The Service of the Table

William Willimon insightfully points out that, “In our worship life, infrequency usually breeds indifference and misunderstanding. Rather than making Communion ‘something special,’ as some churches claim to do, infrequent celebrations lead a congregation to regard Communion as something optional, unusual, and dispensable.”[1] The reality, though, is just the opposite: Communion is not something optional, unusual or dispensable; it is the principle reason why the church gathers. In his sermon, “The Duty of Constant Communion,” John Wesley lays out his argument for an increased frequency of celebrating the Lord’s Supper. In it he asserts that “it is the duty of every Christian to receive the Lord’s Supper as often as he can.”[2] For Wesley, the Lord’s Supper was the “grand channel” whereby the grace of the Holy Spirit is conveyed to human souls.[3] Through it we experience God’s pardon from sin, the power to overcome sin, and the strength to become perfected in love. Later in the same sermon, “The Duty of Constant Communion,” Wesley says:

The grace of God given herein confirms to us the pardon of our sins, and enables us to leave them. As our bodies are strengthened by bread and wine, so our souls by these tokens of the body and the blood of Christ. This is the food of our souls: This gives strength to perform our duty, and leads us on to perfection. If, therefore, we have any regard for the plain command of Christ, if we desire the pardon of our sins, if we wish for strength to believe, to love and obey God, then we should neglect no opportunity of receiving the Lord’s Supper; then we must never turn our backs on the feast which our Lord has prepared for us.[4]

Yet it should also be recognized that for Wesley the central reason for coming to the means of grace was not merely obedience to God’s command, but that in it we might encounter God’s presence.[5] As Wesleyan’s we affirm the real presence of God in the Eucharist (thanksgiving). Not in some magical way that has changed the substance of ordinary bread and wine (juice) into the physical body and blood of Christ, but in way that relates the real presence to those who faithfully receive the bread and the cup. Through the agency of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s presence in made real to those who come to the table, and so we are able to “participate directly in that presence with all of its pardoning and transforming benefits.”[6] Coming with our hands open reminds us that we receive this presence as a gift.

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[1] William H. Willimon, A Guide to Preaching and Leading Worship (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008) 43.

[2] John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 7, “The Duty of Constant Communion” (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002), 147.

[3] Randy Maddox, Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1994), 202.

[4] Ibid., 148.

[5] See Wesley’s Sermon, “Means of Grace,” The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 5.

[6] Randy Maddox, Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 1994), 204.

The Service of the Word

As the people of God, the church is uniquely formed by Scripture. The authority of Scripture is found in its formative properties. One biblical scholar says, “The first and primary way in which Scripture is authoritative in the church is simply that this collection of documents is privileged in the life of the church and, indeed, privileged in such a way as fundamentally to shape that life.”[1] Through the reading of Scripture, the life of the church takes shape. We are invited to “imagine the world that Scripture imagines.”[2] And the world that Scripture imagines is uniquely different than the world we encounter in the course of the week. It is a world where the poor are called blessed, where the last become first, where the least becomes the greatest, where power and position and clout are replaced by a cross a crown of thrones and an empty tomb. And we are invited to become part of that world. Willimon points out that “Behind all Scripture is not simply the question, ‘Will you agree?’ but rather the more political, ‘Will you join up?’”[3] As Scripture is read as part of the liturgy of the church, this question becomes the functional center upon which the entire service turns. The Scripture is read, the sermon is preached not to inform, not to provide facts—historical or ethical—but to pose the question, “Will you join up?” The invitation is to participate in this strange new world the Scripture opens to us. And as the church participates in this new world we are confronted by the upsetting reality that it is this strange new world that is the real world.

We respond in the only way we can—through faith. Faith calls into being what is not as yet fully formed. Faith sees the new world of God’s kingdom proleptically as already here. What we have heard with our ears; what we have allowed to shape our life; what we have felt stirring in our heart, we now proclaim with our mouths. The Nicene Creed sets forth the core Christian beliefs held by the Universal Church since its inception. The Creed was adopted by the first ecumenical council held in 325ce at the city of Nicaea, and has been a part of Christian worship ever since. It has also effectively served as a safeguard and defender against heresy. Confessing our faith together aligns us with the church that not only reaches around the world, but stretches back through the centuries.

