Jarrod Richey » worship

Wright on Easter

Jarrod — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 20:17:57 +0000

This is a a two-page excerpt from Bishop Tom Wright’s book Surprised by Hope. I typed it out from the the chapter, Reshaping the Church for Mission (2): Living the Future. No comment needed from me. I just hope that this helps us renew our focus and perspective on celebrating Easter.

Introduction: Celebrating Easter

So how can we learn to live as wide-awake people, as Easter people? Here I have some bracing suggestions to make. I have come to believe that many churches simply throw Easter away year by year; and I want to plead that we rethink how we do it so as to help each other, as a church and as individuals, to live what we profess. I am speaking here particularly from, and to, the church I know best. Those who celebrate in other ways will, I think, be able to make appropriate adjustments and take whatever they need to apply to their own situations.

For a start, consider Easter Day itself. It’s a great step forward that many churches now hold Easter vigils, as the Orthodox church has always done, but in many cases they are still too tame by half. Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power—not very Anglican, perhaps, but at least we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows. Every step back from that is a step toward and ethereal or esoteric Easter experience, and the thing about Easter is that it is neither ethereal nor esoteric. It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way.

But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday . . . and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.

All right, the Sundays after Easter still lie within the Easter season. We still have Easter readings and hymns during them. But Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before., with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom? It’s long overdue that we took a hard look at how we keep Easter in church, at home, in our personal lives, right through the system. And if it means rethinking some cherished habits, well, maybe it’s time to wake up. That always comes as a surprise.

And while we’re about it, we might write some more good Easter hymns and take care to choose the many good ones already written that celebrate what Easer really is rather than treating it as simply our ticket to a blissful life hereafter. Interestingly, most of the good Easter hymns turn out to be from the early church and most of the bad ones form the nineteenth century. But we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins. We shouldn’t allow the secular world, with its schedules and habits and parareligious events, its cute Easter bunnies, to blow us off course. This is our greatest day. We should put the flags out.

In particular, if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up. Champagne for breakfast again—well, of course. Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative. Of course you have to weed the garden from time to time; sometimes the ground ivy may need serious digging before you can get it out. That’s Lent for you. But you don’t want simply to turn the garden back into a neat bed of blank earth. Easter is the time to sow new seeds and to plant out a few cuttings. If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off if you are to flourish as a Christian and as a truly human being, then Easter should mean planting, watering, and training up things in your life (personal and corporate) that ought to be blossoming , filling the garden with color and perfume, and in due course bearing fruit. The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up , some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may be able to do it only for six weeks, just as you may be able to go without beer or tobacco only for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.

**Excerpt from Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright from pages 255-257**

Focus on THE Family…

Jarrod — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:11:00 +0000

Dr. James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family,” is right to want to bring focus to the family. The question I raise in this little blurb is, “Which Family?” Are we focusing on the Richey family or the Family of God—the Church. The Church family is getting the short end of the stick it seems when it comes to focus. As Christians, we should think of our families as an extension of the Church. We don’t think like this though. We put our focus on our individual families in that we must have “family time.” In lieu of weekly church worship and communion we have “family time at the game” or “family time at the lake.” So many factors contribute to this. We have a low view of church and a low view of why we even need to go to church. We are very individualistic. Everything from worship and church revolves around our very own needs and wants. Our individual family focus is fueled by the desire to repair broken and dysfunctional family units. That hyper-correction will only hurt it the long term. Either way, the Christian family will only thrive long term in the weekly life of the Church. That is where they will learn and fellowship with other imperfect people. That is where our families will be encouraged and grown through shared trials and joys. Alone we become wierd people, but in community we are made aware of what it means to live as image bearers of God—in fellowship and peace.

So many things can be said, but family must be viewed in light of the true family—the Church of the Lord Jesus. I want my kids to see our family unit flowing out of the church family. It is the Church that should get our focus when trying to make corrective measures to improve our families. We’ll be better off focusing on THE Church family and give our families time and energy in as much as they are subjected to the church. Not neglecting our individual families but rather learning how to live in them day in and day out because of the greater nurture and admonition of the Church family.

Engraving a Supplemental Hymnal

Jarrod — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:10:00 +0000

I am working on compiling a supplemental hymnal of sorts for our church pews. It involves me re-engraving older hymns and chants that are out of print in some cases. It has been a great exercise for me personally. I find that some of the great hymns and psalms are on my lips and the tunes are in my head in new ways that weren’t there before. Something that we deal with is trying to incorporate songs in our local church’s worship that has appropriate words and music. That means that we want to sing songs that are pleasing to the Lord. So, we try to sing the words that we have–the Bible, the Psalms mainly. Whether that be in a hymn form or in straight Psalm singing, we are constantly trying to find a good medium of that.

The rub comes in when you try to figure out what to sing. We want to sing vigorously and with energy. Where appropriate, we want to sing in four-parts. We want the music to not be sappy or trendy. We don’t want the music that we sing in worship to just be a knockoff of a pop music song. We aren’t try to cause people to have a “romantic encounter” with Jesus. We want to worship the Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) the best way we can according to what we can understand that he wants. We look to the Bible for that. So, we won’t be singing songs that are designed to save people. We sing songs that proclaim to greatness of our Lord. We sing songs that remind us of who we are and what we are to be doing. We are the Lord’s army and we gather in worship each, not to be a part of a circus show or performance in surround sound and high definition. We come to worship and commune with the God of Abraham, the God of our Parents, and the God of our Children to come after us. So, our music has to fall in line with this vision. Music is truly a wonderful thing and we are trying to use it in wholesome ways. We don’t for one minute shy away from it because it is being done badly or poorly. We want to use it as best we can.

So, my task is to work with the leadership of our church to come up with a supplemental hymnal that includes some of the great songs that have been written long ago and some more modern songs and chants. We are doing this with our congregation in mind. We want to be able to sing the best songs that we can, even if they aren’t in the hymnals we have in our pews currently.