Dear St. Luke’s,

I often find pet peeves about worship to be a bit off-putting and universally silly, but like everyone else, I have them. You’ve probably heard me hint at a big one that I have in a few services. I absolutely cannot stand it when priests or whomever say, “please stand as you are able”. I HATE IT!! It is well intentioned, and I imagine that a lot of you are asking yourselves, “does he want people to be in pain and stand when it hurts them?” Absolutely not. My point of view is actually quite the opposite. I do not think Church, baseball games, or anywhere should be places where posture is dictated, even when there are norms. We stand during the Gospel, and kneel during the confession, but you do not need my permission or anyone else’s to do something different. If I start tacking on “as you are able” to everything then it implies that I have some sort of authority that I simply should not have.

All of this is super silly and of no consequence. It is very much my “thing”, and I do not expect it to be yours. However, I have noticed some interesting things in my nine years of observing and subtly trying to sabotage posture directives in Church. Once in my first Church as a head priest, we welcomed a recently retired couple who made it a point to stand when everyone else knelt. We did not know them from Adam, but they immediately made themselves an integral part of our community, and their kneeling habits were something that was noticed, but never commented on. Much later, someone asked them about it, and discovered they stand as a matter of their faithfulness. They had the conviction that due to some obscure ancient ecumenical counsel; worshippers should not kneel when confessing their sins, but to stand boldly, because of their assurance in their redemption. Cool. I continued to kneel, but I respected them a bit more for doing something different.

About a year after this, we welcomed another new person, who always sat in the front, and she did the same thing. Whenever the congregation knelt, she stood. I assumed that she was also knowledgeable about this ancient ecumenical convention, or the other couple converted her to their way of thinking. Either way, it wasn’t a big deal, and I just assumed she knew what she was doing, until I preached about it. I did not go into the sermon planning using her as an illustration, but she was there and I thought I would publicly extoll her individuality and conviction. The problem was, because she sat in the front, she had no idea that she was the only one standing during the confession. She was confused, we were both embarrassed and a bit amused.

I find it interesting that two people were going against the mold by doing the exact same thing, but one was motivated by expertise and particularity, and the other was rooted in ignorance. Part of the reason I love our worship is the fact that we have norms and strive to have worship be something we share in common. I don’t agree with what the creeds say one hundred percent of the time, but I say them so at least once a week I can let go and be reminded that it is not about me. Those words were uttered in Christian worship for over seventeen hundred years, and I won’t skip saying them, even if I am having my doubts about the nature of the virgin birth. If you have a differing opinion or practice, then it will be respected. Our worship is such, that these foundational elements will remain, but you still come to Church as an individual and are ultimately in charge with what you do with our common worship.

I think we are hardwired to pass judgement on practices and ideas as soon as we are able, and this tendency is only amplified when you walk into Church. If you are unfamiliar with our worship, our shared practices, prayers and creeds can seem overwhelming. One second, we are kneeling, then we are saying responsive prayer literally about everything under the Sun, and then we are passing the peace. I imagine the pressure to conform or to disengage is common, but what if we try something new, and give up trying to put these things into one box or another, and play with it. If you think kneeling is odd, then stand, sit or whatever. Whatever you do, try to do it faithfully, and rest assured that we’ll just assume you know what you are doing.

-Nick