Why I Worship as an Anglican
Christian
“To
worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind
with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open
the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purposes of God. All this is gathered up in that emotion
which most cleanses us from selfishness because it is the most selfless of all
emotions– adoration.”
(William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury 1942-44)
At the Communication Sunday on April 3, one person suggested holding a “Bring A Friend” Sunday, which sparked a lively discussion. We had to laugh when someone else described our service (or a typical Episcopal service) through the eyes of a visitor seeing it for the first time: “The Salutation…” (huh?) “…and Collect of the Day.” (Should I get out my checkbook?) Our strange terminology, our processions and gestures and movements around the nave (Nave?), and the symbols that surround us, all have a meaning. But if the rationale for these things is unknown to many of our “old and familiar” members, how likely is it that they will mean anything to the first-time visitor?
If our liturgy isn’t “user-friendly,” and if it makes hospitality more of a challenge, should we abandon it for something more like a rock concert or a talk-show format? If indeed our way of worshipping doesn’t please God or feed the spirits and minds of believers and send them out transformed – more Christ-like – we should quit doing it this way. But I worship as an Anglican because I believe our liturgy follows an order taught in the Bible, and that it presupposes an attitude, a disposition of the heart, which the Bible commends. It would take a longer article to show what I mean, but the Jewish sacrificial system, synagogue worship, and the earliest Christian worship all show movement through these stages:
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We enter the presence of
a holy God with creaturely humility (the Collect for Purity; the Penitential
Order), acknowledging that it is only by his grace that we are permitted to do
it at all.
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We praise God for the
privilege of worshipping him. (“Glory
to God” and other hymns)
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We feed on the word of
God and meet Jesus in the Scriptures.
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With our minds and
hearts informed by the Scriptures, we pray in Jesus’ Name and according to
God’s purposes.
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In the Eucharist, we
praise God over bread and wine, thanking him for the life, ministry, death, and
resurrection of Jesus.
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We encounter the
presence of Jesus in the bread and wine of the Sacrament; we are united with
him, we receive him into ourselves; we are transformed and renewed.
¨
We are sent out in
mission, to bring the presence of Christ into our environment.
There is a tension in our liturgy – a paradox. We mortal, sinful, finite creatures approach the perfect, incomprehensible, immortal, infinite, awesome, “terrifying” sovereign God in whose presence nothing impure or unholy can be tolerated (Exodus 3:5; 19:12ff; Hebrews 12:21); and, at the same time, we share a family meal with the God who desires fellowship with us, who “tabernacles” with us, seeks us out and blots out of his memory the sins we repent of, calls himself our Father, and has adopted us as his own children.
It is possible to hold onto what is essential – the biblical pattern, and the tension between awe and familiarity – without the jargon and even without having a bound Prayer Book anywhere in sight. I am willing to bet that, in the parts of the world where Anglicanism is growing and influential, the “global South,” they follow this biblical pattern and preserve that tension in their worship, even if many of them are illiterate and have never seen a Prayer Book. The main benefit of a Prayer Book, apart from the care taken to ensure that it teaches biblical truth, is that it permits us who are “print-oriented” to worship together.
Some of our newest Episcopalians, especially those from non-liturgical backgrounds, appreciate our liturgical life more than we who have grown up with it. Terry Mattingly, a columnist and college teacher in Tennessee, who was an Episcopalian for 10 years (that’s a story for another time), wrote in 1984 after his first year in the Episcopal Church:
One
of the most attractive aspects of Anglicanism for me is its wholeness, its
daily and annual cycle of worship and discipline. That there even is a Book of Common Prayer is a constant
challenge to me to pray, study scripture and support the church’s ministries. The Anglican concept of reason, scripture,
tradition and inspiration as pillars for faith makes sense to me. Where else can I find images and
relationships magnetic enough to hold my attention in this age? ...I was not seeking an ancient faith of
pumped-up mysticism. At the same time,
I have never been comfortable with a simplistic faith built on sentimentalized
‘50s values, church growth principles and modern technology. But here was a way to honor the cloud of
witnesses and a way to take the modern world with a grain of salt. I felt a sense of release.
All
that said, I quickly learned that unless I planned to practice the Anglican
faith alone… I had better learn to get my fill on Sunday mornings. When I asked how often the church offered
Evening Prayer services, I am afraid people thought I was joking.
St. Paul wrote that the message of a crucified Savior was “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23). If our worship adheres to biblical truth, not everyone is going to be receptive to it. It reminds us that we are not the center of the universe. It contains counter-cultural messages about sin and repentance; submission to God and service to each other; sacrifice, community, and costly love; God’s unmerited generosity; and redemptive suffering. It proclaims a transcendent reality that the dogmatic secularist knows nothing about. It declares that once in human history, once for all time and for all people, God (who is Spirit) became a real flesh-and-blood human being in a particular man in a particular place; that he was nailed to a cross and was raised from the dead; and that he now lives forever, interceding for us with the Father until the day of his return. It says frankly that people you might not want to be caught dead with are the very people whom Jesus has chosen for his friends. It requires a change of heart, a “brain transplant,” a change of citizenship, before it makes any sense.
In our eagerness to make our worship more “user-friendly” and “relevant,” let’s not be too ready to discard those things which give offense, without which we would not be Christian. Meanwhile, let us sit lightly on those things which are not essential, especially the things that are distractions, cultural hoops for people to jump through, man-made barriers between them and the healing medicine of the Gospel.
Lately almost every Church magazine I read, and every day’s
e-mail, contains arguments about who does or does not have the right to the
name “Anglican.” I maintain that we are
not really Anglicans if all we know of the Prayer Book is the well-worn pages
of Holy Eucharist Rite II. Take time to
look at the contents of the Book of Common Prayer and pray the prayers you find
there. Notice the balance of word and
sacrament; of private and family devotion, and weekly corporate celebration; of
reverence and childlike affection.
Notice how the Prayer Book orders and blesses the cycles of the day, the
week, the Christian year, the stages of human life, and the renewal of the
Church’s life. Let this vocabulary,
with which the Church has learned over the centuries to address her Bridegroom
in love, shape you. X
“...I talked with many local
priests about the Episcopal Church before making a decision to join. Near the end of one such conversation
there was a long pause. Finally,
the young priest said, ‘Why aren’t there more Episcopalians? This is a great church! With traditions of openness, beautiful
worship, art, social action, scholarship.’ “I told him that, as far as I
could tell, there were at least two answers to his question. (1) Few Episcopalians care if there are
any new Episcopalians. (2) Few
Episcopalians care if there are any new Christians.” Terry
Mattingly, “One Year As An Episcopalian (1984): An Evangelical’s Progress Report”