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Following the People's Prayers, the congregation processes to the altar again—now in an ancient, simple dance step (three forward, one back)—while deacons lead children bearing the eucharistic gifts from the kitchen, and all circle the table singing an entrance hymn. The Peace follows in a hubbub; then all stand with raised hands while the presider chants the Great Thanksgiving prayer and everyone hums an accompanying drone. Our choir sings two anthems: one during communion, and one afterward while we gather money and food for the church's work and the poor, and set these on the altar table along with the bread and wine, and sing "God grant them many years" to everyone celebrating special anniversaries that week. Then we dance the carol—a circle dance as at a Greek wedding—while we sing a hymn. And finally coffee, sweets, and snacks emerge from the kitchen: these we lay out on the altar table with the eucharistic remains, and the feast continues until everyone has had enough. In this way the Eucharist and parish coffee hour are one complete feast, just as early Eucharists were. The late Massey Shepherd, one of our current Prayer Book's authors, often said that Anglican worship has only one distinguishing feature: if you set all the prayer books from all the Anglican churches worldwide on a bookshelf, ranged strictly in order of publication dates, every prayer book will represent a significant step eastward—not to Rome, but toward Constantinople and Syria. In Shepherd's sense, St. Gregory's is an essentially Anglican church. But why stop at the Bosporus, when we can already smell the waters of the Oxus and the Indus and the Yangzi, where Christians went centuries before us, and pioneered inculturating religious tradition to spread the Gospel! We show these also to all who worship at St. Gregory's, so they will remember God's boundless love and conversation with humankind. These pictures display the visible inclusiveness throughout our building. Beyond our altar table rises a rubbing of the famous stele at Xian commemorating the spread of Christianity by Syrian missionaries during the Tang and Yuan dynasties. Bishop K. H. Ting, President of the China Christian Council, sent this rubbing as a friendship gift to the United States. Our processions feature colorful liturgical umbrellas from Ethiopia, and also from Kerala in southern India, where missions by those ancient Syrian Christians still thrive today. Kerala churches likewise provide our oil lamps for evening worship. Our vestments come from West Africa, where men and women, both Christian and Muslim, still make brilliant chasubles for everyday wear. Our aumbry for storing consecrated bread, wine, and oils is a superb Japanese Shinto household shrine (kamidana): during the liturgy this becomes a throne for the Scriptures. After each reading, sonorous bells from Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and Japan lead our congregation into deep silence. Icons from Ethiopia hang on our walls. And to all these, our congregation's own icon painters, vestment makers, potters, and music composers steadily add more. The San Francisco iconographer Mark Dukes is completing a five-year project: while we dance about our altar table, eighty iconic saints dance on the walls above—a list chosen from three hundred exemplars our congregation nominated out of every nation and era and faith. |
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