If ‘liturgy’ means the work of the people, than the prayers of the people must be the heart of this work. The prayers invite each of us to participate in the praying, not merely stand by as spectators listening to another pray. It is the prayers of the people and so the people pray. Through the prayers, intersession is made for the church, our leaders, the world, unbelievers, our enemies, and for ourselves. And as the prayers of the people conclude, the church is able to examine herself more closely. We remember that we live in a fallen world filled with injustice and oppression. We recognize that we are involuntarily part of systems that contribute to the dehumanizing of others. We acknowledge that even our best of intentions, even when done through the pure motive of love, might still inadvertently hurt and offend others. And so as we prepare for the service of the table, we come to God and confess our sins and our shortcomings.

John Wesley’s oft quoted dictum distinguishing sin properly understood as a willful transgression of a known ordinance of God, and sin improperly understood as mere mistakes or infirmities has unfortunately led to the abrogation of public confession in many churches. It should be noted that while Wesley did distinguish between sin and infirmity, he continually affirmed that even our infirmities were to be confessed, thus appropriating the merits of Christ’s atoning blood.

(1.) Every one may mistake as long as he lives. (2.) A mistake in opinion may occasion a mistake in practice. (3.) Every such mistake is a transgression of the perfect law. Therefore, (4.) Every such mistake, were it not for the blood of the atonement, would expose to eternal damnation. (5.) It follows, that the most perfect have continual need of the merits of Christ, even for their actual transgressions, and may say for themselves, as well as for their brethren, ‘Forgive us our trespasses.’[4]

John Wesley recognized that even a person filled with the love of God is still liable to involuntary transgressions. And these involuntary transgressions need to be placed under the atoning blood of Christ.[5] Our confessional prayer together recognizes both outright sin as well as involuntary transgressions, but even more it recognizes the power of God’s grace to not only forgive, but to overcome these sins—both properly and improperly so called. The purpose of confessing together is not to foster or further the notion of a “sinning church” (i.e. we sin daily in word thought and deed), but to commend ourselves to the mercy of God’s grace and the power of that grace to work in our lives to overcome sin and infirmity, and so perfecting us in love. The good news is, if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come.

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[1] Robert W. Jenson, The Art of Reading Scripture. eds. Ellen Davis and Richard Hays, "Scripture’s Authority in the Church" (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans Publishing, 2003), 36.

[2] L. Gregory Jones, The Art of Reading Scripture. eds. Ellen Davis and Richard Hays, "Embodying Scripture in the Community of Faith" (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans Publishing, 2003), 146.

[3] William Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry (Nashville: Abibgdon, 2002), 129.

[4] John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 11, “Plain Account of Christian Perfection” (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002), 395.

[5] Ibid., 396.

The Gathering

Gordon Lathrop points out that as the church comes together for worship, “The astonishing truth is this: the most important symbol of Christ in the room is not the minister, not the altar, not even the bread and wine or the water of the font. It is the assembly, the Body of Christ, as the New Testament says.”[1] The theological significance of the gathering comes from the biblical declaration that once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people.[2] The gathering of the church for worship comes in response to God’s call. “You did not choose me but I chose you.”[3] We come together as the people of God because God has called us into being. We did not decided one day to “have church.” Rather, it is the Word made flesh, the incarnate God who entered creation, lived as a man, died on a Cross, and was raised to new life that calls us to gather as God’s unique people. In this gathering we become the sign, symbol, and witness to the resurrection.

The function of The Gathering is to turn our focus from the world that we have come from with all its demands and burdens, toward the world to which God calls us with its promise of peace and rest and renewal. Through the opening hymn, the invocative prayer, the Great Litany we are given the opportunity to move from the kingdom of day-timers, deadlines, and distractions into the kingdom of God. The Gathering is important because it prepares us to hear from God. An important part of that preparation is The Great Litany. The words of this ancient prayer call out to God who has shown us mercy, reminding us of our continual need for that mercy in our lives to not only keep us safe, but to empower us to be God’s unique people in the world. “Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”[4] The words, “Have mercy upon us,” are not meant to coax God into giving something God is reluctant to give, but to avail ourselves of the mercy already abundantly available to all who ask. The Great Litany concludes with a short prayer, and then the Service of the Word begins.

