands perplexed by it all. After hanging around a while, she starts to notice remarkable serves or backhands and exclaims, “Now that was the most remarkable backhand recovery I’ve ever seen!” What would happen in our communities if we listened more deeply to the testimonies of those who truly experience amazement and wonder at the table? Another commonality is that these experiences all require people to slow down long enough to pay deep attention. Hikers on a park trail need to pause at a lookout spot to take in the vista. Fans in the baseball stands need to get off their phones and actually watch the artfully turned double play. Fly-by Lord’s Supper rituals do not linger long enough. A third common element is that while an astonishing experience is accessible even to those who have little knowledge to interpret it, such as very young children, the more we learn about it, the more the astonishment grows. Physicists gain knowledge about the light of sunsets. Midwives and doctors gain expertise to assist in childbirth. A pitching coach knows a lot about the mechanics of a curveball. All that knowledge can enhance their experience of the wonders that come their way—provided they pause often enough from all their technical tasks to hum a doxology. So it is at the Lord’s Supper: contagious testimonies about trinitarian beauty, slowing down to behold the mystery of union with Christ, and continually learning from doxologically shaped theology all help to grow cultures of profound engagement. In all of this, we may well need to pay renewed attention to those who struggle, suffer, mourn and grieve: a spouse who has lost a loved one and senses at the table a profound unity with all those in heaven and on earth who praise the Lamb who was slain; those who struggle with poverty yet stand side-by-side at the table in equal need and dignity with those who are wealthy; those who are addicted to work or substances or fame and come to the table in need of healing. So often the most contagious testimonies come from the margins. A generation ago, these words of Rabbi Abraham Heschel were among the most cited inspirational quotes: “Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.” I find myself praying more and more that congregations and their leaders will pray for a profound sense of wonder at the table and that they will seek to shape cultures of amazement. Ultimately, cultures of amazement and astonishment can’t be engineered or coerced, but they can be gently nurtured.

Q Our new pastor thinks that worship is one of the most important places for practicing good Bible engagement disciplines and has asked our worship team to learn more about this. They never talked about this in my worship leadership training program. What is this all about? A I agree with your pastor. A worship service is a prime occasion for engaging with the Bible. For millions of Christians throughout most of history in many cultural contexts, it was the only place they could engage with the Bible directly. Even in communities with rich practices of regular group Bible study and personal Bible reading, in worship we engage the Bible in a different way. As I reflected on your question, my own thinking was sharpened by listing several ill-advised ways of engaging Scripture in worship, including: Treating it as merely a repository of religious ideas to think about Treating it as merely a collection of ancient writings Ignoring the historical and cultural contexts in which it was written Ignoring the stunning range of the kinds of texts included in the Bible Only ever reading one passage at a time without cross-referencing other texts Reading the Bible only by yourself without noticing how others engage it Only reading tiny snippets of the Bible at a time—only as much as you can fit on a greeting card Treating the images and metaphors in the text as inessential ornaments only loosely connected with the main point Reading a given text quickly and assuming this is good enough Having a Bible around to look good, but never really opening it at all! (Perhaps you could invite others to add to this list of bad Bible engagement habits. The exercise of creating this list will make it much easier to generate a list of good goals we want to work toward.) Now let’s generate a positive vision to counteract these approaches. Notice how even ordinary worship services invite us into something much richer and deeper. FORMATIVE: When we sing or pray texts directly from the Bible in worship, we learn to apprentice ourselves to these texts. When we sing or pray a text from the Bible, we don’t merely think about it; we plant the seed of God’s Word more deeply within us. CONTEMPLATIVE: When sermons are based on particular Bible passages and not just general themes, we practice dwelling with (or stewing in!) a particular text for anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half hour or more, depending on our context. In a world of hurry, this practice of slowing down to listen to an extended proclamation based on a text is a discipline of attentiveness we need. AUTHORITATIVE: When in worship a reader concludes a reading by saying, “The Word of the Lord,” and we respond, “Thanks be to God,” we practice Scripture’s