The Healing of Liturgy

I occasionally attended church until I was a teenager.

I didn’t hear the word liturgy until college, and not until I later said goodbye to vocational ministry and stumbled into a liturgical faith tradition did I actually experience the healing of the liturgy itself.

Worn down by working in a church culture chasing relevance and performance, I was exhausted. I wanted God without the hustle; my soul craved rest and silence. So, I walked away from my megachurch job.

One Sunday, I walked up to the steps of a teeny white church. I opened the red door, sat down in the back pew, and took a deep breath. I felt my shoulders relax; I wasn’t expected to perform or prepare. For the first time in years, I slowly exhaled, feeling the permission to enter into the soothing rhythm and sounds of the liturgy.

I had already run out of words, so I slowly began to receive the words of others. Tears fell as the recitations of unfamiliar creeds and prayers washed over my soul. As we professed words of faith, I listened to the voices around me. Some hushed, others loud- but all were the sound of community.

In my weariness, the common words of prayer and confession pulled me quietly into the language of the sacred. The whispered prayers of the man standing next to me gave voice to my doubts and questions when I was too tired to find them on my own. His words made me feel less tired. And less alone.

The movements of the liturgy were physical postures reflecting the shifting positions of our hearts. The embodied experience of bending low anchored my heart to the present and recalibrated my mind; to rise and stand tall in confession nourished my spirit.

This embodied liturgy fed our tangible faith. In offering up to God the creaky movements of our damaged bodies as an act of trust, we were quietly being made whole. This integration brought rest. And healing.

Through the liturgical movements of declaration, confession, and worship, we came back to ourselves and to one another. We then received the peace of God. As I passed the peace to the elderly woman on my right, we held hands. We smiled as we held space for one another.

Through communion with God and each other, the community was nourished. The rituals and rhythms of the liturgy breathed life into the dry places of our souls. Led forth in a benediction of hope and healing, we were sent out as vessels of healing to others.

Amen. Let it be so