I read a book awhile back that I think about a lot: You Are What You Love* by James K.A. Smith.
He argues that liturgy is happening all the time—not just in church services—and our hearts are always being shaped by these liturgies.
He uses the example of the mall, but who goes to the mall anymore?
Let’s go to Target instead.
Did you know that Target is a place of worship?
And I’m not just talking about the vague idea of consumerism or materialism as a god, though we’re definitely bowing down to the Capitalism Deity there.
No, Target is a place of worship because it promises a version of the good life, the life that philosophers since the beginning of time have been thinking about as the end goal (AKA telos) of human existence.
And how is this good life promised?
If we buy this organizational system, a system of discipline and attention, our life will finally be on track.
If we purchase the garments worn by the mannequin, what some might call the acolyte, we will finally belong.
If we buy this sports gear, we will be as happy as the person using it in the ad, or what some might call religious iconography.
If we get this organic snack, a magic elixir, we will live forever.
We don’t consciously think these things, of course, but these promises are embedded in the cathedral of Target.
There’s even an opportunity to take communion!
You can do so by getting coffee as you enter at the Starbucks right inside. You approach the table and someone with a long green garment (Ah, Ordinary Time!) hands you a cup and says, “This is for you.”
As we walk around the pattern laid out before us in Target, there are no windows in its architecture, which creates a sense of timelessness, which some might call eternity.
And then finally, our worship culminates at the altar, where we make our offering.
We go up to the one of the priests who takes our money, and in return they give a blessing to take home the gift that we believe will make our life better in some way.
Go now in peace, this transaction tells us.
Even though we participate in this liturgy unconsciously, we are shaped by this experience. And I say this as someone who participates in the liturgy of Target often.
We know the rhythm, the rules, the expectations, the promises.
We can’t help doing these liturgies—these scripts are given to us by our culture, our society, our race, our gender, and even how our faith is performed publicly.
I invite you to do this thought experiment for your workplace or a place you frequent.
Because I wonder how going through these liturgies each week affect what we truly desire and love, in our heart of hearts.
Since leaving the church where I pastored, I haven’t been to church. It’s been about 7 months. I wanted some time away to heal and to rest, and of course, I had a baby.
There was a part of me that didn’t want to ever return to church because man, have I enjoyed Sunday mornings at home (or at the park! Or the pool! Or our local brunch spot!).
But James K.A. Smith haunts me.
At its best and truest, church should be a place to recalibrate our hearts to love not the good life promised to us in Target or at ball games or in military drills or on Prime Time TV or by our favorite politicians and celebrities.
But rather, it should be a place where we are training our hearts to love what Jesus loves, to desire the good life as defined by Jesus, whose values are upside down, whose practices seem foolish, and whose call is to lay down our lives.
It should be both a disorientation and reorientation, a “Christ-centered imagination station” as Smith argues.
This is not done lightly.
*While I loved this book, Smith only uses masculine pronouns for God, which irked me to no end.
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