authoritative claim on our lives. While that simple phrase doesn’t automatically mean we will treat the Bible authoritatively, that discipline is still a powerful symbolic gesture that makes a congregation’s aspiration clearer. SYMPHONIC: When worship services routinely read at least two passages of Scripture together in juxtaposition, we learn to see connections throughout the Bible’s sixty-six books. We practice the hermeneutical principle that “Scripture interprets Scripture.” And over time, we may well learn to notice that those connections are not all of one type. While some texts improvise on earlier texts (e.g., Mary riffs on Hannah’s song of praise), others offer striking and instructive contrasts (e.g., Jesus’ command that we pray for our enemies instead of paying the back a “tooth for tooth”). NARRATIVE: When in worship we learn to stick with a passage or set of passages over time (e.g., a six-week sermon series on Philippians, or a lectionary-shaped journey through the gospel of Mark or the book of Exodus), we resist the temptation to engage Scripture only as a set of proof texts or inspirational quotes that we can sprinkle into our lives. We learn to immerse ourselves in more extended Biblical passages. COMMUNAL: When congregations draw on preaching texts all week long to shape prayers, study, and conversations in ministries, we learn to engage the Bible not just individually, but communally. CONTEXTUAL: When congregations encourage their preachers to study the text and to include comments in their sermons about the literary features of the text in its historical and cultural context, we practice the discipline of honoring the organic nature of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the text. IMAGINATIVE: When congregations commission poets, artists, dancers, or songwriters to engage and to evoke the meaning of scriptural texts, congregations practice stretching their own theological and pastoral imaginations. GOSPEL-CENTERED: It is quite possible to read the Bible extensively without paying attention to the Jesus-centered, trinitarian vision at the heart of the gospel message. In public worship, we ideally place every text we read inside services that are trinitarian and Christocentric. What a beautiful vision: engaging the Bible in a formative, contemplative, authoritative, symphonic, narrative, communal, contextual, imaginative, gospel-centered way. Group Bible studies and personal and family Bible reading can also contribute to these aspirations. But worship is also indispensable for shaping healthy, vibrant disciplines of scriptural engagement. What could be better for engaging the Bible than thoughtful disciplines that have as their central concern inviting us together into nothing less than a public covenantal conversation with the triune God?

Q Our church is stuck in conversations about worship. Everything seems to come down to personal preferences and to how many people we can satisfy in any given week. We also have a stack of policies that really stifle our imagination. How can we get out of this pattern? A This seems like an apt description of hundreds of communities. And it points to the deep culture of a community—something harder to describe than to address. It’s likely that nothing will fix this quickly. Still, it’s worth the effort! While there are many ways to approach this challenge, I continue to be inspired by leaders who pay attention to the “language culture” of a community—its characteristic communication habits. First, pay attention to the very different ways that leaders introduce a new idea or try to strengthen a long-established practice. Some leaders do this through “preference talk”—for example, “I was at a conference and heard a new type of song that I simply fell in love with, and I knew we had to try it,” or “I love our edgy pre-sermon videos and would hate to ever see this practice go away.” Others do this through “rule talk”—for example, “Our rule is that we always sing two hymns and three praise songs.” Still others do this through “wisdom talk”—for example, “Forward-looking churches proactively seek to invite younger members to join teams and committees so that we build leadership capacity for the future,” or “We have discovered together how wise it is to have a team of people to prepare and review each Sunday service and to benefit from each other’s perspectives, gifts, and insights.” We can’t move congregations out of preference talk if we use it as leaders. When we do try to replace preference talk, we’ll succeed more in deepening the culture of a community if we embrace wisdom talk—ways of talking that help people see the underlying reasons for a given approach. Second, help people learn to recognize these contrasting ways of speaking in their own families, neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools. In each of these contexts, we all tend to slip into quite arbitrary defenses of a given practice in terms of either our personal desires or a somewhat arbitrary rule. Notice what happens when the topic of worship comes up in car rides home from church or at family reunions or water cooler conversations in the workplace. Preference talk: “I can’t stand it when they play that song so