III Many Different Churches

8/14/2019 III Many Different Churches

1/42

3 Many different churches

In this chapter we are going to see how churches worship, and that the oneChurch is made up of many churches.

1 Gathering Baptised into One Body

The Church is the love of God, opened to man. This gathering, processionand worship make us visible and available to us. In the Church all people arebeing called together and reconciled in this love. We are called out to be thisdistinct gathered people, and we are sent to our society to be witnesses of

this reconciliation. The Church is distinct from the society around it for thesake of that society. We are brought into the Church not only for our ownsake, but the sake of those who are not yet members of the Church. We enterthe Church in baptism, sometimes also referred as conversion. Since there isone baptism, Christians must regard all other Christians as members of theChurch. as the baptism service puts it: In joyful obedience to your Son webaptise into his fellowship those who come to him in faith. Through all thegreat variety of church and discipleship, there is one Church, and the greatvariety of the churches is for the sake of the world.

1. We may enter the presence of the Lord

When we enter Church, the building and the worshipping community, we enterthe presence of God. The Lord is enthroned before us. He is high and liftedup, his glory fills the temple. The whole company of heaven stand around him.He holds audience with all creation, and each Church service is our peek intothis audience.

We recognise and acknowledge the presence of the Lord and of all hiscompany. Some bow or genuflect as they come into the building, some kneeland pray in silence until the service begins, while others greet their friends.

All people that on earth do dwell,

come ye before him and rejoice.O enter then his gates with praise,approach with joy his courts unto (William Kethe)

Welcomed in to the courts of the kingIve been ushered into your presence.Lord I stand on your merciful groundYet with every step tread with reverence (Matt Redman)

2. BaptismThe Lord calls, and so we come. In the place where there was no evidence of

God for man, there is now the community that is gathered to be this evidence.The Church exists because God has called into existence. The Lord says

50


2/42

Come. So at once they got up at once, and left their nets and followed him(Matthew 4.19-20, Luke 5.29) So it must be with us. We may say Lord whereare you going?, but the answer is Come and see. To be a Christian is tofollow where Christ leads. We do not know everything about our way, but weare on the way with him and with all his people. He is at our head. We do not

trail along behind him, as though we have been left to make our own way, forChrist not only leads us but carries us.

Baptism is the start of life with Christ. It is the event of our conversion to Christmade public. It is our passageway from one life to another, so that in baptismwe are dying to one form of life and being born to another. There are two sortsof life: there is the simple creaturely form of life, which always comes to anend, and there is the unbroken life of God, held out to us in Christ, whichnever comes to an end. In our creaturely life, death and life are two processesthat go on side by side: we are running down and wearing out, and we will doso until we run out of life altogether. Life is pitted with death; when the holes in

the fabric of life start to join up, our creaturely life is over. But in Christianbaptism one life is being replaced by the other. The new life, that is unbroken,is replacing the old life that is stained and pitted with death, so that though wewear out, we are always renewed and regenerated. As the baptism serviceputs it: We thank you, Father, for the water of baptism. In it we are buried withChrist in his death. By it we share in his resurrection.

2. The Church on the wayThrough water you led the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt to freedomin the Promised Land.Our immersion in the water of baptism is our dying to death and rising toeternal life. We say: To follow Christ mean dying to sin and rising to new lifewith him. We go down into that water, and travel through it until we emergefrom it on the other side. Our course is set for this long transition from lifemarked by death to that unbroken life. The whole Christian life is this baptism.We are going through this water with Christ.

We are making a crossing and will go through a storm. But we are going tomake this crossing together with the whole convoy lead by Christ. With him,the rage of the sea will not overcome us. In his ark we travel in sure andcertain hope of the resurrection. As one canticle from Isaiah puts it:

The Lord makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, I will make away in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosenpeople.

The whole Christian Church is on the way. We travel together through theworld, regarding it as our training and preparation. Every Sunday we stop andwe celebrate publicly this anticipation of the Promised Land. Perhaps it looksas though we go to Church, sit still together for an hour or two and then rushoff again to our separate lives. But this is not how it is. In the service, we areon the move, visibly and publicly travelling together through the world. We aretravelling behind Christ: he leads, we follow. We are on the move through our

city and society, passing through every community, members of it yet distinctfrom it. Christ leads his people through the world, as though he were showing

51


3/42

us off to it: Christ always leads us in triumphal procession (2 Corinthians2.14). An event has started, it is ongoing and points to what we cannot yetsee. So we sing:Lift High the Cross the love of Christ proclaimCome, let us follow where our captain trod

Our king victorious Christ the Son of God (499)We are being formed and transformed, so we cannot yet claim to be human inthe full sense, but we and when we have been, we will be human at last. Weare changed by our encounter with other Christians and our shaping in theChurch, transformed, individually, and corporately, as we are gathered,reconciled with one another and brought into one body. Though the cavalcadepauses, it does not stop. We are in procession because we are not yet whatwe will be. In this way Christian hope is built in.We are on the move right through this service. Perhaps this would be easierto visualise if we worshipped standing up, and so if we took chairs or pews outof Church. At one point in the service, as we go up to the altar to receive the

eucharist the whole congregation is standing. This is how to see the serviceas a whole. It is the event in which line of God's people stretches from ourplaces of work and our homes, all the way to Church and in church up to thealtar. Christians are the people raised and made to stand upright by theresurrection.

