Copyright: © 2002 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

If my counting is correct, I'm all but finished with my on-going series on what I am calling the "signs" of Christian worship. I lack only two topics yet to be touched on. They are: 1) the use of flowers and greens in the worship space, and 2) the use of a "print piece" such as a photocopied or mimeographed weekly Sunday bulletin or guide-to-worship. I'll try to tackle both topics and thus finish my series.

It's an understandable human instinct to want to embellish our lives, and our living spaces, with flowers and greens. But it's worth remembering that they're not absolutely essential for valid worship. We decorate our worship space with flowers, that is, out of the same motive that directs the decorating of our homes: to make the place, and the occasion, look splendid. Nor should we discount the olfactory element in the equation: flowers (and some greens, such as evergreens at Christmas) add a pleasant fragrance to the space and to the occasion.

But flowers and greens should be placed in our worship spaces with the following sets of constraints in mind.

1) First, I need not mention that they should be living, real flowers and greens, and not silk or plastic imitations. The principle at stake is this: Nothing artificial in Christian worship, anywhere. We live in a world of the "virtual" (the "not quite real"), the phoney, the artificial, the in-authentic. Surely a secular world has the right to expect of Christians that we encounter nothing but the real, the true, the authentic, the echte, in the Christian church, and in Christian worship.

Further: real flowers and greens actually die; imitations don't. That's a wholesome reminder to us of our mortality, in my view.

2) Second: Wherever we use flowers and greens in our worship spaces, they must be placed in locations where they do not impede ritual action. Therefore: No flowers in the baptismal font, please, even when there's no baptism scheduled. No Christmas trees crowding or impeding access to the altar. You see my point: We're not at liberty to place our decorations just anywhere. In our efforts to embellish our worship space, we must always keep in mind the four grand, irreplaceable architectural "signs" of font, altar, ambo, and sedilia, and their separate and distinctive functions: see previous Essays 38, 39, 40 and 44.

3) The constraints of the church's calendar -- the Church Year -- present yet another circumscription of our work. There's an ancient tradition in the church, for example, of limiting floral decoration in the worship space during the seasons of Advent and Lent, and, instead of flowers, using greens - lemon leaves, boxwood, palm fronds, evergreens - as an alternative. I know of no church in my experience that actually honours this tradition, but it's a worthy one, in my view.

One reason the tradition is not honoured more widely is probably the custom, in many parishes, of sending altar flowers to sick and shut-in members after the service is over - a worthy custom, to be sure. But couldn't some creative accommodation be made that allows both: allows our worship spaces during these weeks, that is, to proclaim "It's Lent!" and at the same time provides sick and shut-in with a token of the congregation's care? I challenge your imagination to seek a solution to that one!

I've heard of a congregation that utilizes not flowers or greens on Ash Wednesday, for example, but rather artfully arranged bundles of dried and leafless twigs: a splendid reminder of the austerity of the Day. And of course on Good Friday, all decoration has been removed: all flowers, greens, banners, paraments, crosses, candles, icons.

4) Advent wreath and Christmas tree have become familiar to most of our parishes in recent years. Once again: real, living greens, please. (See Essay 01 above.) The Christmas tree, I am fond of pointing out, is an example of "eschatological prolepsis." (See Essay 30 above.) Here is a tree, in the dead of winter, hung now with flowers and fruits - and lights and baubles and "chrismons": proclaiming to all who see it that in spite of apparent snow and frost, Spring is on the way, to the eyes of faith!

The bottom line, in decorating our churches with flowers and greens: We want the florist's arts to take their rightful places among the "voices" that "speak" - or "sing"! - our Gospel's praise to those with "ears to hear" and "eyes to see." Anything less would be unworthy of us!