Says Who?

It came up again today: there are those who assert that the liturgy is too hard, too complex, too stodgy, too whatever for children to learn. There are problems with this assessment. Children can learn the liturgy, and the neglect thereof is a slippery slope.
I have heard the stories—the Lutheran school children are having field day at a local park and want to end with chapel. The pastor says, “We didn’t bring our hymnals.” No problem, the children can do Matins a cappella, and they do it flawlessly there in the park. Beyond the stories, I have seen and heard elementary school children pray and sing Matins. I have seen and heard high school students pray and sing Evening Prayer. To the naysayers I say that it can be done.
To neglect the teaching of the liturgy is to create a generation who do not know their past, nor are they building a connection to the historic church. For centuries the church has had liturgy. The Jews at the time of Jesus had a liturgy for Passover. The church at the time of Martin Luther had the propers and the ordinary of the mass in place. Why is this generation so bold as to think that the liturgy is now obsolete and we can invent something better, something more spiritual, something more entertaining than the liturgy? I guess this is no different than the baseball stadium which voted on a new song for the seventh inning stretch because “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was passé and needed something better.
To neglect the teaching of the liturgy is to contribute to the “dumbing down” of America. We send our children the wrong message when we say that they are incapable of learning the liturgy. As we tell the children that they unable to learn it, they believe us. In years to come, they continue to believe they cannot learn it; therefore, they continue to make excuses for not learning it. It has begun to hit Lutheran colleges and seminaries where Lutheran pastors and teachers are formed; the students complain that chapel is dull because they are now expected to learn and do the liturgy, but it is too hard and too boring. They are merely repeating as adults what they were taught as children.
We also send our children the wrong message by implying there is no benefit in learning something so complex as the liturgy. Frankly, the liturgy is quite simple to learn; it merely takes practice. Could it be that the truth is that the adults have not the patience nor desire to take the time to practice and teach the liturgy? This attitude is reflected in the children who then make the connection that there is no benefit in learning what it is we do at church; therefore, it is of no benefit that we do church.
The liturgy is the framework of divine worship. To make it up as we go along is to move away from the understanding of what happens in the worship service. No longer is it what God does for us, it becomes what we do for God. To assert then that the learning or neglect of the liturgy is of no consequence is to move ourselves away from a Christ-centered focus to a self-centered focus. This is neither right nor safe.