3. The Church goes from church to churchEach church gathers with other churches. We do not remain sitting in ourseparate churches but go out together to find other Christians in othercongregations. We worship with them and ask them to share with us whateverinsight their experience has given them, and we offer them whateverencouragement we can. The promise that Where two or three are gatheredtogether, there am I in the midst of them (Matthew) refers to congregations asmuch as it does to individual Christians. No individual group or congregationof Christians is sufficient. It must seek its own, and it must seek thoseChristians that it sees as unlike itself, and for this reason we are on the move.

The Church gathers out on the street. It does so at particular seasons likeChristmas and Easter when every part of the Church, evangelical andcatholic, gathers and processes through the streets. In the season of Adventwe all go carol-singing to tell the city that Christmas is the advent of God to

man.

The Church is on the street at Easter. In my part of the city, East London,Catholic and Anglo-Catholic processions on Palm Sunday, Good Friday andCorpus Christi processions have always been a big part of church life. Youcan see churches processing along our streets on Palm Sunday, when wecelebrate the Lords entry into Jerusalem, and on Good Friday to celebratethe passion. We gather and walk again in the West End at Pentecost. AtCorpus Christi, Catholic Churches take to the streets again. All Saints ChurchSt Margaret Street meets with other churches and processes in a circuitaround Oxford Street.

52


4/42

You can see this at other times too. In the run up to the millennium, when theChurches were working towards the cancellation of third world debt, some inLondon started to March for Jesus. The March became a annual eventthrough the 1990s to draw our attention to the Jubilee. The evangelicalchurches call this prayer walking and these processions prayer marches.

This year, as parliament was considering legislation which we walked fromWestminster Cathedral to Westminster Abbey on the Thousand Crosses forlife as legislation that did not seem to safeguard life was being considered byparliament.

My part of London is also where the Salvation Army started. These Christiansadopted a particularly disciplined life because they saw how strongly despairand with it alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution gripped this part of thecity. They knew that only the disciplined and communal Christian life willwithstand those pressures. The Salvation Army has stood on pavements, itsbands played and sung hymns, prayed and celebrated the victory of Christ

here for more than a century. The forces of self-destruction still makethemselves visible, and is always obvious in this part of London that some arelosing the struggle, becoming victims of the cravings and dependencies thatturn us in on ourselves. But by gathering to celebrate Christs victory over allthe addictions, all hurts and rancour, and by singing and praying as we walkon these streets we demonstrate that God has not abandoned anyone of us tohopelessness. As the Church does so, it raises the hopes of the whole cityand society. As the Apostle Paul says We are the aroma of Christ to Godamong those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; tothe one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life tolife. (2 Corinthians 2.15). We are the Church on the way, so we meet andprocess through the streets of our city. We confess ourselves to be pilgrims,so we sing:He who would valiant begainst all disasterlet him in constancyfollow the master (Bunyan To be a Pilgrim)

4. The Church gatheredIn every church service we see how the Christian people are underway. Theirpilgrimage is a public procession in which the more experienced lead and the

new comers follow them. As we sit in church there are people in the rows infront of us and behind us, just as there were Christians before us and will beChristians after us. As we look towards the altar we are looking forwardtowards the future. But we can only see this future by looking backwards, as itwere, through all the generations of Christian history, to Jesus and the firstdisciples. By looking at the incarnation we can see glimpse the shape of thefuture, when all Jesus people are finally united with him. As we down theChurch we may glimpse in the crowd some of the Christians whose lives haveimpressed us. Who shall we look for Saint Francis of Assisi, St Columbaand the saints of the Celtic Church? Or Martin Luther, John Calvin, JohnBunyan, John Wesley? Or the Christians of the twentieth century, like Karl

Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, MotherTheresa or Lesslie Newbigin? They set out before us, and they have travelled

53


5/42

further and waited longer than us. We can say that: These fought valiantly asa disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil and remained faithfulto Christ to the end of their lives.

