Liturgy. A Parable

You know how the curtain parts at the beginning of a play, and you see a new scene, with characters and sets and incidents that had remained hidden up til then? Church last week was like that. Except the curtain was made up of all the things I thought were real – the pastor, the table, the pulpit, the east wall of the church. It all disappeared and behind it I saw things I had never dreamed of.

It started at the call to worship. The pastors had processed to the front, and one of them was greeting us, “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Good old stuff, comfortable stuff. Then he went all flat and crumply, and he began to fold and split in two, and half of him was drawn to one side of the church and half to the other, with gaping darkness in between. Another voice came out of the darkness, a voice like a trumpet, and then a shape. It was human, or human-form at least. He was enormous, with a robe like a storm cloud, eyes burning like fire, hair gleaming white as snow, his feet glowing like molten bronze. I couldn’t look at his face – it was like looking directly at a blazing sun – but I could see something flashed from his mouth as He spoke, a tongue that looked like a sword.

I looked wildly to my wife next to me – she was still there, somehow, and others with her. She was sitting calmly, as if the voice were still the pastor’s voice and the face still the pastor’s face. She slid forward in her pew, and knelt. I didn’t move for a second; I was too frightened to move, and she threw me a look. Then I was on my knees, on my face, trembling, struck dumb, ready to die, almost dead already. I don’t know how long I was down there, and I don’t remember how I stood up. Someone touched my shoulder said “Don’t be afraid,” and I was up again. My wife was on her feet too, along with everyone else, and I supposed they were listening to the absolution. My heartbeat slowed. I let myself hope it was all over, and I began to catalog what I had eaten and drunk on Saturday evening.

It wasn’t over. It was only beginning.

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