‘Tis a gift to be simple. ‘Tis a gift to be free. In our hyper-technological age, where so much is so complex, that Shaker virtue is often unattainable. Think of what it takes for our astronauts to rocket around the moon, not to speak of what’s required to replace your car’s front headlight. Then there’s somehow coming to terms with AI. All this complexity! Nevertheless, in the spirit of the Shakers, why not go with that KISS logic of the streets: keep it simple, stupid.
Turns out that the faith attested by the Scriptures is pretty simple: love God and neighbor. The Shakers were on to something. But Christian theologians like me sometimes appear to bend over backwards to make it all complex. Think about discourse about God as Trinity, a discourse that I love to ponder and hope, some day, to understand, perhaps in heaven.
Which leads me to think about the Sunday Liturgy. Alas, the Church’s historic tendency in this respect has been to add stuff. There’s the basic shape of the Liturgy, variously defined, say: confession, praise, proclamation, prayer, offering, communion. Over the centuries, however, well-intended theologians and practitioners have tended to add pious things to the Church’s worship, akin to side chapels in a cathedral.
I once participated in a liturgy in which the officiants ceremoniously (the right word) took maybe five minutes to do the dishes at the end – cleaning the Communion vessels. This, while the whole congregation just stood there in silence, looking on and doing nothing. Now, as someone who deeply respects the ministry of John Wesley, that particular cleaning was not next to godliness. It was just busy-ness. It also was just plain boring, a drag on the whole Liturgy.
Hence I recommend that liturgical cleansing of the vessels should be scheduled after the people have departed, just like when you have a dinner party at home. You don’t expect the guests to stay around to watch you doing the dishes. Less, indeed, can be more, in this respect as in others. ‘Tis surely a gift to be simple, liturgically, as in many other ways.
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