slowly.” “I prefer it when our associate pastor preaches.” “I love old hymns.” “I’m a guitar-and-drums kind of person.” Rule talk: “We never sing Christmas carols during Advent.” “We never show religious imagery that might offend people.” Then, starting in your small group, team, committee, or council, hold each other accountable to make it through an entire meeting without slipping into preference talk or rule talk. As you do, remember that you can quite easily transform just about any comment or observation from one mode of speech to another. Suppose you think to yourself, “I just can’t stand having carpet in church.” Consider all the options you have for expressing it: “I don’t like carpet in church.” (preference) “Do not carpet church sanctuaries.” (command) “The first principle for congregational singing is: do not carpet your sanctuary.” (rule) “Could we explore removing our church carpet?” (question) “Carpeting church sanctuaries dampens congregational singing.” (observation) “Wise is the church that plans its acoustics to enhance congregational singing.” (proverb) “When my former church got rid of carpet, we started to sing like a little choir, and the place came alive.” (testimony) The proverb and the testimony here change the atmosphere of the conversation. They gently shift the focus toward the rationale and enduring strength of a given practice. They are a form of wisdom talk. Wisdom talk is a way of talking that can help sustain a healthy practice over time. If a church sings a lot of music by a given songwriter just because “the pastor or worship leader happens to like it,” that sets up a scenario where these songs are forgotten the day that leader leaves. If a church learns to love the deeper reasons why that music is pastorally compelling, it’s more likely to last. This is just as true for church leaders as it is for athletic coaches, physical therapists, and dietitians who often offer some of our culture’s most compelling examples of wisdom speech. We are more likely to practice a given athletic drill and eat healthier food when we grasp the deep reasons why. There are caveats to consider. First, sometimes we and the people we lead use preference talk when we don’t mean to. Sometimes our hopes would more honestly be conveyed in the form of a testimony or conviction or proverb. But when we talk about our hopes, they come out in the form of a preference because that’s all we ever hear around us! More than once as a teacher, I have known the deep reasons why a given practice is so compelling but was nevertheless tempted to slip into commending something in terms of my own tastes. Second, at the same time, this linguistic shift toward wisdom talk could be used manipulatively. We all can be tempted to dress up our own preferences in whatever way is likely to carry the day—even when there really isn’t much enduring wisdom there. Third, it’s important to acknowledge that both rule talk and preference talk have their place. Preferences for certain foods or parks or animals or colors can be an expression of delight in creation. Firm rules can save us from touching a hot stove or diving into shallow water. Still, I would posit this: Communities are deeply blessed when their choices about worship are grounded not in a set of personal preferences or arbitrary rules, but rather in enduring wisdom that is openly discussed, shared, and mutually affirmed. See if you can gather even a small group of people to experiment with new ways of talking about what you do and why.

Q I have a high view of Scripture. Thus I am sympathetic to the idea that all the psalms are fitting for worship. Yet any time one of the truly angry psalms of protest is suggested for worship, our team rejects the idea. Wouldn’t expressing our anger in worship be better than repressing it? A To answer this we need to understand each psalm in its larger scriptural context as well as the nature of emotions, particularly anger. Understanding in Light of the Rest of Scripture I share with you a high view of Scripture and affirm that all Scripture “is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). I am convinced that the psalms of anger, bitterness, and protest have much to teach us, and that—as with every other type of text—we need to understand them in light of the rest of Scripture. As we do that, we gain insight about their place in worship. What we find, for example, is that not every psalm is fitting for use in worship as our own prayer, whether sung or spoken. It is incongruous to pray the imprecatory psalms (those that curse the enemy) after hearing Jesus command us to pray for our enemies. It is more promising to notice the ways in which psalms of protest and imprecation relinquish revenge, entrusting the execution of justice to God (Romans 12:19–20). Without setting these protest psalms inside a robust trinitarian theological context, they can be terribly misused to promote violence. This careful exegetical work needs to be done with all Scripture that is being employed in worship lest we bend Scripture for our own uses. The Nature of Emotion Even after we have this theological context firmly in place, there are still additional questions to explore, especially related to common assumptions