Why our services don’t sound like auctions in ancient languages
AM Psalm [120], 121, 122, 123 • PM Psalm 124, 125, 126, [127]
Exod. 5:1-6:1 • 1 Cor. 14:20-33a, 39-40 • Mark 9:42-50
In 1st Corinthians, Paul advises, “So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?”
Paul does not forbid speaking in tongues altogether, but further advises: “If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.…For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.”
Given that some Christian denominations actually promote speaking in tongues as a sign of God’s special favor to the person doing the tongue talking, why has it not become a prominent practice in the worship of most Episcopalians?
I, for one, do not believe that we refrain because we are afraid that people will think we are out of our minds. We’re Episcopalians. We don’t much care and indeed, we cherish our eccentrics. We are already reasonably confident that God loves us and we love the people in the pews no matter what they do or say, as long as perhaps, they keep their clothes on in church.
I think instead we have come to see the Eucharist as a communal rite that involves our individual participation, but not our necessarily our individual utterances as reassuring signs of God’s special favor.
To show us His special favor, God invented choirs like ours and the ears to hear them. For about an hour every Sunday at 11, we are lifted up, out of our workweek minds to a higher, more peaceful place. That’s enough for me (probably for you too!).
Written by Tony Stankus
Tony Stankus, now 69, is the first librarian ever promoted to the rank of Distinguished Professor at the U of A. He became an Episcopalian at age 66 because he could no longer resist the transcendent beauty of its liturgies or the kindness and warmth of its priests and people.