A friend of mine who is going through the Orthodox catecheses shared a web page on a Lutheran to Orthodox colloquium which I have linked to the title of this posting. So far I've listen to:
The Church in Orthodoxy: Scratching the Surface
and
Justification
They are both quite interesting. In a nutshell both describe their spiritual movement from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy; the former stresses the ecclesial nature of the Orthodoxy church (i.e. the role of Bishop), the latter about the OC understanding of the hallowed Lutheran topic of justification. Not so surprisingly, both stress the importance of the liturgy in the life of the church. Coming as I do from a Lutheran church that actually does liturgy, it struck me that neither speaker had much of a rich liturgical experience when in Lutheranism. Of course I can only speculate as to the extent of their liturgical worship life, but if it's what passes as liturgy in the Lutheran church these days I'll bet it wasn't much.
As I said, my church does liturgy. For all of its faults at least in this case it has it right. Some Sundays are good; some not so good. But at least we live out our fellowship of, and worship in, Christ *through* the liturgy and don't try to water it down. Much has been said of the importance of liturgy in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, but not much has been said about its importance in the Lutheran, much less, Protestant tradition. What a shame. No wonder people search and search for genuine spirituality; they get little of it from most church worship services. What an opportunity for the church! Maybe this explains the movement from Protestantism to Orthodoxy and Catholicism?
You said, "Some days are good, some not so good."
ReplyDeleteSetting aside the minor variations in the mechanics of the Liturgy (how good the choir is on that particular day, how well the priest and deacon coordinate the service) and the actual content of the message/sermon, wouldn't the Liturgy be pretty much the same every Sunday?