Exhortation, November 7

The Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem a skeptic. She had heard about Solomon�s wisdom, but she could not believe that the stories were true. She found the stories were untrue, not because they exaggerated Solomon�s wisdom and wealth, but because the stories were guilty of understatement. �It was a true word that I heard in my own land about your words and wisdom,�Eshe told Solomon, �yet I did not believe the words, until I came and my eyes saw it.�E

Hearing about Solomon�s wisdom was one thing; hearing the wisdom of Solomon from his own mouth was even better. But what took her breath away was seeing wisdom. What overwhelmed her was not wisdom in words, but wisdom made visible. Specifically, Sheba was impressed with the order, abundance, richness, and choreographed beauty of Solomon�s state banquet. The word �liturgy�Eis not out of place here, since the writer of Kings describes Solomon�s banquet in terms that remind us of the liturgy of the temple. Yahweh�s servants stood at His altar-table to offer up the bread of God and serve His cup; and Solomon, Yahweh�s son, had priestly servants attending him at his table. What left Sheba without spirit was wisdom displayed in ritual, wisdom made liturgy.

In a few weeks, we will begin using a revised liturgy. One of the perennial questions about liturgy is how visitors will respond: Will visitors feel welcome if our worship is so complicated and difficult that even our own members have difficulty learning it? Part of the answer to this is that we need to work over the next few weeks to learn the liturgy so we can do it well. We will have a couple of opportunities to practice this as a church, including this Thursday evening, and I urge you to learn the music and prayers in your families as well. It will take some time to learn the new liturgy, but the learning curve will not be so steep if we devote ourselves to learning it.

Another part of the solution comes from our sermon text: Liturgies can be boring and numbing; a liturgy done badly and half-heartedly does as much harms as good. But liturgy done well can be glorious. So, let�s take our goal for the liturgy from our sermon text: When visitors show up, let�s make sure that what they see is wisdom in liturgical action; and when visitors show up, let�s perform the liturgy in a way that leaves them breathless.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, November 07, 2004 at 08:37 AM

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