Two ideas have been in the back of my mind for the past couple of years. Time to get them out of my system and see where they go.
First (and not so new), the act of gathering for Sunday worship as a subversive act, the constitution of the body of Christ in the face of the powers of the world. I know this sounds apocalyptic - perhaps eschatological is a better term? If you've read my posts up till now, maybe asserting this idea about liturgy seems like it flies in the face of what I've said earlier about the goodness of the material world. I don't think the two ideas are in conflict; they're merely in tension. ;-)
Second: in the Byzantine tradition there is a long history of writing commentaries on the Divine Liturgy. It goes back at least as far as Germanos of Constantinople, and it has roots in earlier commentaries on the liturgy of the Eucharist.
Bringing the two together, I want to write a commentary on the Divine Liturgy interpreting it as a subversive act of resistance. Exploring how its materials, texts, gestures, movements use the languages of power, materiality, majesty, kingship, and transcendence to subvert "normal" notions of power and authority, in order to praise the kenotic God who humbled Godself and became human.
I wonder how this would 'go over' in the U.S. for so many Americans who think that you can't be Christian without being patriotic and vice versa. I know that there are many kinds of power and authority, not just governmental, but my guess is that in some areas and traditions it would seem anti-Christian to view or utilize the liturgy as a form of subversive resistance.
ReplyDeleteThanks much for your reply. I agree with you. It wouldn't go over well at all - not just in the U.S. but in many places. I was thinking of "powers" in the sense that Paul uses the term, so it's not only political or governmental power but more broadly the forces in the world that set up things other than God as idols.
ReplyDeleteI'd say view rather than utilize the Sunday liturgy of the Eucharist. I think that the meanings are already there, it's a matter of seeing them. That's not to say that liturgy can't be, and hasn't been, used - but I think that when that's happened it's most often been used not to subvert but to support the powers - to sustain the status quo.