we bring to the text about the nature of emotions. Minimize or Repress First, many assume that all anger and bitterness is bad, or something we need to get over or minimize so we can live a happy life. This stands in contrast with many biblical texts that depict righteous anger as a fitting response to injustice and acts of violence. Resolute, righteous anger is a sanctified response to evil in a fallen world—following Paul’s advice to “be angry but do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26a, NRSV). Second, it’s common in some cultural contexts to assume that all anger is fickle, capricious, and unmanageable. True, many expressions of anger in this world are tragically capricious, featuring flare-ups of sudden, surging rage. That’s why Paul’s advice is wise to “not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26b, NRSV). In contrast, God is slow to anger, suggesting constancy in opposition to injustice. Capricious, abusive flare-ups of anger must be firmly denounced. Constant, resolute vigilance against injustice should be affirmed—and can be strengthened by the psalms of protest. These two reasons lead many of us to avoid naming or dealing with anger, resentment, and bitterness at all in our lives and in our worship. Repressing all this can, as you suggest, become a significant problem, leaving us unable to deal with our resentments in a healthy way. Let Go and Vent But our efforts to deal well with anger can also go wrong, especially when we operate uncritically with a cathartic view of emotion—the idea that we can purge ourselves of a negative emotion by expressing it. This idea is often expressed with hydraulic metaphors, such as “letting off steam,” or “venting anger,” or “boiling over with rage,” or “bottled-up fury”—all expressions that picture the body as a holding tank or a set of pipes ready to burst, in need of an outlet for our negative emotions. A cathartic view of emotion is sometimes used to defend the value of violent video games and movies. It’s behind the idea that if we just let out a primal scream, we will feel better afterward. Strikingly, this view is often used (at least informally) to explain psalms of anger and protest. For example, someone might say, “I love how the Bible encourages us to vent our anger” or, “Those anger psalms are challenging, but I guess they really do show us how to unload our bitterness.” Note that the Bible itself doesn’t directly affirm or reject this cathartic view of emotion. We’ve absorbed this view of emotion from the culture around us and simply assume it to be true. One gift of recent psychological research is the insight that simply expressing a negative emotion does not get rid of it. Just the opposite, in fact: expressing anger can strengthen our “anger muscles” by fanning the flames of our fury rather than quieting them. This is similar to how learning to express gratitude can, over time, help us build “gratitude muscles,” forming us to become more grateful people. Reframing the Conversation Fortunately, engaging the psalms of protest constructively does not require that we hold a cathartic view of emotion. The psalms of protest—each in their own way—do not just vent anger. They also redirect it, guide it down unexpected pathways, and frame it in terms of arresting images and metaphors. Some psalms of protest and anger are notable because they do not simply express anger or disappointment, but relinquish it, entrusting the pain or source of bitterness to God. When Psalm 94 prays, “Pay back to the proud what they deserve,” the assumption is that God alone can bring about justice. Some psalms of lament take us on a journey from bitterness toward something quite different. Psalm 13 starts with what could be either bitterness or disappointment, but then turns that into a prayer and eventually into a vow to praise God. Psalm 88, the bleakest of all psalms, expresses utter despair, but still attaches that despair to an opening statement of trust: “Lord, you are the God who saves me.” Rather than introducing a psalm of protest as an act of catharsis, introduce it as a text that within a larger biblical context has something to teach us about resisting evil. This approach avoids the two unhelpful extremes of pure repression and pure catharsis. For congregations that rarely or never deal with these texts in worship, consider these steps as a place to start: Introduce the psalm by saying, “As we hear now these words of protest and anger, call to mind all the people around us and among us who are living with these emotions today.” Then read or recite the psalm. Then offer a prayer that names particular sources of injustice, violence, pain, and bitterness in the world around us. Conclude with a reading of Hebrews 4:14–16 or a similar passage that speaks about Jesus’ own identification with the travails of the world and assures the congregation of Jesus’ own present-day ministry of intercession. One last note: responding faithfully to the psalms of protest and anger is a particularly challenging pastoral act. It’s best when this is done well in community rather than by a solitary leader. It’s worth taking time to pray and learn together with your team as you continue to explore this topic.

