The Rev. Canon Marie-Louise Ternier has expressed the hope that her article “From heaven to Earth and back” in this month’s Saskatchewan Anglican will excite some comment and perhaps start one or more conversations. To this end, I am beginning the process by giving my comments here:
For myself, I am always a bit annoyed by the lack of formality in modern society at special occasions — for church services, funerals, marriages, baptisms and also government, bank and more exclusive salespeople being casual.
If I am considering a bank loan, investing, buying a property, meeting an MP or MLA or maybe meeting God, I expect that I and they will make the effort to be dressed seriously for the occasion, rather than looking like the importance of the meeting is too slight to make it worth the effort to look respectable. Or, that they trying to demonstrate that they being daring or being a rebel and showing a lack of respect for the person they meeting with, the subject of the meeting or for the occasion.
For church services, I think that it is in the interests of the congregation not being distracted that clergy try to perform as clergy and not as someone who just dropped in or was just passing by in how they dress and conduct the service. That does not mean all the robes, if that is not the convention of the community for their leader, but it should be at least what they expect and maybe/probably a bit more.
And for the clergy side it is a reminder that, when robed: I am not them, I am their leader, they have placed me in this position, and I stand before God for them in a place they have set aside for this purpose. I come to lead them and speak for them if they cannot or do not wish to speak for themselves and to be the holder, exemplar and explainer of Scripture and tradition for them and to them as well.
In short, I represent them and what is best in them, not what is the lowest (or lower) common denominator, before them and God. My duty, the requirements of the space and the objects therein, the words and music should be to actualize the community’s expectations of myself and the worship to God without offering or creating confusion, distraction or dissonance.
Rev. Peter Coolen