These more experienced Christians ahead of us in this procession are also

here to serve us. This long line of Christians is also a supply chain by whichgood things are passed to us by those ahead of us. What they receive, theypass on to us. They are waiting for us and are not going to finish without us.Whatever they receive, it makes them a distinct people, different from thewider world. This communion of persons made holy very slowly mediates thisholiness to us, so we can share in their fellowship and become holy too. Theypass back to me the instalments of holiness that we call sacraments, each ofwhich is an intangible piece of the indivisible union of Christ with his people,and of the holy and indivisible union of God with man. This imperceptiblestream of holiness is the resurrection, seeping into us. The community that isslowly gathering around Christ, and which we know as the Church, is the first

glimmerings of the resurrection. This is why at your baptism we pray: MayGod who has received you by Baptism into his Church, pour upon you theriches of his grace, that within the company of Christs pilgrim people you maydaily be renewed by his anointing Spirit and come into the inheritance of thesaints in glory.

5. Rival gatheringsThe Church is these people whom Christ gathers and sends to us so that wecan also gather around him. But there are many other assemblies andgatherings, of course, focused on other individuals or other movements. Theworld is made up of people swirling around, gathering around one event, andthen moving on to gather around the next.

The worship the Christian community proclaims that the God of Jesus Christis the only God. But it does not say this in a vacuum, but in a world of voicesall saying something about what we want or need, and therefore about whowe should be gathering around. All human beings give themselves away: wecannot help ourselves. We worship and adore, and we give ourselves away.We leak or bleed: adoration seeps out of us, and this makes us utterly needy.We need recognition and we throw ourselves as anyone and anything to getit. If we do not give ourselves to Christ we give ourselves away to some other

power. Either we love and adore God and give ourselves to him, which is ofcourse to give ourselves backto him. Or we direct all that love and adorationto other individuals, and the movements that gather around them. If we dothis, we give these individuals more adoration than they can manage, and sowe inadvertently make idols of them. Our whole consumer culture is a vastadoration service which interposes itself here, opening up a gap in order to fillit with whatever love service it is able to concoct. The love industries percolatebetween each man and woman, always setting before each the image theidol of a more perfect woman or man. As such it is a vast displacementactivity that keeps us from receiving, sharing and returning the true love thatcomes from God.

54


6/42

All the voices that make up our consumer culture tell us who we are, and whatwe should demand from one another. They are making claims to power too,since they suggest that we commit ourselves to them. The Church must beable to put names to these. It calls them gods or idols: they are images ofwhat is good, which have somehow become distorted. Whenever it is in

session its worship brings the Christian community into confrontation with allother gods. The Christian community speaks out to the world, warning bothhow powerful these delusions are, but also how demeaning its gods are, andhow powerless and illusory. Every Sunday morning the Christians meettogether to tell the gods of their defeat. The gods are being taken out of us,and growing less with our every act of confession of Christ.

6. The service of ChristThe worship service is Christs service and worship of God. But also Christmakes himself our servant and serves us. So the service is two things: it isthe Sons eternal conversation with the Father, and it is his service to us. This

means that the Church is the labour and ministry of Jesus Christ for us. Heworks for us and provides for us. This second meaning is the basis of the first.God creates Christian worship for us. It starts before we arrive and continuesafter we have left. This service and song of the whole company around Godgoes on over our heads, and it spills over from heaven in the form of theevents of worship that we know, so what we experience in Church is a relayfrom heaven.

The Church service generates the Christian ministry to the world. The Churchservice powers the Christian mission. By publicly withholding all worship fromeveryone who is not God, and doing this so all the rest of the world can see,the Christian community provides a service to the world because it de-bunksall our excessive claims and demythologise all who seek power withoutacknowledging its source. It withholds excessive acknowledgement oradoration from every other authority. The possibility of this true worship, andthus the possibility of truth, and the consequent denial of false worship, isitself witness to God and so service to the world.

The Church service is the event of Gods work for us. God not only works forus, but he is at work on us. He is opening us up to one another. He preventsus from finally writing one another off and closing down on one another. All of

us who do come to church, come for others. We are here for those who arenot here. Our identity and the truth of human society can be found in thatworship service, so that when we are with God we discover how to bebecome human together.

The Church is public and visible and therefore institutional. It is a generousthing to be available so that anyone and everyone knows how to find us. Ourbuildings are visible and opening hours are just as long as they can be. Youdon't have to make an appointment or join a queue. The Church is for thesake of the world, indeed it is dedicated to the world. But the Church is onlygood for the world because it is different from the world. Christian life is

communal life and it is discipleship.

55


7/42

The Church has long term positive impact on society. In order that the Churchcannot be concerned about the form of that impact. The Church is not goodfor society because it sets out to be so. The more it is aware, and nervous ofhow this will play with society, the less good for society the Church will be.Only by being true to the gospel can the church be good for society.