Q: How should we approach Advent in a year of pandemic and racial strife?A: Let me begin by noting my primary concern: that churches will settle for an Advent season that is too small and too sentimental. It’s so tempting to reach for the spiritual comfort food of warm carols and soft candlelight in ways that detach them from the source of true strength and comfort and fullness of the gospel.So yes, let it be an Advent of comfort. Let us cherish how our coming Lord arrives as the sun “with healing in its wings.”Let it also be a season for proclaiming jubilee, the way in which the past and future comings of Christ upend violence, injustice, and all that is opposed to God’s shalom, a coming in which the poor and lowly are raised up and the mighty are taken down from their presumptuous positions of power.As you plan, try thinking of these two themes as if they are two kinds of light (warm light and cool light) or two textures (soft fabric and rough fabric) or two palettes of color (one that is soft and warm, one that is bright and vibrant).Less Familiar Advent Songs of Justice, Righteousness, and Shalom to Consider“My Soul Cries Out with a Joyful Shout / Canticle of the Turning” Conney“Toda la tierra / All Earth Is Waiting” Taulé“Hark, the Glad Sound! The Savior Comes” Doddridge“O Shepherd, Hear and Lead Your Flock” Morgan“LORD, You Have Lavished on Your Land” Post“Least of These/Put a Little Love in Your Heart” DeShannon, Holiday, Houghton, Myers“Light of the World” Daigle, Maybury“Emmanuel (Every Promise Yes in Him)” Cobb“How Long?” Bifrost Arts, Wardell“Refugee King/Away in a Manger” Benedict, Reagan, Ruth, Scheer, Vice“Someday Soon” Mohr“God Will Heal Our Wounds” Common Hymnal, Reagan, Strumpel, Wilson“The King is Coming” Common Hymnal, Duncan, Macaulay, QuilalaThen think about how texts and songs—and the particular melodies and rhythms of a given arrangement—fall into those two categories. “Silent Night,” Mohr sung quietly accompanied by an acoustic guitar, is “warm” and “soft,” as is pretty much every arrangement of “Away in a Manger.” Public Domain “My Soul Cries Out with a Joyful Shout / Canticle of the Turning,” Cooney sung to the rugged tune “Star of County Down,” is more “cool,” “rough,” and “bright,” especially with a text like this:Let the king bewarefor your justice tearsevery tyrant from his throne.The hungry poorshall weep no morefor the food they can never earn;there are tables spread,every mouth be fed,for the world is about to turn.—Rory Cooney, “Canticle of the Turning,” based on the Magnificat, © 1990 GIA Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.Try starting your planning by categorizing the twenty or so Advent songs your church already loves to sing. I am not going far out on a limb to suggest that most churches will have more songs in the “warm and soft” category.Then, accept the discipline of insisting that each service have both kinds of texts and songs. Jesus comes with comfort for the brokenhearted and with justice for the oppressed.Once you start looking at the Bible and at your song list with these lenses in place, you’ll notice striking juxtapositions in many places. In Psalm 103, for example, we praise a God who not only “heals all your diseases,” (v. 3) but also “works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed” (v. 6).This in turn shapes how we define and use many key terms in our theological and pastoral vocabulary. The term “peace,” or “shalom,” as sung by the angels to shepherds, refers to at least two quite different dimensions of goodness: one with a scope as vast as the cosmos, and one that is as intimate as our own interior lives, often hidden from everyone but God. “Shalom” means rightly ordered relationships in society, culture, and creation as well as inner tranquility. The gospel of peace comes with healing both for neighborhoods that are racked with violence and for hearts that are filled with turmoil.Occasionally, remarkable music weaves both dimensions tightly together. Felix Mendelssohn’s Advent anthem “There Shall a Star Come Out of Jacob” begins and ends warmly and softly, but its middle section is filled with cool, fierce, dramatic acclamation of a Lord who comes “with might destroying” the forces of evil.By all means, let us sing warm carols by candlelight, cherishing our loved ones and basking in the glow of any tranquility the Holy Spirit graces us with. How much deeper that sense of peace will be if we also resist the powerful temptation to ignore Advent’s fiercely prophetic elements oriented around justice, righteousness, and cultural shalom.

