This morning I went to St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhood. In some ways, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared it would be, but in others, I was shocked and confounded. As expected, they are a Rite 2 (contemporary English) parish, and I wasn't surprised that they use that awful inclusive language liturgy stuff (avoiding references to God as "He" or "Lord" or with masculine pronouns). I was, however, pleasantly surprised that the liturgy was basically standard and non-experimental (unlike the dreadful services at the National Cathedral), that much of the Mass was sung (even with a priestess who actually sang well and sounded good!), and that incense was used appropriately. Oddly, though, they have a lay member of the congregation "preside" over the service, with the priestess only doing those things that require sacerdotal participation. Only the priestess was vested, and all of the other service participants were very casually attired (lots of shorts!) and wearing earth tones and natural fibers.
I was also pleasantly surprised that, while their music was contemporary and heavy on the African themes (I always find that odd at 98% white parishes) and not exactly to my personal tastes, it was of higher than expected compositional quality and what they did they did well. That's a big plus in my book. They have their small choir sitting in the congregation in the middle of the nave amidst the people, and that seemed to encourage more congregational singing. They also did a lot of the service music a capella and in harmony. My one big complaint is that a lot of the service music was known to the choir and much of the congregation, but there was no indication of hymn numbers or melody lines in the printed service bulletin, and I was unable to participate in that part of the worship because they were very much non-standard musical settings (and, keep in mind that I know what's in the Hymnal 1982 so when it's not one of those, I flip through the Lift Every Voice and Sing book while they sing trying to find the settings).
Architecturally, the church isn't quite as successful. They've taken an old traditional church structure and gutted the interior. The remnants of the old Incarnation Church and its traditional stained glass windows, paintings, and furnishings are in a side chapel, while on the opposite side of the nave, the former St. Stephen's people have a starkly contemporary open space with merely geometric colored glass windows, lots of modern art on the walls (I understand that the art rotates, just like at an art gallery), and at the end, a small grouping of chairs around a coffee table that forms a modern meditation and worship space.
There is a less-than-adequate modern treatment of the nave and sanctuary itself that looks inexpensive and very much just plopped down in the midst of a former traditional worship space. Instead of the high altar being the focal point of the nave, they have installed a large podium/ambo right in the center of the crossing from which most of the service is conducted and the sermon preached.
There's an unused balcony in the back of the nave with large plain colored glass windows. No evidence of a pipe organ is apparent. Up in the front part of the nave, they have a grand piano and a three-manual electronic theater organ side by side. During the service, the organist went back and forth between the organ and piano, plus, as mentioned, several things were sung a capella.
Unusually for a D.C. church, they started their service early! I walked in at 10:31 a.m. (according to both my cell phone and my Naval Observatory atomic clock-synchronized watch), and they'd already finished the opening hymn and were in the midst of the Collect for Purity.
Hymns today were Lucerna Laudoniae for the processional, Barker and Ladd's "Give thanks to the Lord" for the sequence, Land of Rest for pre-consecration marching music (more on that later), General Seminary for post-communion ablutions, and St. Joan for the "dismissal hymn." A female soloist sang the hymn "Balm in Gilead" as the offertory anthem.
Service music was all unfamiliar to me. They did a Trisagion in lieu of Kyrie and Gloria that was printed in the bulletin but unattributed. The psalm was chanted by the congregation to pointed Gregorian chant. The Sanctus was from Betty Pulkingham's Freedom Mass, and was printed in the bulletin. The Memorial Acclamation, Great Amen, Lord's Prayer, and Agnus Dei were also sung (all a capella) and seemed familiar to the regulars, but were not printed, attributed, or otherwise noted or explained in the bulletin. I was lost.
A non-priest wearing an unbleached alb and an odd cap gave the sermon. He mentioned he was formerly a Methodist minister, which may account for his very, very long talk. While he preached on the Gospel reading (Matt. 15:21-28), somehow he got around to spending a lot of time talking about Original Sin. He said, "Original Sin is not about sex," despite the "voyeuristic interest of some of the Christian community." Meanwhile, sermon time was the opportunity for people to be up and down and up and down, presumably to go to the bathroom, stretch their legs, or go to the concessions stand or something.
Some of the service was rather eccentric. During the intercessions, the congregational response was an unusual "Lord, have pity on us." Then, after the presiding laywoman did the standard prayers, she took the wireless microphone and walked around the nave, offering the mike to anyone who wanted to offer up their own prayer request or special thanksgiving. We got everything from thanks for a safe return from a luxurious international vacation to praying to evict bad tenants to prayers for dead or needy people known by people not actually known by the prayer offerer. And, of course, a lot of women had to offer way, way too much back story for their prayer requests, with the standard feminist choking up with emotion for the last few verklempt words of their request. People got the attention of the microphone lady by jumping up and down in their pews waiving their arm in the air. Once we were finished enduring the prayers of the people, we got to a standard confession and absolution followed by the exchanging of the Peace.
Well, I don't suppose I'm surprised at this ADHD crowd, but they emptied out of their pews to bounce all around the nave shaking hands with everybody. I did my duty and shook hands with the four people in my immediate vicinity, but then I sat and tried to appear intent at looking down reading the prayer book in private meditation, hoping this dreadful period would be over soon. Yet, many of these people felt compelled to intrude upon my personal space and come up and thrust their hand out in front of my prayer book to chirp "Peace!" before trotting off to assail some other innocent.
During the announcements (led by the senior minister—they intentionally don't use the traditional title "rector"—who'd been sitting unvested out in the congregation), we had more overly excited women waiving their arm in the air for recognition so they could dash up to the podium to give an announcement (one of whom, clad in shorts and Birkenstocks, later turned out to be a priestess).
After the offertory anthem, they began singing a hymn, and then I was bewildered to observe the congregation emptying out of their pews and heading up to stand around the high altar. They all stood up there for the entire prayer of consecration and didn't return until after being communicated. Even up there during the holiest moments of the Mass, there was still a lot of wandering around and coming and going. I couldn't really tell, but it looked like they had slices of rye bread instead of communion wafers. Naturally, I did not go up, but remained in my pew to stand and kneel at the appropriate times. I didn't opt to go up later for communion, since there seemed to be no established procedure for communicating people who weren't already standing in the altar gaggle, and also because there weren't any male priest concelebrants to make the transsubstantiation valid (In my old parish back in Oklahoma, we were taught that women do not receive the Holy Spirit in ordination. Interestingly, some of those priests ended up in the Diocese of Ft. Worth, where I understand the bishop has been having talks this month with Rome about leaving Canterbury to become papists. Knowing the priests involved, I really don't see that successfully happening, since discipline and following the doctrinal authority of their superiors was never their strong suit.). What surprised me more about the communion business, though, is that no one sought to guide me up to the sanctuary or to explain to me what was going on.
At the end of the service, they did a "dismissal hymn" prior to the blessing and dismissal, and then once that was over with, there was no formal recessional or departure. People just sort of chatted amongst themselves and milled about. After an unexplained delay, the organist eventually began to play a postlude.
Meanwhile, I wandered about playing tourist and taking pictures. While I was in the contemporary space looking at the art, the usher who'd given me my service bulletin when I came in chatted with me briefly about the paintings. He was the only one who talked to me at this parish. Even when I left the church, there was no priest back there at the door to shake my hand, and I left, feeling as though at this parish—so noted for its support of all sorts of radical liberal causes and outreach—I had been merely invisible.
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