Voice, Wine, and the God of Silence

American soprano Renée Fleming, informing us that singers breathe in their own special way, writes in her book, The Inner Voice, “a singer releases her abdominal wall and back muscles outward, without pushing, as much as is humanly possible, allowing the diaphragm, involuntarily, to release down and the lungs to expand to their fullest. Crucial to this process is a release of the intercostal muscles, the ones that connect the ribs; releasing them allows the rib cage to expand outward and slightly upward as well.” (p. 39) I understand her, barely. Her world is not mine. Counting the muscles she must summon to her aid, she admits “that it’s almost impossible to check all of them off in your mind, and even more impossible to control them, since they are largely involuntary.”(p. 39) I can’t quite grasp the mechanical process of controlling, in some measure, what is beyond conscious manipulation, particularly given the many variables that, together, construct a voice. We, the listener, insofar as we bother to inquire, are simply amazed by the outcome. How does she do that? But, then, she sees mystery at every turn in the process of her education. What can be said about the voice? “It’s a bit like talking about God: you almost have to talk around it, because there is no exact language for the thing itself. And the lack of an exact language is always going to cause a great deal of misunderstanding.” (p. 59).

Are we not friends now? She will use circumlocutions for her topic, the small bands of cartilage God has put in her throat, and I—I dance around and with every word I utter because I can never get at the THING ITSELF.

The recent success of the film “Sideways,” which is ostensibly about the relationship between two friends, may largely be credited to the prominence of wine as a third character, a mysterious character at that. How do we talk about it, that luminous and ancient libation? There is a scene in which Miles, the snobbish connoisseur, instructs his friend in the art of wine tasting. Noting the subtleties of a particular wine, Miles goes a bit too far in finding the “faintest soupçon of asparagus” and a “flutter of nutty cheese.” (Wine Spectator, 4/30/05) But, then, what do we say? It is not enough to say it tastes like . . . wine! What help is that? What we might mean, in that case, is that the wine is young, vibrant, open, has a relatively short finish, is refreshing, and not too complicated. Simple and good. Fortunately, there is a lot of wine in this category. But, then, like a human voice, with its manifold manifestations, you really are forced to talk your way around the thing. It’s too subtle for a direct strike with strident and precise words. It needs to be evoked.

Now, let’s go to a party together, a conversation in the corridors of the office, a short greeting on the street. I (we) try saying to our conversation partners the ancient word: God. What happens? Everything goes dead, usually. Too bad we can’t talk openly about our faith. Is it? Openly, as in directly? How do we talk openly about God? How do we give words where no words are sufficient, and many words have done harm. Words, of course, are about all we have in trying to communicate, so the church has made ample use of them. But—we are told—the words are used analogically, that is, they suggest and evoke in ways that are true without claiming to be exhaustive.

In a world in which religion is now counted among our most lethal threats, some reticence may help. I certainly know that openly confessing my priesthood everywhere I go is less than becoming, and garners very few friends. So, for instance, three years ago, having met a fellow Latinist at a conference in Kentucky, whom I immediately liked, I left religion out. I was there for Latin. There were, of course, a few young clergy about in full gear, which my new friend found rather amusing, and irritating. I said nothing. We spoke and laughed through our tattered Latin for 10 days. On the last day, standing on the sidewalk beyond the grounds where Latin was enforced, she asked me in plain English, “What do you do?” “I’m a priest,” I said. We’ve been wonderful friends ever since. Had I spoken early, amidst her anti-religious remarks, all would have come to a crashing end.

I’m not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am, however, less than thrilled by a growing (and growing louder) popular Christian culture in which the word “God” is always at hand, spoken in clipped consonants, and, particularly among radio preachers, piped through strained vocal cords. I hear the mechanical reverberation, giving either a false depth to the voice, or, strangely, accentuating a high pitch verging on a shout. People don’t normally talk like this. What am I hearing? We could perhaps learn something again from Moses, standing alone, frightened in the presence of a burning bush.

