Last night I went to my first Epiphany Pageant at the local Episcopal church. It was nice. While it is not something that I could do every week I do appreciate the beauty and deep symbolism of the Episcopal liturgy.
The pageant was designed to to commemorare “the entire history of the Word made flesh for the beginning to the present time.” There was a narrator who read the majority of the story while actors played small parts of important people in the story (Abraham, Moses, etc…). I thought it was great that in the midst of these important characters of patriarchs, prophets, kings, and apostles, they included a rather lengthy contribution from philosophers. Including this group in the history of the manifestation of Jesus was very encouraging. In the end, we lit candles and sang a hymn together before sharing a meal and an Epiphany cake.
The one downer for me was a small section of the evening’s liturgy where we were all together to recite the following words:
I am not ashamed to confess my faith in Christ Crucified,
And valiantly to fight under his banner against sin, the world and
the devil, and to continue as Christ’s faithful soldier and
servant until my life’s end. Amen
This language seems unneccessarily militaristic to me and I was unable to force myself to participate in this portion of the evenings corporate worship. Maybe it is just me but there seems to be some serious disconnection between confessing and following a crucified Christ and being a faithful soldier. I would rather be an ambassador of reconciliation.
I was visiting my parent’s church a few months ago and one of the songs that they sang was called “We Will Ride”. You can probably see where this is headed. It combines some Left Behind-ish eschatology with a sort of exuberant anticipation of riding with the armies of heaven. I had to leave the service, I was so disturbed.
Where do folks get the impression that violence is a necessary part of being a follower of Christ? That all of the violent imagery – and I don’t think there’s nearly as much in the text as people seem to believe – is to be taken more literally than the Sermon on the Mount, which is by and large disregarded? Sorry – stepping off my soapbox. ;) I share your frustration.