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Bless this bin and bathroom

Mark Earey considers some creative liturgies dealing with hospitality and home

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A Place at the Table: Liturgies and resources for Christ-centred hospitality
Dilly Baker

Canterbury Press £14.99 (978-1-85311-772-5)
Church Times Bookshop £13.50

OF THE making of creative liturgical resource books there seems to be no end. I don’t know whether to be encouraged at the (presumed) demand for such books (because it’s a sign that there is a mood for creative engagement with liturgy, context, and culture), or depressed (because it’s a sign that people either lack confidence or are too lazy to work on creative liturgy for themselves).

Taking the “half full” approach, let’s hope that this book, and others like it, encourage people to think “We can do this,” and have a go themselves, rather than simply taking liturgies from here, and reproducing them in different contexts without adaptation.

The particular spin of this resource book is hospitality. Dilly Baker is now based at Scar­gill House in North Yorkshire, having previously lived in an ecumenical community in Milton Keynes. Clearly, hospitality has been, and is, a big feature of her life and ministry, and the resources here echo a pas­sion for God’s radical hospitality, where all are welcome and the table can be full for all in the world. The texts themselves, however, are not tightly themed on hospitality, though the final chapter consists of recipes from the kitchen of Scargill House.

The bulk of the book is arranged in sec­tions that relate to the Christian and secular year, arranged as four broad-brush seasons (such as “A welcome over the threshold: New Year and Lent”). Within each section there is a mixture of meditations, sermons, creative ideas, discussion-starters, and liturgical texts (prayers, and leader-and-response material). Generally, these are intended not for formal services (though some would work in that context), but for family gatherings, informal church occasions, retreats or parish weekends, or even (dare I say) fresh expressions or alt.worship events.

Some of it is great. I warmed to the blessing of a house: down to earth, but creative and insightful (in the kitchen: “For those who tip food into the bin, and for those who scour the bin for food, Christ have mercy upon us”). I wasn’t quite so sure about the prayers in the bathroom (“We hold in our hearts those who cannot flush away the pain of their lives . . .”).

Other parts are not immune to the temptation to make prayer wordy and didactic, and therefore often clumsy when spoken corporately (for example, the New Year Gospel Resolutions: “We will not attempt to go it alone, but will value interdependence and community, believing that through it our lives can be enriched”).

The language throughout is inclusive, and gently expansive in relation to God; some may get a shock when they get to “God is in our midst! Her spirit is with us!” (Eucharistic Prayer).

It feels like a book of gleanings rather than a book planned and created for a specific purpose. At only 130 pages, there isn’t room for much on any topic, and it all feels as if it is spread a bit thinly. There is good material, but you have to hunt for it.

The Revd Mark Earey is Tutor in Liturgy in the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham.

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