Why Liturgy Matters- Tasha Boyer
“I who speak to you am he.”
“I who speak to you am he.”
What are the chances? What are the chances that Jesus finds this one woman in time? Someone he wasn’t even “supposed” to be fraternizing with?
In the chapter before, Jesus had met secretly with Nicodemus, a Pharisee. Nicodemus was trying to wrap his head around this kingdom of Jesus. It was one without a lot of rules and regulations, and that was not what the Jewish temple was selling. Next, Jesus finds out there’s a fight happening between a Jewish man and John’s disciples. Something about Jesus’s baptisms being better than John’s. John didn’t take that bait and sorted it out.
But I can only imagine the power struggle that was going on. No wonder Jesus was tired by the time he was ready to return to Galilee. That’s a lot of people trying to strongarm faith and make it go their way.
Without going into an absurd amount of detail, I will share that most of my experiences with church are shrouded in unchecked power, “programming” based on trends and personal preferences, and as a result, significant abuse of every kind.
You might ask why I bothered to come to church after not one, not two, but SEVEN experiences at different churches that left me feeling bewildered and dismayed at what faith was meant to be.
Well, part of the reason is that I have three children, and my husband promised his mother on her death bed in 2019 that he would have them baptized in the Presbyterian Church. The other reason is beyond my understanding but nevertheless an undeniable spiritual force.
When I came through the doors of First Presbyterian on October 2, 2022, I wasn’t even sure I could sit in the sanctuary long enough to endure the service. There is an older movie starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere called “Runaway Bride.” With every relationship that Julia’s character (Maggie) gets involved with, she veers toward marriage but ends up abandoning the idea on her wedding day. The first part of the movie is scene after scene of Maggie fleeing various churches. I really identify with that.
By some miracle (and a little unintentional peer pressure from Kristin Ream), I made it through my first service here. It was inoffensive enough that I told myself I could continue to warm a pew and hopefully expose my children to some decent morals. But underneath that blasé rationale was dread and distrust. How many of these people were just being fake nice? How long before people would pressure me to join a small group, contribute financially to the church, and teach children’s Sunday school? Who would betray my family? Who would pretend my faith mattered only to rip it to shreds months later?
I didn’t come to participate. I didn’t come to help with anything. I didn’t come to contribute, or hope, or even be seen.
I don’t think the woman that Jesus, in John chapter 4, made a point of finding at the well in Samaria came to be seen, either.
Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber speaks of this woman’s encounter with the Christ in her sermon, “Wounds and Wells.”
“Just parenthetically, I think it’s important to say that all we know is that she has had five husbands, and at the time the man she lived with was not her husband. But we don’t know why. Was she a tramp? Was she a victim? The latter is so much more likely than the former. And yet the Samaritan woman at the well has been characterized as a whore throughout history. It’s this thing we do with women…they are either virgins or whores, and since the Gospels already have Jesus’ mom, the virgin role has been cast – so then all the other women must be whores. As a woman, I’m sick to death of it.
We don’t know why she’d been married so often – maybe she was a teen bride widowed and passed along through a line of her elderly husband’s elderly brothers or maybe she was divorced for being infertile. The least likely thing is if she lured men into her trap, killed them after a year of marriage and just kept getting away with it. But who knows? All I know is that no matter if the wound was self-inflicted or inflicted by others or some combination of the two, she had a wound. Like we all do.
And maybe that wound made her want to not be seen by other women.
We don’t know why she was there at noon, but a safe guess is that maybe it’s sort of like why I took my kids to playgrounds at weird off hours. Because while I wanted my kids to be able to play, I also very much wanted to avoid the other moms. I would never belong to their club – like I could never relax around them, so I thought it best to avoid them. Maybe the Samaritan woman wanted to fill her water jar but also very much wanted to avoid the other women who traditionally would have been there at first light to avoid the heat of the day. Perhaps she couldn’t relax around them. Perhaps she didn’t want to be seen. Because sometimes being seen is painful even if it is also the very thing we really want.”
Nadia goes on to talk about the offer of Jesus’ living water and how it heals the original wound. It cuts through the brave face, the persona we hope people will like, and pours life into the deepest, most painful needs in our body.
There is nothing more primal than the need for water, and hydration is the sustenance for life and the first order of business in keeping someone alive. Ask someone who has been to the emergency room recently, and they’ll probably tell you the first thing that happened, treatment-wise, was that they were hooked up to an IV to keep them hydrated. And living.
Unlike a physical emergency intervention, however, Jesus offered the Samaritan woman something emotional; something he intended to last a lifetime. What did he mean when he said “living water?” Was it eternal life? Knowledge? Hope? Joy? While those are all wonderful things, we may have an answer if we go to the only other passage in the Bible where Jesus uses the phrase “living water.” It’s in John chapter 7 verses 37 through 39:
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. 38 He who believes in me, as[a] the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
So, if by “living waters,” Jesus meant the Spirit, then what does having the Spirit actually mean?
