CHAPEL TALK
StC Traditions: Long-standing and Newly Created in the Time of COVID A March 1 chapel talk delivered by J.D. Jump ’05 Like many other boys schools all over the country, tradition is something we hold dear. Many things that we do go directly back to our founder, Dr. Chamberlayne, such as the Honor System, Missionary Society, Society Meetings and prayer card. The danger with traditions is that they sometimes remain because that’s the way we’ve always done them, without questioning the reasoning. Fortunately for us, St. Christopher’s is pretty good at periodically reassessing to make sure our traditions still serve a useful purpose. What that means is that our traditions, new and old, are meaningful actions we perform with intention. In my theological education, we studied liturgy, or the formula of our worship. Those of you who attend church regularly have probably noticed the repetitiveness. While certain parts change, the order is generally the same. You’ll probably get different hymns, scriptures and sermons, but those pieces are likely to be in the same place in the service, with other pieces that are exactly the same every week. Most worship services make use of the Lord’s Prayer, which means that if you attend worship on a weekly basis you say it roughly 50 times a year, which means in your lifetime you could say it upwards of 4,000 times. That’s one example of how worship asks us to repeat the same few words over and over again. Why is that? The purpose behind the liturgy differs from the purpose behind our acquisition of knowledge. The liturgy’s purpose is not for us to learn or memorize the words, but to internalize them. Through repetition, the hope is that the words become a part of us. In some ways, repeating liturgy is more akin to working out than to acquiring knowledge. When you build a muscle, you must work that muscle over and over to build it up over time. The liturgy is the act of exercising our souls instead of our muscles. As a junior at Randolph Macon College, I went on a trip during January term to a Brazilian United Methodist camp where we worked to improve facilities and provide activities for local children. While attending worship at a local church, one thing that stuck out was the part of service where we recited the Lord’s Prayer. The service was in Portuguese and we only spoke English, but we were all saying the Lord’s Prayer together at the same time, in our own tongue. This really opened my eyes to a universal truth, that pretty much every Christian who has ever lived has recited the Lord’s Prayer. In a way, every time we say it we are praying alongside every Christian who has ever lived and who will ever live. You may have noticed that we have said the Lord’s Prayer for almost every chapel service we have had since I have been covering chapel. This is not an accident.
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