More Buchanan on Liturgy

Our most significant relationships and events have a liturgical shape to them.  They have rites of passage.  Birthdays and homecoming, graduations and goodbyes, Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, birth and death and marriage:  all are marked by words and actions, songs and symbols, customs and traditions that enact them and complete them.  And all those things also provide us with a means of entering them.  What is a birthday without a cake, at least one candle on it, and a huddle of well-wishers, wearing clownish hats, singing in their ragged, hoary voices?

What is a birthday without liturgy?

What liturgy accomplishes is nothing short of astonishing:  It breaks open the transcendent within the ordinary and the everyday.  It lets us glimpse a deeper reality--the timeless things, the universal ones, the things above--within the particular instance of it. (emphasis mine)

~Mark Buchanan

(from the Introduction to The Rest of God:  Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath)

Mark Buchanan on Liturgy

(From the Introduction to The Rest of God:  Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath)

Liturgy.  I chose that word with care.

I was converted within a Low Church tradition, where the building's walls are stark, the music simple, the prayers clumsy and direct, made up as you pray them.  I have only ever belonged to that tradition.  And so early on I picked up the tradition's historic suspicion of High Church, where God is approached through a sometimes elaborate system of symbol and ritual--robes and candles and prayer books and lectionaries--and almost everything is scripted.

That scripting is liturgy.

Yet over time I began to realize that the Low Church is just as bound by liturgy as any church, and maybe more so because we think we're not.  The Low Church enshrines--makes a liturgy of--austerity, spontaneity, informality.  And we have our unwritten but nonetheless rigorously observed codes and protocols.  We love our traditions, even our rigmarole, every bit as much as the next guy, only ours is earthy, rustic, folksy.

So I changed my mind about liturgy.  It certainly can become dull and rote, but so can anything--water polo, rose gardening, kite flying, even lovemaking.  Even fly-fishing.  Just as often, though, maybe more so, liturgy can enrich these things.  At its best, liturgy comprises the gestures by which we honor transcendent reality.  It helps us give concrete expression to deepest convictions.  It gives us choreography for things unseen and allows us to brush heaven among the shades of earth.

And While I Was There...

...over at Kerry's blog, she had a link to this excellent article by Matt Kennedy.

It's on the use of incense in the church, and on the bigger question of beauty in worship:

God is the author of beauty. Anglican worship seeks to employ all the aspects of God's creation in worship...to reflect God's created beauty back to him. God's created beauty comes to us through sight, smell, taste, and touch. And all of these senses are employed in Anglican worship. Incense, music, bells, color, candles...all of these are used to glorify God at Good Shepherd just as they have been used for 2000 years in the Church throughout the world.

According to the witness of the Old Testament, the use of these elements of worship go back to the very establishment of the holy Tabernacle during the exodus. God gave Moses very specific instructions for the construction of his Tabernacle and these included carefully detailed instructions to produce a place of aesthetic beauty.

... God does not seem concerned for utilitarian functionality. He doesn't simply want a lampstand. He wants a beautiful lampstand. Why?...because God is beautiful, he created beauty and beauty brings him glory.

Do read the whole brief article, a wonderful explanation of liturgy and ceremony, with Scripture references and addressed to an evangelical audience.

And if you want a good laugh (particularly those who know what a thurible is or who have ever swung one), read through the comments! The first one sets the tone:

There are two smells in the afterlife - incense and brimstone. I remind people they should choose one and get used to it.

A Man Among Men

Here is a short segment from the liturgy Father Rooster put together for the 13th Birthday Service of Blessing for Bantam13 (or "An Order for a Christian BarMitzvah Prayer Service and Holy Communion," as he titled his copy).

You have to wonder how you conduct a service like this in a way that doesn't seem preachy or silly to a 13-year-old. And the answer is: Liturgy! Liturgy gives that appropriate sense of solempne, of the solemnity of the occasion, of the high calling described by carefully chosen words, and of the timelessness of the challenge to take his place as a man and a member of the body of Christ.

Father Rooster drew from a variety of resources to create the following section.


Celebrant: What do you seek?

Initiate: To begin my pilgrimage as a man in Christ's one holy catholic and apostolic church.

Celebrant: Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support [Initiate] in his walk as a man in Christ?

People (Men): We will.

Celebrant: You will make your journey as a man among men in the body of Christ. Will you seek instruction and help from Elders as you go?

Initiate: By the help of God, I will.

Celebrant: Do you promise to be regular in attending the worship of God?

Initiate: I do.

Celebrant: Will you stand in reverence at worship and prayer, ready to obey the Lord as He calls to you through Word and sacrament, and the discipline of the Church?

Initiate: By the help of God, I will.

Celebrant: Will you work hard to cultivate all the virtues, especially humility, and faith, hope, and love, which are God's gifts to all who would receive them in Christ?

Initiate: By the help of God, I will.

Celebrant: Are you ready to pursue a life of prayer, in the Daily Office and in your own private devotions?

Initiate: With the help of God, I am.

Celebrant: Are you ready to begin a life of godly action and sacrificial service to God, His Church, and those who are near you?

Initiate: With the help of God, I am.

Confession

The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.

(Habakkuk 2:20)

Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us,

We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;

Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,

That we may show forth your glory in the world.

By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,

Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

Almighty God have mercy on us,
forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ,
strengthen us in all goodness,
and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life.
Amen.

(From the Book of Common Prayer)

Because sometimes we need a little prompting....

A Must-Link

My real-life friend at Square Peg in a Round Hole has written an excellent post on what making the sign of the cross means to her:

Of course, many may ask, as I once did, - why is a physical action even necessary? Isn’t reflection upon these realities enough? And for you they may be. But physical action can often serve as a way of re-centering our mind, of speaking to deeper realities, and bringing our physical self in line with our heart and mind. In our culture there are many physical actions we perform as connections to deeper realities: shaking hands in greeting, arms in the air to cheer at sporting events, the peace sign at rallies, folded hands in prayer. For me, the physical act often breaks into my wandering mind. It’s hard to think of something else when you are physically doing something. And so making the sign will bring my mind back into active engagement into the action around me, and cause my heart to refocus on the Cross and the majesty & mystery of a personal triune God. If you’ve never tried it, I’d encourage you to do so. You may be as surprised as I was by how it can touch your life.

I recommend the whole post!