Growing up in churches of twisted theology, I heard the Spirit being given all kinds of attributes. The Spirit was a religious Jiminy Cricket, trying to keep me out of trouble and scolding me when I got in it. The Spirit was this unseen force that had all the answers to life. “Discern the spirit,” leaders would say. That phrase had me on my knees a lot, begging God for answers to really tough questions. Maybe the Spirit was the equivalent of demonic possession, but holy. It could make you chatter gibberish, and it could make you cry on command. It could even knock you flat on the ground like Moses at the burning bush. Or maybe it wasn’t quite that wild and was more of an “Invisible Jesus” idea, like remembering someone you dearly loved who has passed away. And on a nice summer day, when the breeze blows just the right way, you feel like they’re standing next to you.
Now I’m not saying the Spirit is not full of wisdom, full of power, and closer than our breath. Because it is!
But I believe it’s a lot simpler than any of the things I was taught as a youth.
Take a look at Luke 3:22, which is the first time we see Jesus and the Holy Spirit and God all together. John is baptizing Jesus, and the Spirit descends as a dove and says, “Thou art my beloved Son.”
What if the Spirit is love, all love, only love?
In Romans 5:5, it says that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
It’s not just in the New Testament, either. In the Old Testament, God gave both King Saul and King David the gift of his spirit. It says in 1 Samuel 16:13, after Samuel had anointed a young David to be the next king of Israel that “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily on David from that day forward.” In the very next verse, “the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.” In 2 Samuel 7:15, when speaking through the prophet Nathan, this moment is referenced not as “the Spirit” but as “steadfast love.”
So why does any of this matter? Whether you call it “living water,” “the Spirit,” or “steadfast love,” it’s all one and the same. And while that may be theologically accurate, take these three phrases outside these doors onto the sidewalk and ask the visitors and residents of Granville what resonates with them.
Living water? No, that’s at Ross IGA.
The Spirit? Try Trek Brewing.
But steadfast love? Yeah, that sounds amazing. Sign me up.
That’s why it matters. We all crave steadfast love. Whether we want to admit it or not, we have an ache in our body that can only be soothed with steadfast love.
There are many times in my life that I’ve felt like the Samaritan woman. My wounds and trauma feel too close to the surface, and I’d just as soon assume people want nothing to do with me. On that day in October, I was coming to the well of this church to get water for my family. I’d given up on my own needs, but the least I could do was provide for my children.
What I found here was living water. A Spirit. Steadfast love.
But why did I find it here and not other churches? And why can’t I find it elsewhere in the world – from my spouse or my children or being in a really great running club or book group?
I don’t mean to imply that First Presbyterian is the only church to have a loving congregation. But based on my experiences, I will say it is not as common as one might think.
I can tell you why I believe this steadfast love can be found here and not at other churches I’ve attended: Some churches I have found myself at have become so lost in having the “right” answer about God and religion that the leadership loses its heart. The veracity of doctrine and following of rules become tantamount to all other aspects of faith. Leaders’ egos inflate, those who question anything find themselves subjugated.
Other churches get caught in chasing the experience of the Spirit, so much so that the people begin to fabricate emotional expressions. It’s a bit like a spiritual dance-off.
I’ve also been to churches where the leadership focuses so intently on drawing in new people that it fails to care for the people who are already attending. Every sermon has a culturally slick hook, the music is concert-like, and the faith formation offerings change based on what the leadership thinks society at large is “into.” Meanwhile, the “regulars” get manipulated into nursery shifts, parking lot duty, or refreshment table set-up.
While all these aspects, checked, can be pieces of a healthy church, the neglect to focus on the steadfast love of Christ means something (or someone) else is driving these pieces of church. That is when I have seen the power grabs and the toxicity. When love does come into play, it is delivered as being “special,” usually because the identified person receiving “love” is going to be used to meet a need of a leader.
Back to my original question of why I would walk through church doors again after living though all of these things…
I came here six months after a jarring medical diagnosis and subsequent major surgery. I was raw and searching and needing steadfast love more than I cared to admit. During the diagnosis process, I didn’t want to eat, sleep, or talk, which if you know me, is quite divergent from my norm. I laid awake at night, seeing images of myself in a hospital bed, my children gathered around me in confusion and despair. I sat at dinner with my children, holding on to each mealtime as if it might never happen again. I wandered around my back yard aimlessly, praying desperate little prayers of “Please, God; don’t let me die.”
On a particularly difficult night, the one before an MRI, I listened to worship music as I tried to sleep. I hoped the words of the songs would act as a talisman, warding off the evil that I feared would consume my body. I told God that if he spared me from what I deemed to be the worst-case scenario, I would take the children to church on Easter.
Well, God didn’t keep up his end of the bargain that night (haha), and instead, on Easter Sunday, I was two weeks from major surgery.
I was grappling with the issue of “theodicy,” a term that names the abstract “problem of pain.”