We meet together with other churchesThe Church gathers in a particular place. We meet here on behalf of thewhole people of London. London is my place, yours is somewhere elseperhaps. When it gathers, the church intercedes for its own locality, speakingon its behalf to God.

But we in London are under a common discipline, and it is this that keeps usone people gathered from many. We are the Church in London only as longas we are under the discipline of the whole worldwide Church, and indeed thewhole historic Church. They hold us to account and keep us honest. They

insist so that we do not withhold any part of the gospel from London. Withoutthis discipline would we become a clique of the like-minded and in the long-term we would be in danger of becoming a sect. As long as we are connectedto the other churches in London we remain under the discipline of the wholeChurch. We are able to say that:We are members together of the Body of ChristWe are children of the same heavenly FatherWe are inheritors together of the kingdom of God

2 Hearing Truth and Judgment

The Church that hears the Word of God also passes it on to the world. It tellsthe world that there is there is an authoritative judge who can tell what is trueand what is not. That God and no one else is this judge is good news. TheChurch says: Look, the Judge is at the door!

1. The Word, the Spirit and the ChurchThe Church hears Scripture read in public. Scripture is read, morning andevening, in every act of Christian worship. His mercies are new every

morning. When we are ready to admit that our predecessors in the Christianfaith have been faithful, and have handed on to us the truth of Jesus Christand his apostles, an extraordinary adventure opens up to us. As the hymngoes: Our fathers owned thy goodness and we their deeds record (NEH 479).

The Word of God is heard in Scripture. For this reason the Christian churchreads all Scripture and thus that it reads the Old Testament. We may notdivide the Old Testament from the New, for so we will divide the indivisibletestimony of God. If we were to demote or discard the Old Testament it wouldbe because we did not understand that we are the gentiles, the latecomersintroduced into the long-existing community of God. This community may only

be known to us as the people of the Old Testament, the people of Israel wholooked forward to Christ and finally bore him for us. The work of God began

56


8/42

before us, and has created a community that precedes us. We may read theScriptures because of the many prophets and people of the people of Israelhave transmitted them to us. If we do not see the Old Testament as thetestament and testimony of God we cannot hope to join the people of Godrevealed to us there.

The sermon connects all the readings, the Old Testament and New Testamenttogether, so that each part of the bible is the view-finder through which weread every other part. As a whole, Scripture is the viewfinder through whichwe can see our own world. The sermon shows us how to see all that happensto us, together and individually, in the light of the progress of the whole peopleof God. The narrative of the way that the Christian people has to go unfoldsthrough all the readings of the year. It is marked by the liturgical calendar.Each sermon helps us follow our own progress around the year, and soshows us that the whole Church is together on pilgrimage. The people ofIsrael and every generation of the Church are our guides and marshals on the

path that we are taking together.

The sermon unpacks the word and actionWhat is the purpose of the sermon? Imagine you are in a place that you havenever been in before, packed with people, watching a ceremony that is takingplace in a language you do not speak. You are baffled by everything you see.Then, because he realises how lost you feel, someone next to you in thecrowd tells you what you are witnessing. He points out the action going onabove the assembled worshippers and he gives you just enough whisperedcommentary to pick up what is going on. This is what the sermon is. It is amurmured commentary on the action going on all around us, in this worship,in the Scripture of the people of God, which is the plot of this worship, and inthe world around us. This action is the entire action of Jesus Christ and hiscompany in the creation and redemption of the world. The action of God thatis recorded for us by the people of Israel in the two books of the old and newtestaments, is going on live above and around us. It is reports of this actionthat we hear when the bible is read to us. The sermon is to help us see whatis going on above us and before us.

Psalms and morning and evening worshipThe Christian faith requires us to learn vast swathes of text by heart so that

the words found good by many generations bubble up from within us. Weread the bible on the train, as we come back in the morning from our nightwork in the city. We say our prayers as we walk work and we sing inwardly.As we read the history of God's dealings with his people Israel, we learn theirprayers and so learn what to say when things go wrong. From them we havethe psalms and prayers to use for every eventuality of life with God. as thehymn puts it:Our fathers held the faith receivedBy saints declared, by saints believedBy saints in death defended (NEH 479)

57


9/42

3. JudgmentWhen we are gathered together we are in the presence of God. We say: TheLord is here. His Spirit is with us. God sees us and knows us. He is the onewhose good opinion we value, whose judgment we trust. His Word comes tous as judgment. If he did not give us his judgment he would be no help to us,

and thus not be our friend.

The Lord is not merely present in our worship, but present in judgment. He isthe judge who now holds session for us. All the world is present in thisassembly and can see how it is. Every secret is made known, nothing ishidden; no one is left with only half the picture. The whole truth is revealedhere, and everyone can see it for what it is.

