This week I went to a United Methodist church in a small town adjacent to the city I live in. This was mostly because my roommate informed me the night before that his father was guest-preaching there. I like my roommate's father for multiple reasons, but prime among them is that he is a Medievalist and he looks like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. He also tends to be a rather engaging card player, and he drinks rum. Basically the best of all worlds.
Anyway, without tracing through the path of my roommate's father, there are roots in Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, and now, apparently, United Methodist traditions.
I seized upon the opportunity to go to a Methodist service. Being brought in the south and in a Baptist church, Methodists always seemed to be cast as our beer drinkin' brethren. The joke is tired, but I'll rehash.
Q: What's the difference between a Baptist and a Methodist?
A: The Methodist will say "hello" to you in the liquor store.
Now that I've been to services of both, I have to disagree. Methodist services are strongly reflective of their history. Brief rundown looks like this: Catholic->Anglican->Methodist. It's actually a very interesting story. The Methodist church was a part of the revivals being held in fields etc. and it was a part of the Anglican church for a good while before they finally split.
When we arrived at the church, we were a minute or two late, and we nonchalantly sneaked up the side aisle between the announcements and the actual beginning of the service. Squeezing into a pew near the front, I was suddenly struck by the similarity of the church to the one in which I grew up. Certainly there were two lecterns instead of one, and sure, they were on the sides as opposed to the central pulpit of my youth, but the general air in the church was much the same as my old Baptist childhood church. Too many wood tones. A general feeling of the 1970s through which I did not live. Community that is none too open to change, and an appreciation of that very quality. Status quo, born and died.
A small procession happened, and the woman who was presiding came down the aisle with my friend's father, and a little girl lit the candles on the platform. There were a couple of lectionaries and a gospel reading (though there was no pomp surrounding it-- the reader didn't even bring the Bible to the middle of the people!). A few songs that were familiar were interspersed, and we had a responsive reading from a projection on the front wall of the apse. My friend's father mounted the lectern and delivered a sermon that is hard to qualify as United Methodist, per se. He took one of the readings, the passage from the Old Testament that deals with the balm in Gilead.
He discussed how there is a plaintive, sad air to the question, because there seems to be no balm in Gilead. He related it back to the needs of our contemporary culture... he mentioned health care or the lack thereof. He talked about the people who are marginalized and the ones who are unable to make life work. Then he turned attention to the true balm in Gilead. He pointed the attention of the congregants to the sacrament of holy communion. He segued beautifully into how we do have a balm. We can come to the open table of the Methodists and receive our healing through the bread and the cup. I personally though the sermon was lovely and not at all what I might have expected from a small, country church. Then again, around here, you are as likely as not to find Ph.D's doing plumbing and playing in bluegrass bands as you are to find them in offices and libraries and classrooms. College town.
Next in the service, the woman who was the celebrant blessed the bread (unleavened circular loaf) and the cup (grape juice in a chalice and in the tiny plastic cups I like to call Baptist shots). The congregants moved single file starting in the back of the church and received their communion. There was an individual blessing given to each person as he or she got the communion, and he or she responded with "amen." I was last, which was kind of awkward, since it was my first time. I took the elements and knelt to pray for a moment and to reflect. Then I crossed myself and went back to my place.
In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have crossed myself in a Methodist church, but it has become habit in that kind of environment to do so. No one said anything about it, of course, but it was glaring weird halfway through. Father and Son and... mistake... but you can't stop now... Holy Ghost. Reverently skitter back to the pew.
A few things that I'm noticing so far:
-Liturgy begets diversity of opinion. The more liturgical a church is, the more people are able to interpret the liturgy and its meaning.
-Architecture is an indicator of importance. Dual lecterns indicates that maybe the celebrant isn't the main event. Single lectern indicates that what's being said is the "meat" of the service. Also, kneelers in the pews mean that it's time for Jesus-y step class.
-Similarities are by and large more important that differences so far.
T
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