As Tish Harrison Warren says in her book, “Prayer in the Night,” there is a “logical dilemma of how God can be good and all-powerful even as horrible things regularly happen in the world. And [theodicy] also names the crisis of faith that comes from an encounter with suffering.”
No book or running club, no affection from my immediate family, could provide meaning when I was standing toe to toe with God, asking for an explanation. As Warren goes on to say, “Where are you, oh God? Is anyone watching out for us? Does anyone see? And tell us why? Why this evil, this heartbreak, this suffering?”
I never received an audible answer or a written explanation, because as we all know, there is no explanation. As C.S. Lewis says in his book, “Til We Have Faces,”: “I know now, Lord why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?”
The faith of friends led me through this dark time, and it was their prayers that provided the thread of hope I clung to in those long nights leading up to my surgery.
I was both relieved and overjoyed when the operation result was the best possible outcome for which the surgeon could hope. I could have easily looked at those months as a bump in the road and just kept driving.
But instead, that experience opened a part of my life I had written off and left me hungry for more.
I sought a church with liturgy and order, with checks and balances in the leadership, to hopefully protect me and my children from spiritual abuse. I was delighted to find this at First Presbyterian, and I felt I would be able to comfortably check in and out on Sundays without getting too involved. The church was a means to open lines of communication between God and myself that I would explore on my own time.
But apparently there is something about speaking prayers that the saints have spoken for centuries and singing hymns that the founders of the church knew by heart. Tish Harrison Warren says that we need this in dark times to teach our hearts. The love the saints had for God and each other is passed to us as we speak and sing these prayers and hymns.
When I came back to this church in weeks two and three and four and found the same people behaving in the same loving ways, the same words and music giving structure to the service, I found it comforting. It was teaching my heart. It was my first encounter with steadfast love, and the idea of a loving community started to creep in to my consciousness.
And while steadfast love is comforting, it is also relentless. So when Pastor Karen suggested meeting with me, I found the gesture polite and reasonably sincere, but did not put much hope in the event transpiring.
But love is love is love.
And for whatever reason, I found myself revealing the mess of my life and past church trauma with Karen. Instead of being met with judgment and disgust, I was met with steadfast love. Imagine my surprise meeting someone who wanted to learn my past, not to shame me, but to understand how I needed to be loved. With steadfast love. (Note: this is exactly how Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman.)
Steadfast love is the structure of the church. Not whether we have plenty of youth in attendance on a Sunday morning. Not whether we have a praise band or a chancel choir. Not whether we have small groups on Friday nights, Tuesday mornings, or Thursdays at noon. It’s the steadfast love.
It is (on any given Sunday):
o in the elderly women who I can’t call by name yet but who greet my children with such joy
o in Jeff Kurtz, who really means it when he asks how I’m doing
o in Jenni Whitford, who listens so enthusiastically to my children’s stories of their toys
o in Stacy Collins, who doesn’t even wait to get in the door fully before giving me a hug
o in Ray Frahn, who doesn’t always say much, but says hello with a kind twinkle in his eye
o in Courtney Swisher, who manages to talk to my whole family all at the same time but have different conversations with each of us
o in Kristin Ream, whose smile is steady and genuine, and even when she’s busy, I know she cares
o in Jenn Wilkinson and her daughter, who turn around to make sure Zach is ok when he’s having a meltdown
o in Sandy Jump, who seeks me out to tell me how much my family’s story meant to her
o in Kay Frahn, who finds me in Heritage Hall and says, “I haven’t gotten a hug from you yet this morning!”
o in Suzy Henry, who listens so thoughtfully and intently, as if hanging on to every word to savor later
o in Laura Kurtz, who takes the time to listen to my boys chatter about Transformers five minutes before she is playing in Festivo bells
o in Ellen Clark, who sits with my family not once but twice on the same day and is so full of the love of God, it just spills out around her
o in Pastor Karen, who no matter how spent or needed she is, will pause to listen to something I or one of my children says because
Love is love is love.
And the love of Christ is, above all, compelling. I have found it here in the most unexpected places and people. I am undeserving and yet hungry for more. This is not your MLM evangelical organization or high church. This is not a cult, driven by a power-hungry leader or an esoteric, minimalist, gothic take on religion.
This is a family. A messy but functioning family. I am equal parts terrified to keep on this path and devastated if I do not. I feel desperate and at peace at the same time. I crave the order this place provides for myself and my family, and I often worry that the upcoming changes will incite unnecessary alterations to make it seem “cool” or “relevant.” However, what this church needs to avoid becoming a mere historical site, is not a new “brand” or internal reorganization, but an ongoing dedication to showing the steadfast love to one another and the world around us.
Jesus found the Samaritan woman because she was weak and needed living water. She was desperate for something better. We are no different than the Samaritan woman. We all need this type of living water.
Jesus offered her love. Steadfast love. The most incredible love we’ll ever experience.
Sermon presented at First Presbyterian Church, Granville, Ohio, on
Sunday, August 13, 2023 by Tasha Boyer
