Performance prayer

Recently I was invited by friends to attend their church on Sunday morning. The people were very welcoming and friendly and obviously committed and sincere in their faith. It was a pretty low-church Protestant service, and in place of the homily or sermon there was a never-ending report on a recent church convocation. I was quite impressed by the practical involvement of the congregation in several local charitable activities. Before the report on the convocation, the minister had the children (about eight or nine of them) come up front, and he sat and gave them a mini-sermon. He did a great job with that part, and preaching to kids is no easy task, especially when a bunch of adults -- including the parents -- are watching you. I wouldn't want to try it.

Although we recited a psalm, listened to a couple of readings from scripture and sang some hymns, it didn't feel very much like church to someone who has spent thirty years worshiping daily in a Catholic monastery.

One thing that struck me was that during the collection, the music provided was a piano-trombone duet. I am not sure what the song was, but it felt like a Cole Porter piece. I like Cole Porter, but I did keep expecting some man in a white dinner jacket and a bowtie to amble over with a tray and offer me a martini. In the report on the convocation mention was made of the jazz music that had been part of the worship, so maybe it is a regular part of their tradition.

It reminds me of some of the oddities I have experienced or heard about in Catholic Masses, too. A few years ago at a wedding in the Philippines -- and this was a Discalced Carmelite, one of my own brothers whom I know well -- after communion and before the final blessing, the priest sang a song from the musical Les Miserables. It's a lovely song, actually, but this is it. In the musical it is a prayer sung by an older man over a young man about to go into battle. Read the words carefully and imagine how the bride and groom must have felt:

God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there

He is young
He's afraid
Let him rest
Heaven blessed.
Bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home.

He's like the son I might have known
If God had granted me a son.
The summers die
One by one
How soon they fly
On and on
And I am old
And will be gone.

Bring him peace
Bring him joy
He is young
He is only a boy

You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
If I die, let me die
Let him live
Bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home.

Do what?