“If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you.’ And they ask, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” --Exodus 3:13,14

Among possible interpretations, we have, “the formula constitutes a refusal on God’s part to betray his name to humanity, consequently reaffirming his transcendent otherness.” (The Jerome Biblical Commentary) Later, there developed a deep reverence for the name, whose Hebrew letters are YHWY. This was a God beyond all knowing, beyond manipulation, whose inner mystery could not even be pronounced. WHO IS—the mysterious ground of all creation. If it doesn’t help to say, “It tastes like wine,” or, “Why don’t you sing better,” then we should expect a wide space for silence and the necessity of circumlocutions, poetry, evocations, prayers, and gesture as a way of groping toward a mystery we cannot simply call forth with sharp, commanding words.

“Do this in Remembrance of Me”

A Methodist for the Day

There is, of course, no trouble in my being a Methodist. After all, their founders, John and Charles, never left the established Church of England, although some of its established practices, parochial boundaries, for instance, received their direct challenge, a practice not particularly appreciated by vicars and bishops who viewed this an affront to authority. But on matters of doctrine/teaching it is quite remarkable to note that the Methodists share much of our sacramental teaching.

No doubt, this escapes the attention of not a few Anglo-Catholic, High-Church types, although attentive scholars have identified a very direct line from the Evangelical sacramentalism of the Wesleys in the eighteen century to the sacramental revival associated with the Catholic Movement a hundred years later. Methodist theologian and scholar, Albert Outler, has amply demonstrated that the Wesley brothers thought of their movement as “an evangelical order within a catholic Church.”

The following are a few excerpts from a sermon originally preached by a young John Wesley to his students at Lincoln College, Oxford in 1787. He returned to this sermon, with very few alterations, fifty years later as a full affirmation of his commitment to a strong sacramental understanding of the Eucharist. Of particular interest is the way in which he clearly accepts and defends what Outler calls “sacramental grace as God’s love in action.” There is no thought of the Eucharist being a mere or bare sign which simply stimulates the memory of a past event. So, John Wesley speaks of real, practical, and urgent spiritual benefits:
“the forgiveness of our past sins”
“the present strengthening and refreshing of our souls”
“strength to perform our duty”
“Leads us on to perfection”
“the sacrament is the continual remembrance of the death of Christ, by eating bread and drinking wine, which are the outward signs of the inward grace—the body and blood of Christ”

It is altogether evident that the Wesleys affirmed what the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has termed “Christ’s personal action in the Eucharist.” And this is in direct continuity with a primitive understanding of the Eucharist. St. Irenaeus is a fitting and challenging example from the second century. He writes, “We offer to him the things that are his own (bread and wine), consistently announcing and confessing the fellowship and unity of flesh and spirit. For as the bread taken from the earth, when it has received the consecration from God, is no longer common bread but is the Eucharist, which consists of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but have the hope of resurrection to eternal life.” (Jaroslav Pelican, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, p. 167.)

But is this, or something of the sort, floating about in the thoughts and consciousness of Anglicans and Methodists alike? John Wesley preached his sermon because it clearly was not. Even now, what benefits might we receive, both felt and imperceptible, if we came to this most sacred feast expecting Christ to act in our lives? And, more broadly, what would it be like if both clergy and the faithful laity approached the entire liturgy as a special event in which Christ acts among his people. Not a mere recitation or an hour of instruction, but Christ speaking, strengthening, encouraging, forgiving, feeding, blessing, and sending. I dare say, the living event of a living Christ is what we need. It might be show time at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, but it would certainly help to note clearly, get straight, and hold on to a more primitive view, what John Donne called “the showing forth of Christ.” Imagine that. If we are just fooling around, let’s stay home. Sleep and coffee are also a gift from God. But if the Eucharist is the presence of a living Christ for the renewal and strengthening of our lives week after week, then let us come, on time, ready, expectant.

Caring Alike for Young and Old (Ordination Rite)

The current interest in congregational development, outreach and evangelism, notwithstanding its often rather crass concern with counting heads and raising money, has given leaders a chance to step back and think about what the church is doing. Why are we here? What purpose do we serve? This sort of examination, carefully guided, can be helpful. But there are notable dangers in every direction. For instance, discerning the demographics of a parish community is now a common practice: Where do people live? What level of education do they have? How old are they? This search for objective data is often tainted by an anxiety over the looming and growing “youth” churches.

