Liturgy for a missional church
Last week, information technology happened. Half way through Holy Week, I finally got fed up with reciting the opening prayer in Common Worship. The offending text is as follows:
Blessed are you, Lord God of our salvation,
to you be praise and celebrity for ever.
Equally a human being of sorrows and acquainted with grief
your only Son was lifted upward
that he might draw the whole globe to himself.
May nosotros walk this 24-hour interval in the way of the cross
and always be ready to share its weight,
declaring your beloved for all the world.
Blessed be God, Male parent, Son and Holy Spirit.
There are many minor irritating features here. Kickoff is the habitual utilize of 'Blest are you…' which is very odd English but a consistent feature of CW. The theory is that it takes united states back to the outset century and connects us with our roots in Jewish liturgy. Only this ignores some cardinal realities about translation; in the NT the semantic range of 'bless' linguistic communication is almost interchangeable with the range of 'give thanks' and 'praise' linguistic communication and and so would not have sounded odd to Jewish readers—but feels very odd to us where there is not the same equivalence. (Compare Matt 26.26 'blessed' with Mark 14.22 'blessed', Mark fourteen.23 'gave thanks' and Luke 22.17, 19 'gave thanks'. Luke is arguably moving from Jewish to gentile culture, and adapts his language accordingly). And it is odd enough to have been dropped from the Boosted Baptism texts. It might work in a certain Matt Redman song, but not in other, even liturgical, spoken language.
And so there is the juxtaposition of contrasting and unconnected theological motifs. Jesus was indeed a 'man of sorrows', and he was indeed 'lifted up.' Just the second idea belongs to the notion in John's gospel of the cantankerous as glorification, on which he cries in triumph 'It is finished!' in contrast to his cry of dereliction from the cantankerous in Marker. These ii ideas are biblical, and are sharply contrasting, and we need to take both seriously—but in consecutive phrases within one sentence? It jars almost as much as the baroque kaleidoscope of juxtaposition that we were treated to during Lent. As someone previously commented in the discussion hither five years agone:
In that location is no fourth dimension to ponder annihilation for more than a microsecond before the next huge thought comes at you like an express train.
But the biggest problems come up in the last main sentence, in which in that location are three very dissimilar notions. The first is the image of discipleship from Mark 8.34 (and parallels) described as 'walking in the way of the cross.' The third is the quite different theological idea from John three.xvi and elsewhere of the cantankerous equally the expression of God's love for the world. The center ane, which tries in vain to link these 2, is at best unhelpful and at worst heretical, the idea that nosotros 'share in [bearing] the weight of the cross.' Notice that we are supposed to share the weight ofthe cross, not our own cross, so nosotros have moved from our own costly discipleship to participating, somehow, in Jesus' redemptive death for the world.
Yes, Paul uses the linguistic communication of 'sharing in his sufferings' in Phil iii.x, and fifty-fifty strains our theological horizons by talking of 'filling up his sufferings' in Col 1.24. But neither of these come close to the idea that we participate in bearing the weight of Christ's cross, and even Simon of Cyrene cannot assist u.s. carry this theological thought back across the borders of heresy. It is an idea decisively rejected in the BCP language of Communion ('who fabricated there (past his one oblation of himself once offered) a total, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole globe') and in the Anglican rejection of the idea that we are in whatever sense re-offering his sacrifice, the central notion in the Roman Catholic mass ('May the Lord take the sacrifice at your hands…).
Yet my frustration with this prayer is only one of a series of frustrations. (Leonard to Sheldon: 'It must be hell inside your head sometimes…').
- The responsory/memory poesy, which chops verses in half so that they and so don't brand sense.
- The switching of the Lord's Prayer (which should depict together our intercessions) and the Collect (which should collect the whole service or section of a service together, as it does elsewhere) so that they try to do the reverse.
- The use of the flaccid ending 'Allow u.s.a. bless the Lord/thanks be to God' which is supposed to hateful 'Let's praise the Lord/Praise the Lord', but fails because no-one understands the semantic equivalence between anoint, praise and thanks, and then in event ways 'The service has ended/thank goodness for that!'
- The wordiness of the collects (now corrected by available alternatives) including the formulaic insistence on the longer ending.
