The Role of Liturgy
When you are in seminary most students get involved in their church and help out during the Mass. With it being most people’s first time serving at the altar, you tend to see quite a few liturgical blunders. At one point, I saw a student, who considered himself to be Anglo-Catholic and knowledgeable of the liturgy, sat on the Bishop’s throne for the majority of the service. Another time, for Maundy Thursday’s stripping of the altar, I saw a friend of mine accidentally blow out the presence candle. Of course, as I was retelling the story to the new rector the next year in the sacristy, I was holding the presence candle, and when I got the punch line of the story I tripped and blew out the presence candle myself. The irony did not go unmissed. And I learned to be a bit humbler. The point is even people who are reading all of the books on how to do things still make mistakes. Even the seasoned rector or bishop can make liturgical mistakes.
Within Anglicanism, especially in America, there are many views on how ritual and relationship play together in the liturgy. How do you answer the questions: “Is there something wrong with going through the motions? Do you need to feel something spiritual? Do you have to have a certain level of knowledge or awareness? Isn’t the personal relationship with God the most important thing?” These are all great questions. In order to answer them we have to look at the role of liturgy.
The word liturgy literally means “the work of the people.” As Anglicans the priest is not allowed to say Mass by himself. He needs at least one other person to say “Amen” because it requires the church, the people, to do the work of the people. So, what is our work? Our task, like the task of all creation, is to worship and glorify God. Principally, it is where heaven meets earth and we, as the Body of Christ, participate in the heavenly worship of God, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven. And, it is in this worship of God the Father that we are joined to Christ, as he gives himself, and are brought upwards in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. There is the work of the people but there is also the work of God in the liturgy. We offer up the gifts of bread and wine and ourselves unto God. And in return, he gives us himself. Though do not be mistaken, he is the one who creates the ingredients of the creatures of bread and wine and he is the one who is working in us and bringing us to himself in the first place. It is as we say at the offertory, “All things come from you, O Lord, and of your own have we given you.”
That’s a lot, right? It is hard to feel the weight of our heavenly worship and to acknowledge the interplay of God’s work and our own gifts when our week has been long or hard, we forgot to get a cup of coffee in the morning before church, and the fact that you are at Church is an accomplishment. First, let me say that the fact you came to church is an act of worship. But now what? Some people come to liturgical worship because they are tired of performance. I know I have seen my fair share of both laity and clergy in all different traditions trying to look like they are the holiest ones in the room. Whether it is someone singing the loudest, jumping up and down, or waving their hands in the air. Now, I mean no judgement, maybe that is just how some people worship and connect with God. The issue is that it has an effect on others. People who see this and think there is something wrong with them because they aren’t like this and they feel the need to perform so that they might feel something or experience something or not have their own spiritual life questioned. Now I have seen these displays even in liturgical churches too, so we aren’t off the hook either. However, the liturgy does help people to enter into a different space, they don’t have to perform. The problem is, sometimes it can create a space where an adult or child never gets what is going on and they are merely or just going through the motions and this is the extent of their spiritual life. The way forward is perhaps the most Anglican way, the middle way, or a both/and. Neither dead ritual nor a performance. But an honest relationship with God and others.
While the liturgy cannot do all the work for you, God uses the liturgy to do a lot for us. When we come to church and it has been a hard week and we are tired and we have no words of our own to say, the liturgy gives us the words. And when going through the motions is the best way for us to be ministered to and be formed in. Or, when we have had a great week or something has happened that we want to praise God for, the liturgy is the right and appropriate way to give thanks as we come together as the Body of Christ in thanksgiving. It gives us the words when we don’t feel the words and it gives us the words when we do feel them. The ritual and the liturgy help to paint a picture of the heavenly worship and reality happening in the Mass. They also minister to us.
God desires a relationship with us, he wants our hearts, our minds, and our bodies to worship him. But sometimes like a husband who is doing the dishes because his wife asked or trying to help out, even though he doesn’t want to be washing the dishes, we must do it. There is a movie where this is happening and the wife says “I don’t want you to do the dishes, I want you to want to do the dishes.” Ideally, it is out of love and desire to bless his wife that the husband is joyfully doing the dishes. But sometimes it is a loving thing to do the dishes even when you don’t want to. That is, God wants us to want to worship him and seek a deeper relationship with him. But sometimes, just showing up and participating in the liturgy is an act of love and it is a place where God can minister to you because that is an honest relationship, not a performance.
There is no question about it, reverence is the right and proper approach to worship our holy God. But remember, as I read in a liturgy book, “reverence is a virtue, not a neurosis, God can take care of himself.” Seek to enter into worship with due reverence but have mercy and grace for yourself and others. It is not about crossing yourself at the right time, kneeling, keenly knowing what is happening, or understanding every word in the liturgy. These things are pointers in worship not ends. Seek first to love God, know that God loves you, and that he can take care of himself.
Fr. Aaron