The Very Reverend Michael J. Pitts

Dear Friends,

In his writings, especially The Sacred and the Profane, Mircea Eliade, tells us that, in some cultures more ancient than our own, festivals are not considered to be part of ordinary time. They stand outside, and place us in touch with the re-creating power of mythical time. A pale reflection of this is seen in the Christian tradition, where the liturgical calendar is divided into ordinary time and sacred time. We are now in the period of sacred time that takes us from the beginning of Lent through to feast of Pentecost. This links us first with the historical time of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, but through that to the mythical time of creation. In the historical events of Jesus, we find the way to a re-creation, of our selves and of our society and civilization.

I feel that one of the problems of modern society was binary vision. Everything was, and is seen as either black or white, good or bad, epitomized, perhaps, by the image of the one or zero state of the information bit. One aspect of this binary view of things is the way in which life is divided into two spheres, work and leisure. Productive work is that which defines who we are, what is our meaning and position in life. All else is leisure, be it sport, travel, art, literature, music, film, drama or religion. In this binary scheme, re-creation has become recreation.

Eliade also notes that, in some of those more ancient societies, myth is considered to be more true than the experience of factual life, in that it provides that which gives meaning to life, and provides models for understanding of, and action in, the world. As we begin, in the twenty-first century, to leave modernism behind, and experiment tentatively with post-modernism, we might be able to see that some of the more ancient insights might not be so “primitive” as modern thought labeled them. Liberal-rationalist theologians like I, are having to come to terms with seeing liturgy and Christian story in the light of myth and ritual in other religious traditions. There is of course a difference: Christianity proclaims itself as based in Incarnation, that is, in a God who enters human history as human person. Yet the very liberal-rational Biblical criticism that we must now begin to go beyond, already brought us to see that the boarder line between history and myth is not easy to draw.

I want to see liturgy, therefore, not as recreation, but as engagement with ourselves and with our world, as re-creation. We often use the word service rather than liturgy to describe what happens when we come together on Sunday morning (or during the week). This is a useful word, for it contains the double sense that the word liturgy has in the Greek scriptures, namely worship and action in the world. In the liturgy we come together to hear the story and perform the drama of the creation and re-creation of the world and of humanity. Then we disperse into the world to play our part as co-creators and co-re-creators with God of the reality that surrounds us.

At this time of the particular threat of war, and of the continuing threats of poverty, disease and environmental degradation in our world, destruction and death face us at every turn of the road, however much we may try to close our eyes to them. The Lenten image of the desert is an apt symbol for the spirit of our age. Suffering and crucifixion are the symbols of what millions face in the struggle of day-to-day existence and survival. The stories of Lent may, in this context, offer us some clues about how we may live the Easter risen life, not just as a religious experience, but as those who are called by God to bring new life to a distressed and dying world and civilization.

Michael J. Pitts,
Dean and Rector