When we say that this is the judgment of God, we do not mean that it is notours. The truth is there to see. We can agree with the Lord and assent thatthings are indeed as he describes them. This judgment will be entirely ours

too, for it will be clear that the judgment the Lord gives is the right and the onlyjudgment, and the judgment that everybody concurs in and is pleased with. Allwho are present will declare themselves satisfied and glad. In Christianworship the ultimate judgment, the last word, is being given. This judgment isnot fate, it is not cruel or arbitrary or unwished for: we look for it, we demand itand protest when it is withheld, and it is a relief when it arrives.

Judgment is a good thing. Judgment is decision-making, and throughdecision-making we gain the experience that can help us become makers ofgood decisions. Good judgment is good: only bad judgment is bad. Being ableto tell the difference between a good decision and a bad one, is good. If yousee someone heading into danger, you shout a warning. You make ajudgment, a decision, based on instinct and if your judgment is right, perhapsyou have saved a life. We act for one another, and judge and make decisionson one another behalf.

Let us take a homely example. I present myself poorly. When you see how Ihunch my shoulders, you demonstrably relax your shoulders, to show me thatI am holding myself too tight. Each time you do this, you are enabling me tosee how I look, and how way-off my self-image is. Imagine that you see howbadly dressed I am, and decide to take me shopping for some new clothes.

Each time I emerge from the changing room wearing some new item, youindicate with a slight nod or wince how suitable it is. Each of these is a littlejudgment. Because you do this gently and subtly, I welcome this rather thanresent it. I rely on your judgment, and learn how to judge myself, and so Igrow into greater self-control and self-possession.

We are able to judge positively for one another. Then we can tell each othernot to be afraid, not to harm ourselves, and we can trust one another to seekthe best for us, and so seek one anothers opinion. We all seek judgment. Thepoint is only to find the judge who is not needy and so has no designs of hisown on you.

58


10/42

The news of our redeemerGod is judge, and he presents himself before us in Church to give us hisjudgment. It is because he is indeed our friend that God comes to us as ourjudge. There is someone who can really tells us who we are. When we hearScripture, we receive that scrutiny and that examination, and we see how

things lie with us in how he speaks to us.

To conceal this news from one another is an unkind thing to do. When thisnews is not clearly expressed and welcomed, but ridiculed and belittled, theChurch suffers. But when we ourselves are complicit in covering up the newsof this true judge, that is a disaster. Getting the information about any publicservice is a fundamental to the success of that service itself. The news ofGod, the access to God and the name of the true God is essential to theservice. The name of God is the means by which the service of God can beaccessed. Knowledge of this access is access this service. And the reach ofthe name of God's name and the extent to which he is known is the extent of

the cover he offers. God is known not for his sake, but yours. The glory ofGod, the extent of public knowledge of him, is not for him, but for us. Toproclaim the name of God is to proclaim salvation. As we say in the eucharist:He opened wide his arms for us upon the cross; he put an end to death bydying for us

4. The Word of GodThe Word God comes to the words of manThe Word of God comes to the word of man. The world is made up of themany words of God and of man, and all the words of man are the words he isgiven by God, which he must some day return to God so that they be

renewed. Whenever this contrast between the word of God and the word ofman is not made, the Christian faith is seen in abstraction from the world towhich it speaks comes in service, pointing to this salvation.

Our confidence in our accounts of the work of Christ, and of the atonementand sacrifice is low when we do not understand that the Gospel comes into aworld made up of many gospels. The whole truth, of the Word of God,confronts the many half-truths, of the many words of man. The gospel enablesto identify and diagnose all half-truths as no-gospel. The worshippingcommunity of the Church therefore has to contrast the Christian message toall the other messages; it says that there are two liturgies. There is theChristian liturgy, which is true worship. And there are the many paganliturgies, in which mans worship is turned in the wrong direction. The firstliturgy is directed by love of God to the perfecting of all God's creatures, whilethe others take us in all sorts of other directions, dissipating us until the truthof our identity is broken and lost.

The task of expounding Scripture to proclaim the work of Christ. In its worshipthe Church says and sings many things about the work of Christ and cross. Inthe songs we sing in our worship one Scriptural statement is piled on another.But when we explain what we mean, we have to unpick things a little and

show how they cohere in a single narrative, the narrative of Christ and his

59


11/42

people. We have to preach and expound the atonement. We have sermonsfor this purpose, and we have an educated clergy to give these sermons.

5. The cross of ChristSin and death

In our worship we link the act of confession and judgment, forgiveness andabsolution. We understand what these are by the cross. And we understandwhat the cross is because the Old Testament is read and preached on. TheChurch that reads the Old Testament is able to see Easter as Passover, andsee that this Passover lies ahead of us. the baptism service tells us:Through water you led the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt to freedomin the Promised Land. In water your Son Jesus was anointed by the HolySpirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us from the death of sin to newnessof life.

