Cyberbrethren: Courting Reverence
Cyberbrethren: A Lutheran Blog: Courting Reverence
Courting Reverence: Why has the courtroom retained the reverence the Mass has lost?
You may not have recognized Sean Combs or Marshall Bruce Mathers III as they appeared for their court dates recently. The irony is, their fans would not have recognized them either. Mr. Combs aka Puffy or Puff Daddy and Mr. Mathers aka Eminem or Slim Shady are giants in the world of rap music. They both have enormously successful careers carefully established on a "bad boy" rebel image. In fact, Mr. Combs is CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment. But for court they departed from their regular image and behavior. Gone were the baseball caps, sunglasses, gold chains, leather jackets, t-shirts and baggy jeans so familiar in the rap music crowd. Each of them wore a nice new suit and a sharp tie. They did not have the defiant, violent, in-your-face attitude that their music carries and that they display on stage. Rather, they sat still and respectfully in the courtroom as everyone else does. As far as I know, courtrooms do not have a dress code. But everyone senses the seriousness of the business conducted there. They dress and act accordingly. The dramatic distinction between courtroom behavior and regular behavior calls to mind the distinction that should but does not exist between the sacred and profane in Catholic churches. In many ways the courtroom resembles a church, or at least what a church should be. Its benches look like pews. The man who presides is robed in black. He renders judgment from a sort of sanctuary: from a large table, usually elevated, set apart many times by what looks like an altar rail. The bailiff functions as his acolyte and the jury could be his choir. Proper reverence must be maintained in the courtroom: when the judge enters, the people stand; to speak with him, you must ask to approach the bench. People always dress respectfully for the courtroom and, if they must speak, they do so in hushed voices. Alas, despite these similarities, the courtroom clearly receives more respect and reverence than a church. It certainly elicits a distinction from our dress-casual culture that a church no longer does. The sanctuary of a church is no longer set apart: people do not think twice about approaching it and even walking through it if they want. The altar in many cases is not elevated, not distinguished from the congregation in any real sense. People do not dress respectfully for church. And when was the last time they merely whispered? The fact that the courtroom has maintained a distinction between the casual and serious the sacred and profane, in effect while the Mass has not, indicates that current irreverence for the Mass is not just a product of larger cultural decay. The courtroom shows that we can still maintain reverence in our culture. The way people respond to the Mass indicates something drastically wrong with the way Mass is celebrated and the way our churches have been redesigned.
