Liturgical October

Happy October!  Now get to work.

Yep, it’s going to be a busy October.  This Saturday is our parish clean-up day.  Ernie Moore has already cleaned the breezeway from Founder’s Hall to the Church.  On Sunday, we gather outside in the courtyard for the pet blessing as we remember perhaps the greatest saint since the New Testament, St. Francis of Assisi.  We’ll be even busier from Oct. 14-18. That Wednesday, The Hendersons and I will be at Camp McDowell preparing for a Cursillo weekend of Christian instruction and Christian joy.  On Thursday, the Episcopal Church Men will be at the church all night cooking Boston Butts and sharing in the spirits – I mean spirit.  On Saturday, the 17th, we will have a yard sale.  On Sunday, Arnold Bush will be the guest priest, while I will be finishing up at Camp McDowell.

And them, we will end October with a blast – our afternoon Halloween Festival, which will conclude with an All Hallows Eve service geared toward families and children to get their trick-or-treating started with liturgy.  Ah, there’s that word, liturgy.  You see it every Sunday on the front of your bulletin.  We are a liturgical people.  But what does that mean?  “Liturgy” comes from two Greek words put together to say, “work of the people.” 

You could say that “liturgy” is a public work, except that then it sounds like a taxpayer-funded government project.  In ancient times, most “public works” were gatherings of the people for religious observances.  Services at the Temple in Jerusalem were referred to as a “liturgy.”  In Greco-Roman culture, most public gatherings at the coliseum or arena included prayers, whatever the particular occasion.  So, any public gathering was, by definition, a religious observance.  In this way, public gatherings of the Christian faithful became known as “liturgy.”

In this way is the common made holy, and the holy made common.  When ECM gathers together this month, they will be doing a lot of work, while hopefully will make a lot of money.  But they will also be enjoying each others’ fellowship in Christ.  So that public gathering will be a liturgy.  When we come together on Saturday to make our church look even more beautiful than it already is, while enjoying each other’s company, that will be a liturgy.  In this way are the common activities of cleaning and cooking made holy, with the spirit of Christ moving through each of us.  When we give thanks for God’s creation and bless those his creatures whom we have adopted, we are honoring all that is common in the world as touched by the hand of God, and thus holy.  And if God’s hand is on everything that we see, then we can also see that God’s holiness is not confined to just one special place called a church.

And when we treat even “Sister Death” (as St. Francis called it) in a playful and liturgical manner on All Hallows Eve, we affirm that nothing in life or death is untouched by the hand of God.  We Episcopalians are a liturgical people.  We believe that there is no part of this life that cannot be made holy when faithful Christians come together and offer that occasion to God.  So, I wish you all a blessed and liturgical October.