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[1] Gordon W. Lathrop, The Pastor: a Spirituality (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 27.

[2] See 1 Peter 2.10

[3] John 15.16, NRSV.

[4] 1 Peter 2.10, NRSV.

Why Liturgy

The question you may be asking is, why Liturgy? The word itself often evokes strong opinions one way or another. To some it is the relic of a dead and meaningless ritual. To others, it is the very life and breath of the Spirit moving within the worshiping community.

It has often been pointed out that the Greek word we get our English word ‘liturgy’ from basically means ‘the work of the people.’ But it has even deeper etymological roots. Originally the Greek word, leitourgia, referred to an action by which a group of people became something corporately which they had not been as a mere collection of individuals.[1] Too often what is passed off as ‘contemporary’ worship caters to the idea of the church being a collection of individuals—an aggregate of individual believers who have come together because they share a common interest. This is true whether one’s idea of contemporary is 2010 or 1950.

Historically, though, when the church comes together on Sunday, she does so as more than an aggregate of individual believers. Community is more than a social enclave of likeminded individuals. Community transcends the individual by insisting that only together do we become truly human. As Stanley Grenz points out, “Our human destiny is communal. Indeed, the biblical writers consistently present our eternal home in social, rather than individual terms.”[2] Liturgy reminds us that as the church we are a particular people imbued with a particular “constitutive narrative.”[3] The liturgy rehearses this narrative in a way that is embodied by the church and forms the church into the eschatological people of God. In this, the church stands as a reminder to the world that the end to which all creation moves is nothing less than the shared participation in the perichoretic community of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is this end—telos—that liturgy embodies as it forms the church into the new people of God.

It should also be noted that liturgy not only serves to help us become something corporately which we can never become as a mere collection of individuals, but it also stands in sharp contrast to the world. By doing so it reminds us that the church is uniquely the people of God—a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, a holy nation. Too often it seems that there is little difference between what we encounter in our worship service and what we encounter in the world. The church becomes subject to the world when she imitates the world. The church becomes idolatrous when she accommodates the world in the attempt to be relevant. Alexander Schmemann notes that, “In church today, we so often find we meet the same old world, not Christ and His Kingdom. We do not realize that we never get anywhere because we never leave any place behind.”[4] The Liturgy of the church sets the gathering apart from the world. When we enter into the sacred movement of the church at worship through the historical liturgy of Word and Table, we do not meet the same old world. We encounter a new world, a different world; we encounter the kingdom of God. And perhaps even more, we are encountered by the kingdom of God.

God’s kingdom encounters us through the retelling and the reenactment of God’s story. When we hear again (or perhaps hear for the first time) the grand narrative of God’s love, the liturgy reminds us that this is our story. It is about us. We are the ones who have wandered off to that far country to eat the slop of pigs; we are the ones who all too often find ourselves walking on the other side of the road so as not to encounter the one who needs our help; we are the ones caught in adultery; we are also the ones who stand all too ready to stone the poor sinner caught in their sin. The liturgy reminds us that we come to God’s table as Lazarus, begging for crumbs; we come as the unclean women seeking to simply touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak; we come as the Prodigal falling at his father’s feet pleading, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son, make me one of your servants.” The liturgy encounters us with the kingdom of God because it pulls us from the world and the culture that daily bombards us and immerses us in a new world and an alien culture that stand cross-wise to everything we know, and it declares that this strange new world is what is really real, this is what is truly true: the kingdom of God has come, and because of that we are being transformed.

