By Robin G Jordan
Must Anglican worship be stodgy—dull and uninspired? Is stodginess a characteristic of Anglican worship with which we must grit our teeth and bear and from which we have no hope of breaking free? This is what one post on Facebook inferred in a comment thread in which I participated. The individual who posted the comment may not have been serious, but he raised a point. Is Anglican worship inescapably wedded to stodginess? Being reverent can be defined as showing deep and solemn respect. Regrettably, some folks confuse being solemn with being unsmiling and emotionless. Their idea of a worshiping assembly is that it must resemble how they picture a gathering of gloomy Puritans in their minds. Sunday morning is a time to lament our sins, beat our breasts, and beg God’s forgiveness.
While showing reverence to God may require us to act in a dignified manner and to take what we are doing with the seriousness that it deserves, it does not require us to suppress or conceal any feelings of joy or any other emotions that meeting our Lord in the Word and in bread and wine elicit. On the contrary it calls for us to draw near to God without concealing or disguising our true feelings and thoughts. God sees through any pretense on our part. He does not look at our outward appearance but at our hearts.
Our Sunday worship can, if we are not careful, deteriorate into ritualism, going through the motions of worship without worshiping God from the heart. True worship transforms the worshiper. Ritualism, on the other hand, leaves the churchgoer unchanged.
This is what happened on a number of occasions to the temple worship of the people of Israel. Their priests were painstaking in their performance of the temple worship’s rituals, the offering of animal sacrifices to God, but the worship had no effects upon the hearts of the people of Israel. They turned to other gods. These gods gained their devotion, their heart worship.
This is also what happened to the Medieval Church. The veneration of the Blessed Virgin and the other saints and their relics would overshadow the worship of the one true God. It was to the saints that the people prayed in times of need and to whom they dedicated gifts and offerings. They felt a greater closeness to the saints than they did to the Father and the Son.
The Mass had become a ritual by which the priest materialized Christ under the form of the consecrated host for their adoration. The people did not understand the words of the Mass. They had been denied the cup and only received the bread at Easter outside of the Mass and then after having confessed their sins and having been shriven.
By ritualism, I am not referring to the school of churchmanship which emerged in the early nineteenth century and which set a high value on the church and clergy ornaments, doctrines and beliefs, ceremonies and other practices of the pre-Reformation Medieval Church and the post-Tridentian Roman Catholic Church. Rather I am talking about the performance of a liturgy as a ritual by the performance of which those present at its performance or participating in its performance believe that they accrue certain benefits. They may fulfill a duty. They may ward off evil. They may secure a blessing. It is akin to crossing one’s fingers to wish for luck or to implore God’s protection or knocking on wood or touching wood to bring good fortune or to ward off bad luck. It is a mindset into which congregations that use prescribed forms of service and set patterns of worship are apt to fall but it is not confined to such congregations.
This mindset is related to magic at the center of which is the belief that certain rites and incantations can be used to influence the supernatural. It is a mindset which congregations seldom realize that they have adopted.
Ritualism is one of the attractions of the older Prayer Books. The Sunday service, whether Morning Prayer or Holy Communion, is a familiar ritual that a congregation performs every week. Woe to the priest or other service leader who makes in the minds of the congregation unwarranted changes in this familiar ritual. However, the newer service books are not free from this tendency. Their services can over time become familiar rituals. They can also lead to a ritualistic mindset.
While it may fall short of genuine worship in a number of ways, the performance of a liturgy as a familiar ritual is meaningful to the congregation. This is one of the reasons that people resist Prayer Book revision. For this reason, Anglican jurisdictions that are sensitive to how their people may react to Prayer Book revision choose to supplement the existing Prayer Book with additional services rather than replace it. It is also one of the reasons that strict uniformity in worship in a jurisdiction is impractical. It also accounts for at least in part why some Anglicans claim that the Prayer Book that they use and which they prefer is the only Prayer Book to use. The rituals that the book contains are most correct rituals and the most effective. A close examination of the rituals in question often as not show that they have been changed from the rituals of earlier Prayer Books and may not be what those who use and prefer that book claim.
The danger of ritualism is not only that it can become a substitute for genuine worship but also it can also become a deterrent to the numerical and spiritual growth of a congregation. While the performance of a liturgy as a familiar ritual may be meaningful to the congregation, it is not meaningful to most visitors. Indeed, it may discourage them from returning for a second visit. Visitors who have a bad experience are going to tell friends, relatives, and coworkers about their experience and the church may gain a reputation as a church to avoid.