The Old Testament is given to the Church so that this holy community may

find in it the means to read the New Testament, and so understand that thesetwo testaments are not just about Christ, or about a timeless moral truth, butabout what lies ahead of us. The Church that receives the Old and Newtestaments together can see the promise of its rescue from darkness, theforgiveness of sins and so it is enabled to marvel at its salvation and sing thepraises of God. The Church that does not read the Old Testament willunderstand the New Testament only as an expression of timeless moral truthwithout any hope of forgiveness and transformation. That Church will then bewithholding that forgiveness, and leave its people in their sins. Then thewitness and priestly office of the Church to the world will be left unperformed,the world will remain its sins, and the Church will be responsible to God forthe misery of the world.

If we do not feed from Christ, the Word who is the living bread, we feedinstead on food from other sources. When that eternal bread is withheld, theChurch feeds on what it gets from other masters, and the news of truejudgment and salvation does not reach those most in need of it. Their lives willbe held to our account. Just as there are always two cities and two liturgies,that of Christ and that of all masters, so there are always more than one cupset before us, the cup of Lord and the cup offered by other masters. If we donot see ourselves as Israel ready to undergo this Passover, we will have

turned ourselves into Pharaoh, who attempted to put himself between Godand his people.

6. Hearing worshipThe Word of God is heard in the entire prayer and worship of thecongregation. Scripture forms all the acclamations, songs and hymns thatmake up the service. All hymn books and song sheets are there to teach usthe words to sing. The aim of these books is that the congregation come toknow its hymns and songs off by heart. The Christian faith requires us to learnvast swathes of text, so we can reproduce them from memory: we want thewords of Scripture to bubble up from within us. These are the words found

good by previous generations. We should learn the hymns and know them offby heart, along with the bible and the rest of the service. The words of our

60


12/42

hymns and songs should respond to the preceding Scripture. That is why wesay: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. You have the words of eternal life

The Church must pass on the Word that it receives. The prayers andresponses collected in Common Worship, the worship book of the Church of

England, represents the repository entrusted to this generation for the sake ofa new generation for the Church in our society. We have to pass this worshipon to them.

The narrative of the Church service is given by the narrative of Scripture, andthe narrative of Scripture is the narrative of the events in the life of Jesus ofNazareth. This narrative of those events are told us by Jesus Christ himself.Jesus Christ spells himself out to us through these readings. In short, what isgoing on in the Church service is Christ coming to us and taking us with himto God. As the witness and servant of God, the Church is constantly watchedand judged. For the Lord intends that we pass on the Word that we have

received. When the Church does not do so, it sins. It sins against those forwhom this word was entrusted to it, and since God has taken the side ofthese, it sins against God . The Church is most under the scrutiny andjudgment of God. Liberation comes from naming the creatures of Godtruthfully. In the worship of the gathered Christian community we participate inthe Sons worship of the Father. His worship calls into being a company thatworships with him and so participates in the conversation in which the Sonhears and receives and replies to the Father.

The Christians must also listen to the world, compassionately but critically.They do not have to accept its own account of its predicament. They aresummoned and gathered to judge, and so the judge the liturgy of the world.Only the Church says that that man is a mystery and a wonder, knowable yetnever utterly known, who will always surprise us and about whom there isalways more to learn. He cannot be truly known through the reductiveconcepts of power which the liturgy of the world deals in. Only the discourseof the Church of love and service can point to the whole depth of Godsrelationship to man and of mans dignity as God's beloved creature. It is thisinsistence on the depth of man and the world that makes the Church essentialto the functioning of civil society. In this liturgy we can speak directly to oneanother. We can charge one another with failing to live in peace and truth.

And we can forgive one another. So in the power and fellowship of Christ weare reconciled, our state of war brought to an end and we are brought topeace.

The Christian life and teaching is the grace of God mediated through theexperience of previous generations of Christians. It allows to us grow andbecome this distinctive and holy people, able to hold out to our society what itcannot receive from any other source.

61


13/42

3 Singing Joyful People

We are sent to the world to celebrate the goodness of God and of the creationthat that he has given us. We are planted and established here, so we rejoice

and are glad before the world.

