Liturgy and Orgy: Paradigms for Worship?

While reading Mark Buchanan's The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath, I ran across this interesting description...

"Liturgy's an odd word, even awkward, for the early church to have chosen to describe its acts and forms of worship. It was a word they had to pry loose and drag over from a context far removed from the world of hymns and prayers and sermons. Liturgy originally meant a public work--something accomplished by a community for the community. A town bridge, for instance, or a village well, or a city wall: something built by the people and for the people. The oddness and awkwardness of the church's decision to import this word is even greater when we realize that they had a word for worship close at hand, a word in wide circulation within a religious context: orgy. Orgy now has sordid overtones. But in the days of the early church, it didn't, or at least the sordidness was still in the background. Orgy described a public event that produced a private, usually ecstatic, experience. It was the word pagan religions used for their worship, regardless of how many peole were involved--and the more, the better--the emphasis was always squarely on the emotional experience of the individual."

Ouch! I don't enjoy readings like this. As a 2x4 across the forehead, these words whack my pride in what I often consider a "worshipful" experience. I tend to label the veracity of God's presence on whether or not I have felt his movement. Usually, this translates... I was overwhelmed emotionally, I received some bit of encouragement that helped me feel better about myself, my heart strings were pulled, and so on. All these may, indeed, be a valid part of the worship experience--I certainly don't discount that--but they are all about me. I wonder... are these the bedrock paradigms for understanding the mystery of Christian worship?

Mark Buchanan offers a different way to address worship, and for me a different way to assess the validity of worship--what does it do? where does it go? He continues...

"Liturgy is done by me--I am invited, perhaps required, to play a role--but it's not about me. It's about us. It is about the Other. Its purpose is to benefit the entire community--to provide protection or access to all. One of the more common usages of the word in the ancient world was for the making of a bridge. Liturgy is bridge building."

How are we building bridges?

By the way, Mark is an evangelical pastor in Canada, whose church's worship style is contemporary.

Blessings,
JON