My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ

In his book "Amusing Ourselves to Death," Neil Postman explores the way in which television has changed the face of that public discourse from something "generally coherent, serious, and rational," into something "shrivelled and absurd." (Public discourse refers to the way in which language and logic is used to debate issues of importance to the community and to convince others of a particular point of view). The book recognises the value of television as entertainment, but its concern is that television, by its very nature, has reduced everything to entertainment and trivialised those things that it holds to be socially significant and important.

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks goes even further in his book, 'The Dignity of Difference.' His concern is not so much that television trivialises the important, but rather that it distorts the critical elements of public discourse. Because television is essentially visual it communicates through images that are visceral and evoke emotion rather than through words that promote understanding. Television is, by its very nature, emotionally manipulative with the result, he says, that reason no longer prevails and, instead, ".... the most visual protest, the angriest voice and the most extreme slogan wins." And that, he says, promotes a culture of confrontation and violence which ".... is destructive of the things on which our future will depend."

Because television has changed the way we receive information and respond to it, it has completely reshaped our modern world. Postman says, "Because of the way it directs us to organise our minds and integrate our experience of the world, it imposes itself on our consciousness and social institutions in myriad forms .... (and becomes) .... implicated in our concepts of piety, or goodness or beauty. And it is always implicated in the ways we define and regulate our ideas of truth." So great is its impact that he ends his book with the warning that when people are reduced to an audience constantly in need of entertainment, then the life of that nation is at risk.

If television has that kind of impact on society as a whole it must inevitably have an even greater impact on religion which relies so heavily on rational public discourse. Postman offers a devastating critique of religious programmes on television, showing how the visual impact of television profoundly undermines the spoken word, but he does not address the extent to which the need to be entertained that is fostered by television impacts and infects our Sunday worship. The demand for greater flexibility and freedom in worship often owes more to the desire of our people for entertainment than encounter with the living Lord.

Television may entertain, and do so delightfully, but it cannot, by its very nature, provide meaning and depth to life. It is spiritually bankrupt and it is not surprising that those countries that spend the most time watching television are also those with the highest levels of personal dissatisfaction, unhappiness and psychological discontent.

It is our task to fill that void. And that will not be done simply by offering liturgy that is creative, trendy and entertaining, but by tapping into the deep constitutive power of our liturgy and envisioning a new world. Liturgy, like preaching, is profoundly subversive for it proclaims that things are not what they seem to be; there is new life for those who live in the void, at the edge of hopelessness and despair. "Our emptiness is filled with the kenosis of God's own life."

We worship not for any other reason than because God is God and worthy of praise. Praise is the vehicle in which we submit and abandon ourselves in love and gratitude to the One to whom we belong. But in that very act of yielding we acknowledge God's sovereignty over our lives and over all creation. And that creates a new social reality. In worship we celebrate God; through worship we are re-constituted as God's people living joyfully and obediently in a world given by God and in which "Jesus is Lord."

This has immense implications for us. In the dramatic enactment in the liturgy of God's saving work we are formed and re-formed as a people of God. As we remember with gratitude God's story of salvation our lives take on new meaning - our story is taken up into God's story. And when that happens our world is filled with new meaning and what has been reduced, trivialised and distorted is restored to its true worth in Christ. Through our worship we find energy for faithful living in this world.

Liturgy is a place of divine encounter, a place of re-creation, a place where the glory and goodness of God is proclaimed and made visible for all to see. This is the task of liturgy, this is our task as ministers of the Word. What does our worship say about our God?" But perhaps, more importantly, "What does God say about our worship?"

May the wonder of our God be visible in our liturgy and the worship of our lives

+ Brian

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