"CAN I GET AN 'AMEN'?"

Being the size of a subcontinent, you’d naturally expect Texas to have a fair bit of diversity. Yet, as a Texan, I’ve found that outside the motherland most people regard her inhabitants as all cut from the same stuff. It’s not always the same stuff, mind you. Some call to mind a vision of big hair at the cotillion, a slight accent pulling at the corners of otherwise polished elocution. Some have the image of big guns and bigger trucks, of cowboys under big skies. My own memories are made up mostly of summer storms, the best barbecue in the country, the Cadillac ranch outside of Amarillo, and the shock of cold sweet tea on a hot day. That, of course, and how rowdy the church could sometimes get. 

A sizable part of my extended family are Baptists, and having spent a fair bit of time in Baptist churches growing up, one of the phrases I heard a lot was “can I get an ‘amen?’ You always knew when a preacher thought he was being lit up by the Spirit when this phrase started to punctuate every other sentence. And you knew when he actually was being lit up by the Spirit when the congregation shouted a hearty ‘amen’ in response. The call and response was like a dialogue between pastor and people all through the service.

My daughter really likes saying ‘amen.’ A lot of the time, she seems to think it means something like “Dada is done praying now, right?” But there are other times when she gets it right on as a substitute for the “YES!” Perhaps by accident, or a wisdom at work in her very young mind, her response to me asking if she’d like some goldfish crackers was a hearty ‘amen!’ She’s pretty close to the truth of ‘amen,’ so let’s talk about why.

The Liturgy reenacts the drama of salvation each Sunday through the interplay of the sanctuary (where the priest and servers are) and the nave (where the congregation sits). It symbolizes the meeting of heaven and earth, of Christ going out into the world from God and drawing the world into union with God in Eucharist. The priest is a living symbol of Christ, and the congregation is a living symbol of the whole Church bringing all of Creation for God’s blessing. 

Our liturgy enshrines the beautiful ‘amen’ of the people, makes it all but mandatory for church to go on each Sunday. Every prayer, most of the songs, all the invitations and directions are concluded with the congregation saying ‘amen’ in unison. The reason I didn’t realize it at first was because the tone of the congregation seemed only rarely to express the gusto proper to the thing they were saying. Unlike my Baptist church, many of the Anglicans I met seemed to assume that, before the face of God, it was better to be seen and not heard. But that’s to miss a tremendous opportunity.

The ‘amen’ is not just a pious way to say ‘the prayer is over now.’ The ‘amen’ is an astonishing and necessary work of the people. We’ve talked before (The “Royal We”) about how prayer is union with God, participation in the life of God the Trinity: prayer is offering our life to the Father through the Son in the Spirit. Prayer is also union with the communion of saints and the angels, who experience a ceaseless life of prayer without lapse or distraction. Prayer is also held in common among all our fellow Christian pilgrims who pray, no matter how scattered on the Earth. 

Prayer is an ushering of the Kingdom into the time and place we are, an undermining of the cracked foundation of the world and an infusion of God’s life. To say ‘amen’ to the prayers of the Church is to give our ‘yes’ to the Resurrection and the City of God. To say ‘amen’ in the church is to represent the Creation in a dialogue with God, it is to hear the will of God declared from His holy place and to say, ‘let it be so,’ and ‘Thy will be done.’ ‘Amen’ is how the Creation experiences the marriage of heaven and earth where they meet in the sacred space of the Church’s communion.

Worship on Sunday calls all faithful Christians to bring their ‘amen’ with them to church. That amen is our presence with others, that amen is our hospitality to the visitor, that amen is our tithe for the spread of the Kingdom, and that amen is the acclamation we offer with our voice in the liturgy. The work of the people on the Lord’s day is to bear witness as the Lord’s sacrifice is made present again and to partake of His life given once for all and to say ‘let it be so!’ Far from the demur and mumbled ‘amen,’ the church is most herself when, with one voice, she provides the answer to Almighty God as no other body on earth is capable of doing, for she alone has been given the gift of the ‘amen.’ This Sunday, when you participate in the Liturgy, try on that kind of ‘amen.’ Your amen in the Church’s amen matters, and if you’re daring enough to offer it, I promise it will make a difference.

Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!