Easter Difference

We read from Psalm 23 last Sunday and I noticed one or two of us stumbled as the language varied from the King James version must of us have grown up with.  Right there at the beginning our BCP version says "shall not be in want."

Interestingly the KJV rendition is in our prayer books in the liturgies for the Burial of the Dead on page 476.  I'm not aware of any other similar accommodation.  There are other ways in which our worship is joined to that larger western christian memory and practice.

The Lord's Prayer is written or listed in every one of our rites from Morning Prayer to Compline and all those liturgies that are meant to be joined to Holy Eucharist from Baptism to Marriage to Ordination to the Consecration of a Church.  Interestingly the verses of the Lord's Prayer in Compline do not include the doxology of "kingdom, and the power and the glory," and another stumble like our Psalm 23 happens.  Whether or not your tradition is to forgive debts, sins or trespasses it seems we are all praying "lead us not into temptation."  When would "Our Father" do that?

Popular religious culture has its own library, hymnal and "prayer book."  "Amazing Grace" can be sung in just about any city in the US and people will sing along for more than one verse.  There are few other hymns so universally known.  Those hymns that are carols for Christmas get their own cultural niche.  Are there hymns for any other season of the church known as well?

All of this is to say that we live much of our religious lives according to culture and to a certain extent according to our neighbors whom we rarely if ever see on Sunday morning.  But some of our particularly Anglican/Catholic/Episcopal practice is not like our neighbors'.  A few of those churchyard crosses that were adorned first in purple sashes and then in white are already gone like Christmas trees on December 26th.

We are still in Easter's season and our "library, hymnal and prayer book" are great supports for how we continue to distinguish this time from culture's calendar and interests.  Maybe it is in this "second half" of Easter that our lessons are better learned and we shift away from the smaller lexicon of our culture's religion to a deeper, more exuberant reveling in resurrection as God's promise kept.

Easter is not the story the world around us tells.  Neither does it give us the time we need to honor it.  God has done a new thing and we are made different by it.  It's OK with me if we continue for awhile longer.