On Liturgy: Political Work

Elizabeth S. Shannon

On a bright late August morning, after just dropping off our toddler at preschool and while pushing an empty stroller home, I prepared to cross a major north-south corridor through our neighborhood. Seemingly out of nowhere a police car screamed past me, lights and sirens blaring. Then came another. A few blocks to the west I saw two more. As I moved in that direction one after another appeared, along with a few fire trucks and ambulances. 

When I made it the three-quarters of a mile home, I said to my spouse, with fear and trembling, “Something’s going on to the south.” It was a few more minutes, between my scrolling the local social media and our turning on the local news before we first heard the phrase “active shooter.” It wouldn’t be much longer before we knew the shooting was at the large Catholic K-8 school near us, not much longer still before the whole world learned of the Annunciation Catholic Church and School in South Minneapolis. My spouse and I spent the morning debating rushing back to preschool to pick up our child, knowing full well she was safe, and going to get her was about our needs and our pain, not hers. 

We spent the next few days fielding kind and loving texts and phone calls from friends and family wondering just “how close” we were to yet another horrific act of gun violence. The truth of the matter is that we were too close. But not because our dog goes to the veterinary practice across the street from the school or because we often shop at the grocery store where reporters camped out. We were too close because every single time another one of these news stories breaks, we are all simply too close. 

The following Sunday the pastor of our church, like so many others, struggled to find words and make meaning out of such senseless violence. He faithfully led us in praying for our community, for parents and children, for healthcare workers and first responders, for teachers, and for those affected by senseless violence across the globe. And during fellowship hour after church it was clear that few of us knew how else to respond. Few of us knew what else we could do. Few of us knew how to process our rage, our trauma, our fear, our heartache. 

It’s hard to imagine there’s not a preacher in the country who hasn’t received some sort of comment, either in the fellowship hall or by phone call, email, or appointment, accusing them of being too political. Too political when they talk about poverty, too political when they talk about housing, too political when they talk about war, too political when they talk about immigration, too political when they talk about gun violence. But if we’re going to hold fast to liturgy being the work of the people, then it would seem more problematic if our preachers weren’t talking politics. 

If we are going to be people who live in the world and engage with the world, then we are going to be people who confront politics. If we are going to be people who look to the good news of the gospel, then we cannot deny the ways Jesus engages with politics. If we are going to faithfully preach, pray, and sing together, then we cannot ignore the way that preaching, prayer, and song can function politically. The gospel is political; it can’t not be. Our liturgy is political; it can’t not be. It’s disingenuous at best and unfaithful at worst to deny that being followers of Jesus, being people who worship the crucified and risen Lord, is to be political. It’s not political because of who we vote for or which relentless and morally questionable fundraising emails we receive. Rather, the Christian faith is political because we live in a culture and world in which to choose not to be political is to choose not to see, not to hear, not to be moved by the hardships and heartaches that surround us and not to understand that we have been called by God to be present in them. When we as institutions or as individuals make the choice to turn a blind eye or to cross to the other side of the road or to simply disengage, we make a choice to not see the people whom God loves the most, the people God centers, the people for whom God’s heart breaks. 

Our liturgy, the work we are called to, individually and collectively, deserves our most faithful actions. It deserves to be engaged in the politics that surround us because our communities deserve what we can offer. Our communities deserve our churches showing up for them, advocating for them, listening for the stories that need to be told, making space for the ways our lives can be improved or enriched or nurtured. 

I live in a community experiencing acute grief over a preventable, horrific, and gut-wrenching situation that could have very well never happened had we been more engaged in politics—the politics of gun access, the politics of mental health care, the politics of violence. And now our community wrestles deeply with how to respond. We wrestle deeply with what it means to offer not only our “thoughts and prayers” but our advocacy for policy changes and actions. 

As I joined my neighbors and hung teal and blue ribbons on our front stoop, the colors of the Annunciation School, a neighbor asked if it all felt a little performative. I told him, “Of course it’s performative, but what else is there right now?” All I have to offer is the performance of my grief and my anger, the performance of my showing up in solidarity with our community, the performance of demanding my elected officials do something in response to the deep pain all around us. The political is personal, and performance can be a productive way to process complex emotions and circumstances. When we engage with the world around us in prayer, in song, in preaching, in sacraments, and in faithfully showing up for our neighbors, we are doing the holy and sacred work of liturgy.