During my very first semester of seminary, I had a class with an adjunct professor who taught us about the history and theology of Christian worship. I am sad to say that I don’t remember his name. He was only with us for one semester, filling in for a professor who was on Sabbatical. I appreciated him.
But twenty years later (Um… Wow) from time to time, I still think about something he said to us:
“In worship, everything means.”
When we enter a time and place that is deemed sacred, and when we engage rituals that connect people to a sense of what they believe is most Ultimate and important, every single thing we do carries meaning.
I remember him adding, “So if someone is reading a scripture, and you’re up there looking at your worship notes, not paying attention, that carries a great deal of meaning, too.”
Now, two decades later, I also like to blur the lines between what is considered sacred and what is considered mundane or ordinary. If we are more aware of that which is Ultimate to us in every day life — yes, this may be for us, God; but it may also be Loves, or Values, or- or — perhaps everything might mean more to us.
“Everything means.” Everything carries meaning. And we are more aware to receive it and appreciate it.
Along those lines, here’s a story I love from Father Greg Boyle. He’s the founder of Homeboy Industries, an organization that provides healing, connection, and jobs to people who have left gangs or have been recently incarcerated. I’m lifting this from the transcript of a conversation he had with Krista Tippett on her podcast, On Being.
“I think we’re afraid of the incarnation. And part of it, the fear that drives us is that we have to have our sacred in a certain way. It has to be gold-plated, and cost of millions and cast of thousands or something, I don’t know. And so we’ve wrestled the cup out of Jesus’s hand, and we’ve replaced it with a chalice, because who doesn’t know that a chalice is more sacred than a cup, never mind that Jesus didn’t use a chalice?
“And a story I tell in the book about a homie who was — on Christmas Day, I said, ‘What’d you do on Christmas?’ And he was an orphan, and abandoned and abused by his parents, and worked for me in our graffiti crew. And I said, ‘What’d you do for Christmas?’ ‘Oh, just right here.’ I said, ‘Alone?’ And he said, ‘No, I invited six other guys from the graffiti crew who didn’t had no place to go,’ he said. ‘And they were all…’ He named them, and they were enemies with each other. I said, ‘What’d you do?’ He goes, ‘You’re not gonna believe it. I cooked a turkey.’
“I said, ‘Well, how’d you prepare the turkey?’ He says, ‘Well, you know, ghetto-style.’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t think I’m familiar with that recipe.’ And he said, ‘Well, you rub it with a gang of butter, and you squeeze two limones on it, and you put salt and pepper, put it in the oven. Tasted proper,’ he said. I said, ‘Wow. Well, what else did you have besides turkey?’ ‘Well, that’s it, just turkey.”
“’Yeah, the seven of us, we just sat in the kitchen, staring at the oven, waiting for the turkey to be done. Did I mention it tasted proper?’ I said, ‘Yeah, you did.’
“So what could be more sacred than seven orphans, enemies, rivals, sitting in a kitchen, waiting for a turkey to be done? Jesus doesn’t lose any sleep that we will forget that the Eucharist is sacred. He is anxious that we might forget that it’s ordinary, that it’s a meal shared among friends, and that’s the incarnation, I think.”
Everything means.
— Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 