1. We enter the presence of the LordAs its enters the presence of God the Christian community sings its thanks,with psalms and hymns. The psalms are the basis of Christian worship andpraise. We praise daily. In our psalm and hymns we encourage one another tocome into this praise.O Come let us sing unto the LordLet us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation (Psalm 95)

So we sing

Be still, for the presence of the LordThe Holy One is hereCome bow before him nowWith reverence and fear.. (47)

And we sing:Welcomed in to the courts of the kingIve been ushered into your presence.Lord I stand on your merciful groundYet with every step tread with reverenceAnd Ill fall face down

as your glory shines around (Matt Redman)

Every Christian congregation sings and proclaims this glory:Salvation belongs to our GodWho sits on the throneAnd to the LambPraise and glory,wisdom and thanks,honour, and power and strengthBe to our God for ever and ever (Source 443)

2. Celebration and the young churchThe Christian life witnesses to the coming together of age-groups. TheChristian life of young Christians operates on cycles that are longer andshorter than that of the Church as a whole. Whilst we are in our teens, orstudents or young adults, we do not always keep the same time as the rest ofthe Church. On the shorter cycle is the worship music of the young church.The young church meets on Saturday or Sunday night for worship andteaching, but also to eat out together, to go to concerts or to see a film. On thelonger cycle are the annual festivals. The Summer festivals, such as SoulSurvivor, Spring Harvest, New Wine and Home Focus, are the distinct way inwhich young Christians come together in worship. There are similar youthmovements, large-scale Youth Days, renewal and charismatic movements

62


14/42

and open-air masses in the Roman Catholic church. These festivals areregarded as new, but they are not. In the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies, the Presbyterian churches held vast church camps, calledconferences or conventions, perhaps four times a year, with days ofconfession and preparation leading up to a communal celebration of the

Lords Supper. The antecedents of these could be traced back into medievalhistory. The Church has always met and worshipped out of doors in largesummer events related to the Church calendar or harvest, with fairs andfestivals.

The worship of the young Church expresses yearning and desire. Theyexpress what all humankind feels, but most humankind suppresses and is indenial about. Our hearts are restless, says Augustine, until they find their restin God. There is a dignity in admitting that we are restless because we are notcomplete in ourselves. As long as we say that we yearn for what we do not yethave, we keep one step ahead of the love industries, that intend to trade on

that desire, claiming to fill it while making it less and less tempered and underour control. The Church yearns for its Lord, the bridegroom who is on his way.Who is this that rises like the dawnfair as the moon, bright as the sun, My LordMany waters cannot quench your love,stronger than death, sweeter than wineAlways your light shines in all of the earthAlways I love you(Source 1627)

3. Old songs and newThe Church has many musical cultures, but most obviously there is traditionalworship and new styles of worship. The Church must always have both. Letus look at the new worship songs. We sing sets of songs, one after another,uninterruptedly in a time of worship. Song by song we progress from throughrooms of the palace and into ever-closer presence of the Lord into intimacywith him.Be still, for the presence of the LordThe Holy One is hereCome bow before him nowWith reverence and fear..We stand on holy ground.. (Source 47)

God loves man. Between them there is a love affair.To be in your presenceTo sit at your feet,Where your love surrounds meAnd makes me completeThis is my desireO Lord this is my desire (Source 524)

We might say that these songs are too repetitive, or too focused on theexperience of the individual Christian. But there are psalms that are equally

heavy on repetition, and focused on the fear and hope, and joy and love of the

63


15/42

individual. We might say that not very much goes on in these songs, butperhaps that is how love affairs appear to those outside them.Isn't he beautiful, beautiful, isn't he?Prince of Peace, Son of God, isn't he?...Yes, you are beautiful, beautiful, yes, you are (Wimber 242)

We are promised and engaged to Christ. Christ loves us and gives us hispraise. In much of our worship though we put this the other way around.Lord, you have my heart (Source 341)It is complete intimacy, even ecstasy.In your arms of loveHolding me stillHolding me nearIn your arms of love (Source 239)

Christ is wooer. We are wooed. So we are sometimes passionate.I am my beloved and he is mine, I am my beloved and he is mine, and hisbanner over me is love (Source 152)No one but you Lordcan satisfy the longing in my heartnothing I do Lordcan take the place of drawing near to youOnly you can fill my deepest longingOnly you can breathe in me new life (373)

But our passion for Christ is also intermittent. Sometimes we are faithless, arun-away bride. For this reason, these songs must be accompanied by our actof confession and repentance. We cannot sing alone, but must also hearScripture, pray and confess our unworthiness, and celebrate the steadiness ofChrists love for us.Set me as a seal upon your heart,as a seal upon your arm;For love is strong as deathpassion fierce as the grave;its flashes are flashes of fire,a raging flame.