Q We have discovered that some of the songs we love come from churches, organizations, and songwriters with major doctrinal differences from our congregation. Some come from people whose public witness has been significantly compromised in some way. Some people in our church think we should not sing these songs. What do you think? A My first thoughts drift back to my early memories of the hymn “In the Cross of Christ I Glory.” In the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, churches across the theological spectrum, including very theologically conservative churches, sang its mystical lyrics: “In the cross of Christ I glory,  towering o’er the wrecks of time; all the light of sacred story gathers round its head sublime,” and “Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure, by the cross are sanctified; peace is there that knows no measure, joys that through all time abide.” While the language may seem a bit dated today, it’s a gutsy move to confess that our experiences of bane and blessing are both sanctified through the cross. Years later, I was surprised to learn that the committee preparing the 1934 Psalter Hymnal voted against including this hymn. They resisted it for one reason: it had been written by John Bowring, a Unitarian. Awareness of that history faded over time, and the hymn was included in the Psalter Hymnals of 1957 and 1987, accepted as a hymn that was consistent with the Reformed confessions. There are hundreds of fascinating stories like this in the history of the church. Overall, it’s crucial that we not preclude singing songs written by those whose overall theology, to put it gently, is “not consistent with our confessions.” Rather, we evaluate the merits of a given song and discern whether that song will build up our congregations in ways that are faithful to Scripture and consistent with our common theological vision. We can be discerning as we do this work. With 100,000 or more songs readily available to all of us, we can be very selective. It’s rare that we would even need to linger over borderline songs given the rich catalog of songs to which we have access. We should also be charitable as we do this work and resist the increasingly hostile nature of some internet discussions of particular publishers and songwriters. To insist on the doctrinal or moral purity of the author or composer feels a lot like the early church heresy of Donatism, which Augustine worked so hard to resist. The Donatists were early church rigorists, insisting that the leaders of the church must be saintly for their prayers and sacraments to be valid. They had to be leaders who successfully resisted persecution. Augustine insisted, in contrast, that it was Christ’s righteousness and not the righteousness or purity of the leaders that made for effective and sanctifying worship. We want to hold up saintly behavior for all of us, but we don’t rule out the good work that God’s Spirit can do through imperfect people—that is, all of us. At the same time, that doesn’t mean that every good song is equally appropriate regardless of its author’s story or tradition. Much depends on whether those who sing the song will be able to focus on the song itself. There are times when a given song carries with it so many extra layers of meaning from its cultural associations that those layers overtake the meaning of the words that are being sung. In the 1980s and 1990s, many worship leaders loved U2’s psalm-based “40 (How Long).” Some judged it would be fitting for use in worship. Others believed many worshipers would think more about Bono than God. Others were very aware that if they sang it, some members of their church would make all kinds of cultural connections as the song was sung while others would have no clue about those, creating a divided experience in the congregation. It’s important to honor the pastoral instincts of leaders who made different decisions here depending on their contexts. This all assumes we are talking about individual song choices. But sometimes more is at stake.  Many churches look to a single, go-to source for most of their music. There are “Bethel churches” and “Hillsong churches” and “Chris Tomlin churches” and “Keith and Kristen Getty churches” just like there once were “Watts churches” and “Wesley churches” and “Genevan Psalm churches.” A given musical tradition thus becomes something much more than the source for a single song here and there. It becomes the source of a congregation’s worship identity. When this happens, it is particularly important to discern the underlying theological vision of that tradition. Indeed, each of these traditions offers very different views on at least some central aspects of Christian teaching, and the internet is aflutter with intense discussions about these differences. If a given church has a catechism from one tradition and a single-source song repertoire from a tradition with quite a different theological vision, there is little doubt which theological vision will become more influential over time. The sticking power of songs wins the day. The best approach of all is to resist any single musical source as a marker of a congregational worship identity. It is highly unlikely that a single musical source will lead to a consistently balanced diet of theological and pastoral themes. While it’s possible to live on one food group for a while, it’s hard to thrive for decades that way. That’s as true of our spiritual diets as it is of our musical ones. “In the Cross of Christ I Glory” was and still can be an edifying choice for many Reformed congregations. But that’s something far different from Reformed congregations going out of their way to identify themselves with the rich tradition of Unitarian hymnody. Finally, as we make our choices, realize that there is also an economic aspect to this. There really is a worship industry out there, and the royalties we pay really do add up. Many of these single-source groups are powerful players in that industry. Part of the value of discerning choices is that over time we will end up supporting faithful musicians from across a spectrum of cultures and contexts who are faithfully interpreting God’s Word through song. In sum, it is possible to avoid an overly rigorist rejection of a given source while also being quite resolute in refusing to identify with that source.