Cultural Transition

 

If you are from country “X” and you visit country “Y”, you would expect there to be cultural differences in your experience. This is not a matter of right and wrong but of honesty to one’s culture. For example, when an American visits the UK and eats the food at a McDonald’s, the food will taste different than in the US. Or to speak in even more general terms, even though the US and the UK are very similar, the living experience from one to the other, including food, will be markedly distinct.

This is the way we need to think of our experience in church. No matter what culture one is from, when entering the worship service, the experience should be radically different. One should immediately recognize that he is in a different culture than the other he just left when he crossed the threshold of the worship service.

The music, the behavior, the cultural norms, and the language will be different. If you enter church and the environment is no different than that which you just left, then you have not left your previous culture behind. The Divine Liturgy is a different world, outside of and contrary to any other culture. In the Church, there is no race, no color, and no creed other than the worship of the Trinity, the love of God and love for our neighbor.

The Church is not a place to feel comfortable and distracted. When you enter the Divine Liturgy, you are no longer white, black, brown, yellow, or red, you are no longer American, Russian, Ukrainian, French, Germany or Indian. You are part of the people of God, worshiping as part of the body of Christ, unified in the teachings and practices of Jesus Christ and the apostles.

The Church service is a different world.