- The loss of some of the splendid closing collects in BCP and ASB through relegation to the afterwards 'library'.
- More broadly, why did we stop up with a series of books, rather than having the core services that are used virtually ofttimes in ane volume? I am not certain I accept ever seen a rationale for that.
- The choice of Gill Sans every bit a font, which appears to take become a quasi-official one for the C of E. This despite the fact that, with its small-scale bowls compared with its risers, it is less readable—and notwithstanding the sexual proclivities of its designer, Eric Gill.
- The use of red for rubrics. Yes, I know that information technology what the Latin discussion means—simply the ASB's blue was, again, chosen for its readability, under the strange notion that being able to read the text might be more than important than how good we are at Latin.
What are the possible responses to my frustration (which can be printed here…)?
The outset might be to say 'A lot of it is optional; driblet the parts you don't similar.' But the options are non evident on the app which I near oft use; if other people are leading I don't get the choice; others are subjected to these things when they are beingness led; and why have we ended upward with a liturgy which includes so many problematic elements?
A second response would be to take offence. 1 person involved in the procedure of creating Common Worship, in response to my venting frustration on Facebook, has unfriended and blocked me. This suggests that liturgy in some sense belongs to those involved in the formal process, and that a criticism of the texts is a criticism of the people. It isn't; similar football game, it is much more important than that, since liturgy expresses the doctrine of the Church, and so needs to stay inside the doctrinal annals of what the Church believes. If the liturgy is problematic, nosotros demand to discuss this and practise so with reference to good theology.
A third response would be to argue that these texts all came through the proper processes, were discussed and debated, and so are agreed by the Church through the only process that we have for this. But if this process did indeed work, how is information technology that we accept needed a new set of collects, boosted Eucharistic Prayers (even having thrown out the initial half-dozen), Boosted Baptism texts—and we nonetheless take frustrations with Daily Prayer.
I think that part of the reason why this needs word—and why discussion is often avoided—is that we are living in days when and then much is being contested. This often ways we are wearied by debate, and want to avert it—but we and so also want to get together effectually something that nosotros concur on, and the easiest formal identify to go is the liturgy. Then whenthisis nether dispute, we are in a difficult place.
In the discussion on the Facebook thread, there were in fact ii equally strong and contrary objections expressed to Mutual Worship. The kickoff was that information technology was too complex, wordy and pompous; the 2d was that it lacked the depth and majesty of the BCP. Both of these were captured in one fascinating comment:
The churches I know of that are growing are not the ones that are using Common Worship liturgy.
This can, of course, exist interpreted in one of 2 ways. Such churches are either ones that have thrown out the use of written liturgy, and take an 'breezy' approach to worship. Or this could be a reference to churches which are presenting worship as a transcendent experience that is discontinuous with everyday life, through the use of profound and formal liturgy, oft from the BCP. I think the commentator was referring to both. As it happens, current observations about church growth practise appear to confirm these every bit the ii kinds of places which appear to be showing numerical growth in omnipresence.
It is far from clear, yet, what a good way forward will exist in relation to current liturgical provision. I strongly believe that the complexity and wordiness of much CW liturgy (under the guise of 'riching up the liturgy) accelerated this polarisation within the Church—and, though the reasons for both responses are articulate, I am not certain this is a good for you position for the Church to be in. I think it is partly due to a fundamentally mistaken strategy: to offer a million authorised or official texts which must be adhered to, rather than a small-scale number of cadre texts which can exist used flexibly. The division between 'authorised' and 'commended' texts was also a mistake, since at that place is nothing to prevent the 'commended' (i.e. not widely supported, but not prohibited) texts from shifting to the middle—as with the odd focus on the 'Chrism Eucharist' each year in many dioceses, which is inappreciably a mainstream, historical Anglican practice.
When people come up to faith, specially from a not-church building background, they volition demand to learn 'the unforced rhythms of grace', and part of that will be developing patterns of prayer and worship in a previously unstructured life. So liturgy, of some form, is need for us to be an effective missionary church building in a post-Christendom civilization. I am non sure what it looks similar, but I do feel adequately confident that CW isn't it.
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