The liturgy reminds us that we are more than a gathering of individuals. Instead, we are a community that finds its identity together in the shared story of God’s love and redemption. The liturgy calls us to remember that the Church, as God’s renewed people, stands in contrast as an alternative to what the world embodies, incarnating God’s vision for humanity and all creation. But the liturgy does one more thing for us as well. It teaches us a new language—a language of confession and forgiveness, a language of grace and love, a language of prayer and praise. Through the movement of the liturgy we learn the vocabulary of God. But it is more than just in the hearing of the words. Through the movement of the liturgy we perform these words. It is through their performance that words find their transformational power. As we enact and embody the words we hear and proclaim they begin to change us. We move from death to life, from darkness to light. And when the service draws to a close and we are dismissed to return back into the world, we take the performance with us. The language of confession and forgiveness, grace and love, prayer and praise goes with us because it has become a part of us. And the practices we perform in the church become the practices we perform in the world. In this way the Church serves the world by truly being the Church—a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, a holy nation.

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[1] Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1963), 25.

[2] Stanley Genze, The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology. ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, "Ecclisiology" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 259.

[3] Ibid., 257.

[4] Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1963), 28.

Movement of Worship

Here's brief overview of the movement of worship:

Perhaps the oldest known record of the early church in worship comes from the First Apology of Justin Martyr. Justin gives us a picture of worship from about A. D. 90. These basic patterns for the church’s Sunday gatherings have survived in the liturgy of the Church for centuries.

On the day which is called Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the countryside gather together in one place. And the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as there is time. Then, when the reader has finished, the president, in a discourse, admonishes and invites the people to practice the examples of virtue. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers. And, as we mentioned before, when we have finished the prayer, bread is presented, and wine with water; the president likewise offers up prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability, and the people assent by saying, Amen. The elements which have been “eucharistized” are distributed and received by each one; and they are sent to the absent by the deacons. Those who are prosperous, if they wish, contribute what each one deems appropriate; and the collection is deposited with the president; and he takes care of the orphans and widows, and those who are needy because of sickness or other cause, and the captives, and the strangers who sojourn amongst us—in brief, he is the curate of all who are in need.

William Willimon and others have recognized eight basic elements in Justin’s description of worship. (1) The church gathers, (2) The church remembers, (3) The church listens and then speaks, (4) The church prays, (5) The church offers, (6) The church gives, (7) The church distributes the gifts of God to the people, and (8) The church scatters into the World. Robert Webber simplifies these eight elements into four general liturgical movements that make up the worship service. It is these four movements that will form the pattern for our service during Lent. Later in this booklet we will spend some time briefly looking at the theological significance of each of these movements, but for now we will simply list them. The service begins first with the Gathering; this is followed by the service of the Word; next is the service of the Table; and finally, the Sending.

Lent

Well, tomorrow is the first Sunday of Lent. During Lent we follow a more formal and traditional liturgy of worship. This year I decided to write a little booklet to explain some of the theological reasons behind the historic pattern of Word and Table. Over the next few days (or so) I'm going to post excepts here. Here is the first one; an introduction:

As we move into the season of Lent we take time to examine ourselves. Lent has traditionally been a time of reflection, contemplation, and perhaps above all, a time of penance and repentance, remembering the depth of human sin and depravity. The colors of the season—deep purples, blues and the various shades of black and charcoal—remind us that we were all once children of the dark, and that it is out of this deep darkness that God has called us into the light that is Christ. The word Lent means spring. Even the season is a reminder that out of the stark barrenness of winter comes new life. Lent is deeply contemplative, but it is not mournful or sorrowfully solemn. On the contrary, it is full of hope and promise.

Lent is a journey. In it we make our way to Calvary and the cross, only to find ourselves confronted by the empty tomb and the resurrection. Yet this is not an individual journey. It is not one we make by ourselves. Indeed, it is not a journey we can make by ourselves. We make this journey together. Only as the Church do we truly encounter the journey of Lent. Only as the Church do we have any hope of finding our true selves. That is why what we do on Sunday is essential to who we are as the Church. Worship is the primary place where the Church learns what it means to be the Church. And according to one author, “Corporate worship is essentially an act of common prayer” (Willimon).

The goal of our worship services during this season of Lent is to provide structure and continuity to our act of common prayer. The desire is to set this season apart from the rest of the year, making it distinctive in a way that emphasizes the communal aspect of worship, prayer, and confession. We do this through the aligning of ourselves with the rich historic tradition of the worshiping Church.

Work cited:
William H. Willimon, A Guide to Preaching and Leading Worship (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008) 27.