It can also prevent a church from putting more effort into its Sunday worship which can make the church less attractive to the unchurched. The effort that a church puts into its Sunday worship research has found is an important factor in why the unchurched will begin to attend a church on a regular basis. It conveys to the unchurched that the church takes seriously the worship of God.
While it may fall short of genuine worship in a number of ways, the performance of a liturgy as a familiar ritual is meaningful to the congregation. This is one of the reasons that people resist Prayer Book revision. For this reason, Anglican jurisdictions that are sensitive to how their people may react to Prayer Book revision choose to supplement the existing Prayer Book with additional services rather than replace it. It is also one of the reasons that strict uniformity in worship in a jurisdiction is impractical. It also accounts for at least in part why some Anglicans claim that the Prayer Book that they use and which they prefer is the only Prayer Book to use. The rituals that the book contains are most correct rituals and the most effective. A close examination of the rituals in question often as not show that they have been changed from the rituals of earlier Prayer Books and may not be what those who use and prefer that book claim.
The danger of ritualism is not only that it can become a substitute for genuine worship but also it can also become a deterrent to the numerical and spiritual growth of a congregation. While the performance of a liturgy as a familiar ritual may be meaningful to the congregation, it is not meaningful to most visitors. Indeed, it may discourage them from returning for a second visit. Visitors who have a bad experience are going to tell friends, relatives, and coworkers about their experience and the church may gain a reputation as a church to avoid.
It can also prevent a church from putting more effort into its Sunday worship which can make the church less attractive to the unchurched. The effort that a church puts into its Sunday worship research has found is an important factor in why the unchurched will begin to attend a church on a regular basis. It conveys to the unchurched that the church takes seriously the worship of God.
On the other hand, congregations that are satisfied with the way that they are performing the liturgy as a ritual will have little incentive to improve the quality of their Sunday worship. They may mistakenly assume that because they are happy with what they are doing, visitors will be happy with it too. They may blame the visitor for not returning for a second visit and not recognize their own contribution to the failure of the visitor to return.
The spiritual danger is that the performance of a liturgy as a familiar ritual can replace a personal relationship with Jesus in the spiritual lives of a congregation. The vitality of the personal relationships of a congregation with the Lord affects the vitality of their Sunday worship. The two are tied to each other. The prayer of their hearts will infuse the prayer of the liturgy. Their desire to offer the Lord the best that they can offer will motivate them not only to pray the liturgy from their hearts but also to improve the quality of their Sunday worship in other ways—a better choice of music, periods of silence after each Scripture reading for reflection and prayer, and so forth. Rather than a duty or an obligation their Sunday worship will become an expression of their love for the one who made them, saved them, and guides them. From that love will flow the love of one’s fellow Christians and the love of one’s neighbor, which are inseparable from one’s love of God.
Even Sundays in Lent are a time for celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and the promise of new life that his rising from the dead offers us. They are a time for joyfulness, not sadness. While Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross played an important part in our salvation, it did not end there. As the apostle Paul wrote the church at Corinth, “if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” But our Lord did rise from the dead and ascended into heaven. He is there at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf. We are united to him and to each other by the Holy Spirit. When we gather in his name, he is in our midst as he promised. We have every reason to rejoice.
There is really no excuse for stodginess in Anglican worship. None whatsoever!
The spiritual danger is that the performance of a liturgy as a familiar ritual can replace a personal relationship with Jesus in the spiritual lives of a congregation. The vitality of the personal relationships of a congregation with the Lord affects the vitality of their Sunday worship. The two are tied to each other. The prayer of their hearts will infuse the prayer of the liturgy. Their desire to offer the Lord the best that they can offer will motivate them not only to pray the liturgy from their hearts but also to improve the quality of their Sunday worship in other ways—a better choice of music, periods of silence after each Scripture reading for reflection and prayer, and so forth. Rather than a duty or an obligation their Sunday worship will become an expression of their love for the one who made them, saved them, and guides them. From that love will flow the love of one’s fellow Christians and the love of one’s neighbor, which are inseparable from one’s love of God.
Even Sundays in Lent are a time for celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and the promise of new life that his rising from the dead offers us. They are a time for joyfulness, not sadness. While Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross played an important part in our salvation, it did not end there. As the apostle Paul wrote the church at Corinth, “if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” But our Lord did rise from the dead and ascended into heaven. He is there at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf. We are united to him and to each other by the Holy Spirit. When we gather in his name, he is in our midst as he promised. We have every reason to rejoice.
There is really no excuse for stodginess in Anglican worship. None whatsoever!
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