Many of our country’s newest and largest churches, which frequently have no formal denominational ties, have deliberately marketed themselves to “Generation* (I’m not certain whether they are Generation X,Y, or Z—the sociological jargon is in constant flux). Sadly, as the established churches, such as our own, look to this phenomenon, there is a temptation, to which we have indeed fallen, to see the elderly as, well, a mild impediment to growth and change. This is sometimes openly acknowledged in discussions about growth and evangelism.

Noting that approximately 30 percent of the people attending my congregation are more than 70 years old, none of whom have placed a noose around my neck or otherwise exerted undue political pressure, I have to think about the way this sector of the worshiping community is treated and talked about. My personal truth in nearly nineteen years of parish ministry is that I have found these people to be lavishly generous, openly helpful, and the greatest source of volunteer labor in both the parish and the community. Why are they, in any sense, maligned? Though I am still, among my colleagues, one of the younger clergy who might be good for reaching youth, an obligation grips me which I learned perhaps in childhood. I owe to my elders due respect and appropriate gratitude.

A healthy and growing parish will, of course, make diligent efforts to reach out to youth, singles, newly married, and young families. This is important work and a special challenge. How then are the generations to relate? Obviously, simple respect and common sense will go a very long way in helping a parish to sort this out. This theme, however, has been a subject of the ages, and we might well learn from the past. Consider these words of Cicero; place them in the context of a community, a parish:

“As the wise elderly enjoy the company of young people endowed with wonderful gifts of life and skill, their old age becoming lighter because they are respected and loved by the young, so also young people rejoice in the wisdom of their elders by which they are led to the study of virtue (a good life).” Cicero, De Senectute

Could there be a more just balance? We may, of course, invert the sequence and retain the essential truth. Often, older people are delighted by the wisdom of the young, and the young are uplifted by the life and gifts of their elders.

Finally, I arrive at an answer. Why are we here—parishes—what are we doing? Before succumbing to excessive analysis, we might find some direction in recalling, for instance, a line from the Westminster Confession: “Q. What is the end/purpose of life? A. To worship God and glorify him forever.” Before program or growth or scheme, we place the worship of God, in spirit and in truth. The church gathers to “lift up our hearts” in the presence of God. And who comprises the church, to whom are we reaching out? The Prayer Book is rather diffuse and expansive in answering this question, rather like the gospel itself. The gospel is to be preached, we are told, “to all of God’s people to the end of time.” I’m still young, too young to be a priest strangers tell me, but in my mid-forties it is easy to imagine the rapid passage of years. If the elderly are an impediment, I shall be the same. But still I take heart. Someone will remember that the church is under an absolute mandate of the gospel: to care for the young and old alike.

Allowing Christ's Risen Life

The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, poses an important challenge regarding our use of the symbols employed with particular power during Holy Week and Easter. In his superb book entitled Easter, he writes "It is precisely when Christ's sufferings and mine are brought intimately together that the image of the crucified is indeed in danger of degradation. We experience ourselves as sufferers, as victims, and so experience Christ's cross as a symbol of who and what we are." (p.77) His point is well taken, as it is more than evident that faithful laity and clergy alike often find it difficult to embrace a deep identification with Christ's Risen life. By way of contrast, to use St. Augustine as but one example, the early Church was alive with hope and joy. Augustine writes that "The saints, while they lived, were rejoicing in their age." "Some," Augustine says, were performing their worship "with continuous merriment/hilarity." In precisely these times, without, of course ignoring the dangers we face in the world, or the various challenges we face in the church, it is, I believe, of the greatest importance to give voice again to the central claim of Resurrection Joy.

There is a kind of suffocating seriousness which subverts the very life Christ gives. I'm not, of course, suggesting that the Joy of New Life in Christ can be forced. It is not yet another obligation, and an emotional obligation at that, to which we are summoned. We are not under some bounden duty to smile or otherwise look happy. This joy is a given Joy. As pure gift, and as the very face of forgiveness, the Risen Lord invites us, in union with him, to live again.