Liturgy for Everyday Life–A Lesson from Parenting

No matter how hard my family tries, Sunday mornings always seem challenging. Can you relate? Most of us can.  And if we are honest, when children are young, our spiritual lives seem to suffer.  So, in this blog post, I try to make the case for why I think liturgy is a powerful antidote to the hectic pace of the Sunday morning roundup!

Sunday Morning Scramble

If you have been a parent, then consider the following scenario. We have all been there, rushing across the parking lot from the car and then dragging our children into the church sanctuary. As the deacon welcomes you into the sanctuary where you are to worship God, you immediately feel the warmth of blood flowing to your face as you become flush from the embarrassment of being seen outside fussing at your kids before entering the church. Hoping the deacon does not see the slight redness of your now rose-colored cheeks, you look around to find the first available pew and hurry the kids to their seats. Tired and bewildered, the morning’s events still replay in your mind as the shame of yelling at your children to get dressed and move toward the car quietly settles into your mind.

“Help me, God,” you say to yourself.

Then, the call to worship happens. “Please stand,” says the worship leader. You politely stand. And then, out of the corner of your eye, you notice your toddler son has just decided to decorate one of the hymnals with the crayon you gave him, which, in hindsight, is another reminder of the deficiency of parenting wisdom being demonstrated that day.

So, instead of preparing yourself to worship, you instinctively grab the crayon out of his hand, and as retribution for this gross infraction, he proceeds to scream and cry, drawing disapproving scowls from several people. Frustrated and bewildered, you quietly pick him up and walk out, missing the first song. You came to worship God. Instead, it has become an exercise in futility, frustration, and despair.

Jesus–Our Shelter from Chaos

If you have ever been a parent or know someone who is a parent, you have probably observed the same pattern.

The formula is simple. Chaos + Troubled Heart and Mind = Disconnection From God

Chaos breaks out before church, resulting in a troubled heart and mind, leaving you feeling disappointed and disconnected from God.

Then you ask yourself, “Why bother even trying.” But don’t fall into this trap.

Here’s why.

Jesus amazes me.

When you think he goes left, he turns right. When debating with his enemies, it seems they have boxed him in. Then he turns the tables on and they walk away defeated, wondering how this Rabbi from Nazareth out-foxed them again.

The same is true with his disciples. When they asked him to teach them how to pray, he responded with a simple liturgy to follow. “Father, Holy is your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation” (Luke 11:2b-4, ESV).

Simple, elegant, and to the point, Jesus strikes the very heart of basic human needs: a focal point of worship, physical and spiritual nourishment, and shelter from chaos.

You see, Jesus knows better than any of us the chaos that goes on in our lives. That’s why he came, to restore the world from chaos.

Finding God–Everyday Liturgy

After teaching his disciples the liturgy, he teaches them about the nature of God’s heart.

He is the Father, waiting and desiring to hear from his children. “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give you a snake instead of a fish?” (Luke 11:11 NRSV). When children act out, or chaos in relationships seems to fill our lives, it is easy to project our anger and frustration onto the Lord, believing that is how he feels toward us. But the master of simple, profound truth dismisses these ideas altogether. When we approach the throne of God in worship, we are allowed to come to him as a needy child, like our needy children who come to a father asking for a simple meal.

Each Sunday, we come to worship filled to the brim with life’s chaos and feeling depleted spiritually from a sin-saturated world. As a remedy, he returns us to the basics and teaches us, “When you pray, say, ‘Father, Holy is your name.” The beauty of this prayer is that it jars us from our frustrations and sharply focuses our attention on this most important spiritual principle: God loves us. Amen.