How to Leverage the Liturgy for Spiritual Formation

By Robin G. Jordan

How can we use the liturgy to maximum advantage in forming members of our congregations as disciples of Jesus Christ? Spirituality maturity is not tied to age. A congregation may be advanced in years but still be babes in Christ.

As we grow older, we may have more opportunities to grow spiritually but it does necessarily mean that we will avail ourselves of these opportunities. As we grow older, we also will have more opportunities to sin and to rationalize and explain away our sinfulness. We will have more time to become inured to our rebelliousness. The devil will have more opportunities to deceive us and lead us astray.

Young people may be at high risk but so are older people. The need for repentance is not something that we outgrow. Nor is the need for spiritual formation.

Having undergone confirmation, older Anglicans are tempted to assume that they need no further spiritual formation than what they received in their Sunday school class and their preparation for confirmation when they were younger. This is far from the case. They will need spiritual formation for the remainder of their days. They have taken only the first step.

What spiritual formation that older Anglicans received in their youth may have been woefully inadequate. If their preparation for confirmation was like the preparation that I received as a teenager, it touched on the articles of the faith in a cursory fashion. It did not address the nature and importance of discipleship or the spiritual disciplines that are an integral part of a healthy spiritual life.

The congregation that does not see the need for further spiritual formation is the congregation that in all likelihood needs it the most.

While the texts of the Prayer Book may through their repeated use help to shape the thinking and actions of the congregation, the congregation can also become desensitized to them. The congregation can also learn to misinterpret the texts and give a particular text a different meaning from original intended meaning of the text.

Just as we open the Scriptures to the congregation and explain their implications for the everyday lives of its members, we also need to open the texts of the Prayer Book and explain their implications for its members’ everyday lives. In selecting what texts upon which we should preach or about which we should teach, we should choose first those texts that are taken from Scripture and used in a manner faithful to Scripture and second those texts that are agreeable to Scripture.

Like the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion the authority of the Prayer Book is derived from Scripture. It is only authoritative where it is in agreement with Scripture.

In interpreting the sense of a text, we should use Scripture and not tradition. This interpretative principle is consistent with the principles underlying the compilation of the first and second Edwardian Prayer Books and articulated in Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s Preface to these two books. The degree to which a particular edition of The Book of Common Prayer is faithful to the Anglican Prayer Book tradition is reflected in the extent to which it conforms to these principles.

Let us take a look at two texts from the 1928 Prayer Book. The first text is the General Confession from the Order for Daily Morning Prayer and the second text the Invitation to Confession from the Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion.

Almighty and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.

When we pray this general confession together at the beginning of Morning Prayer, we are admitting to ourselves as well as to God that our relationship with him is not what it ought to be. Rather than live our lives God’s way, we are choosing to live our lives our own way without regard to God. In doing so, we have made a grave mistake and have done a great wrong and have becoming separated from God. We have gone astray “like lost sheep.”

Sheep are not the brightest animals. They are apt to wander away from the flock and get themselves into all kinds of trouble. They may be tempted by the lush grass growing on the surface of a bog and become mired in quicksand. They may be attracted by the tall grass growing on the edge of a chalk pit and have the lip of the pit crumble under their feet and fall into the pit.

The reference to “the devices and desires of our own hearts” is reminder that the human heart is deceitful and cannot be trusted. Yet we are prone to follow its leadings due to our sinful nature.

The God’s “holy laws” extends not only to the moral law of the Old Testament but to Jesus’ teaching about how we should live our lives as his disciples—the guiding truths and principles that he taught to the apostles and which they passed on to us. While we may be calling Jesus Lord, we are not living as if he is the Lord of our lives.

We are not only guilty of not doing what we should do such as loving God with our whole being and our neighbors as ourselves but also of doing what we should not do such as bearing grudges, seeking revenge for even the smallest offense, and returning evil with evil.

“There is no health in us” is an understatement. We are in a dreadful spiritual state.

The rest of the prayer is a plea for mercy and forgiveness and a transformed life.

When we pray this general confession with these thoughts in mind along with the various ways that we have damaged our relationship with God during the week, it is an entirely different experience from praying it without any thought to what we are saying or to how we have chosen our way over God’s way. We are opening ourselves to the conviction of the Holy Spirit which is essential to true repentance. We are no longer just mouthing words. We are uttering the prayer of the heart. The liturgy provides us with suitable words for our heartfelt prayer.

A more accurate way of putting it may be to say that we are not resisting the Holy Spirit when he convicts us of the damage that we have done to our relationship with God. In fact, it is the Holy Spirit that reminds us of what the words of the general confession mean and their significance and how we have damaged our relationship with God and stirs our hearts to prayer.

The Invitation to Confession from the 1928 Communion Service sets out the spiritual conditions that must be present if we are to rightly receive the sacrament of the Holy Communion. It takes to heart what the apostle Paul wrote about approaching the Lord’s Table in an “unworthy manner” in 1 Corinthians 11:27-34. These conditions are further expounded upon in the First and Second Exhortations at the end of the Communion Service, in Articles 25 and 28 of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, and the Homily on the Worthy Receiving of the Sacrament.

Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways; Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort; and make your humble confession to Almighty God, devoutly kneeling.

These conditions are true and earnest repentance from sin, love and charity with one’s neighbors, intention to amend one’s life, and faith. If one or more of these conditions is not present, the communicant is in danger of unworthily receiving the sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood. While the Third Exhortation warns against neglecting the sacrament, the thrust of all three Exhortations is that communicants should deal with unrepented sin, quarrels with their neighbors, ill-will toward their fellow Christians and the like so that they are not obstacles to their worthy reception of the sacrament. To benefit from receiving the sacrament, Article 29 reminds us, they must have “a lively faith.”

When we consider the lack of preparation with which so many communicants receive the sacrament, it is clear that they need further spiritual formation in this critical area. A perfunctory confession of sin and a priestly absolution is not sufficient to remove the aforementioned obstacles to worthy reception. Indeed they may compound the harm to the souls which such communicants inflict upon themselves when they do not rightly receive Christ’s Body and Blood. The priest’s declaration of God’s forgiveness is reserved for those who genuinely repent of their sins, have resolved any disputes with their neighbors, do not harbor ill-will toward their fellow Christians, intend to turn over a new leaf, and draw near the Table with a vital faith.

As in the case of watchmen on the wall who do not warn the city of an approaching danger, the blood of these communicants will be upon the heads of pastors who do not warn them of the harming they are inflicting upon their souls.