Two Tweaks
My credentials to talk about revising the Book of Common Prayer are pretty meagre. I currently serve a medium-sized parish as rector, though most of my ministry has been at bedsides in hospital ICUs and Emergency Departments with people who wouldn’t know what a BCP is or, probably, care. I come from generations of American Baptists on both sides of my family, and I came to the Episcopal Church as a young adult mostly because two priests were kind to me when I needed kindness. I can’t claim an Episcopal pedigree. I’m not a born revision crusader.
Still, two things occur to me as I preside at our shared worship week after week. As I walk up the aisle behind the acolytes, choir, and deacon, I take stock of my parish. I notice who is visiting. I’m keenly aware of the parishioners who are there, and bits of their stories float through my head as I sing some entrance hymn or another. I smile at the babies. After a bow to the Mystery of God that has brought us all together, I usually get about a verse or two of the hymn to think about what an honor it is to serve these folks.
Then I look down and glance at the Collect of the Day to see if it has any weirdo words. Then I read it aloud. And sometimes it’s awful — obtuse, rarefied, technical, and overly concerned with the mechanics of atonement. These Collects use language that, unless I very much miss my guess, nearly no one in my parish uses in their life or work. It’s the ecclesiastical equivalent of asking someone who cut you off in traffic, “do you bite your thumb at me, sir?” These words float around the sanctuary, seeking some kind of traction and often can’t find it.
Consider this one:
Proper 22 The Sunday closest to October 5
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid,and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
I understand all these words. I think I even understand where the author is going. It’s fine. But it could be electric, connective, emotional. It could reflect the cries of the folks in the pews — the tired parents, the recovering addicts, the mourning children, the faithless. It’s an impressive construct, but I’m not sure it means anything to the person who visits. They’re looking for Jesus, and I think we can obscure Jesus with our verbal pirouettes. Dear God, I’m hungry for something only You can give me. Please show up this morning. Shakespeare it ain’t, I’ll grant you. But let the people cry out in words they actually use.
I’m also aware that God, the creator of all that is, is pretty clearly a boy in our prayer book. Which is insane. I look out at the little girls in my parish, and I know beyond doubt that they are being formed to understand the divine as masculine. Or, put another way, they are being formed to understand that their imago is just a little less Dei than their male counterparts.
I’ve seen some learned pieces about how Jesus talks to his dad and so that dad is necessarily a boy. They’re beautifully written and erudite. They’re also hogwash. How monstrous to tell half the planet that God is not like them. What a funny little word, “him.” It seems small, but it conveys a lie. We’re in Lent as I write this (avoiding Holy Week prep, perhaps!?), and I say “Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins;” and the people respond “His mercy endures forever.” I appreciate that it’s Lent-y and penitential. But it’s also masculine for no good reason.
Break open the metaphor. Let it breathe. What happens to our thinking about God when “her mercy endures forever.” A shift like that can do wonders for stale and codified thinking about the divine, and it might just be the gift the church needs. Or why not use the second person? When children leave worship at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Milwaukee, they think God is a boy. And perhaps that’s why revision matters.
