atmosphere

Another visit to the hospital today. I promised Boyd that since he couldn't come to church, that church would have to come to him. So I worked on a short sermon, a couple prayers, and some readings that I'd heard him talk about the last while. He couldn't say anything but I could tell he liked it. He even gave his trademark smile and handshake of steel.

It was a very different service. The super loud toilets that institutions have must have flushed at least twice in the room. It was hard to talk over the voices of other people there for the other patient in the room. There were tons of machines and other sounds in the hospital. We were cramped and there was absolutely no privacy. The air in that section of the hospital had a musty hospital smell like urine, sweat and other body odors.

But it made me wonder if that is how that Scripture is meant to be read. Particularly Psalms like that one. How can anyone appreciate the imagery in that text when we sit in comfortable pews (or not so comfortable) and in a church sanctuary that is warm and the atmosphere somewhat artificial? Have we sanitized the Gospel? There was something very right about a service in the context of real life. For the most part, I like order in a service. Having a form and order gives comfort and I think is very Biblical. But Presbyterians order worship too much. You don't get a sense of that order in Biblical worship. And there definitely isn't that order in real life. If we want people to really grow, it's time to unsanitize worship.