Many waters cannot quench love,neither can the floods drown it (Canticle The Song of Solomon)4. MarriageJerusalem the brideLove is fundamental to human life. We give love and seek love, with the sameseriousness as we exist. There are many forms of love and friendship, andthey can all be gifts of God when they are received and exercised withinChristian discipleship. But the chief mode of love, created for us, is the love ofman and woman. The love of the two sexes is the basic gift of God to allmankind, whether or not we experience it at first hand. The distinction of the

sexes is the basis of all human relationship and society. As the Prayer Booksays:

64


16/42

When you made us in your image,creating us male and female,you gave us the gift of marriage.

In marriage two people are brought together publicly in a relationship of love

without limit or end. They give themselves away, to each other, with nointention of withdrawing that love again. This exclusive relationship is a holymystery in which man and woman become one flesh. Their marriage is a littlesociety which is good for society as a whole. As the prelude to the serviceputs it: The hospitality of their home may bring refreshment and joy to allaround them; overflowing to neighbours and embrace those in distress orneed. They are receptive to the possibility of children first of all. Marriage isgiven as the foundation of family life in which children may be born andnurtured. Children can only be brought into the world in the security of therelationship of one father and mother. All children have the right to apermanent relationship with the two people responsible for their existence.

Their relationship is the covenant which gives a child the unchangingfoundation on which all his or her other relationships can develop. Marriagesare the basis on which a new generation can grow to emotional maturity anddiscover the permanence of love in their turn. Marriage is the basis on whichour society can receive a new generation and look forward in confidenceabout its renewal and continuation. It is the source of the continuity, hope andconfidence of society as a whole.

All marriage is based in the covenant of God with man which is the mysticalunion or marriage of Christ and his Church. Marriage is a gift through whichhusband and wife shall be united with one another as Christ is united with his

bride, the Church. Chastity or celibacy is fundamental to Christian discipleshipand of the spiritual gifts it is the most central gift. All the gifts relate to love,and support and define love, making it deliberate and intentional, so that itceases to be frantic or indiscriminate love, by which we rebound from oneinfatuation to the next. Love becomes free when it is self-controlled. ForChristians, marriage is a particular form of chastity: these two Christians givethemselves to support one another in this discipled life. The woman you marryis the exclusive channel through whom you may love all other women: she isall womankind, for you, so you can explore her forever without ever reachingthe end. If you imagine that you are subsequently driven to love some otherwoman, you are getting less woman, not more. Along with an individual loss ofself-control and personal integrity, all society is weakened when the unitycreated by love is broken. This is why the Church prays:Bless all whom you make one flesh in marriage.May their life together be a sign of your love to this broken world,so that unity may overcome estrangement

5. HymnsThe worship of the Church is always both old and new. Through itsrelationship with all previous generations of Christians, the contemporaryChurch can nurture the future generations that are given to it. For this reasonwe must look at the issue of old and new in our worship. If worship songs arenew, hymns are old, so why do we continue to sing them?

65


17/42

Hymns have narrative. They give us the story of the gospel and teach us toplace ourselves within its this narrative so that we understand ourselves asthe people of Christ. These hymn-writers and all those who have passed themon to us, teach us who we are. Many hymns and songs are interpretations ofthe psalms, or of those other songs in the bible, known as canticles. The

Magnificat, song that Mary sings when the birth of Jesus is foretold, is anexample of a canticle. Every part of the bible can be plundered for songmaterial.

We have to learn our hymns and songs. If we know them by heart we will beable to remember them when we are in trouble and hymnbooks are out ofreach. As long as we sing the praises of God through it, no trouble will befatal. These hymn-writers give us the words to sing when we are in trouble,and that makes them our friends. Their rhymes help us remember, and that iswhy hymns come in verses with lines that rhyme.

All spoken languages are always changing, so any version of a song isalways slowly becoming archaic. If we left our hymns unchanged, changes inthe language will eventually make them difficult to understand. Many of ourhymns have an air of Victorian sentimentality. That is not their fault of theirwriters. It simply means that we have to re-touch them and untangle theirtangled syntax to show the sense of what we are singing. One reason why wehave sermons is to point out what we are singing and to make all our worshipplain. And we can also write contemporary versions of them, which is what theVictorians did: they took the songs they inherited and brought them up todate.

We can translate them closely or we can paraphrase them loosely. The pointis not simply to carry repeat these hymns, but to re-write them in our ownlanguage so that what they said to earlier generations they now said to us.This does not mean that we should only sing the contemporary versions, butwe should keep singing both the old hymn and the contemporary version.They often diverge enough to become separate songs, and often enough isthe earlier version that preserves the richest theology. This brings us back tothe problem of versification.

Rhythm, rhyme and versification

Why did the earlier generations use rhyme and so write songs in rigorousverse form? Why did they cramp the natural sense of the sentences bycramming them into verse? They did this because we also sing God's praiseswhen we are not in Church, but in the week when we are doing somethingelse. At all earlier periods Christians did much more manual work than we do,and they travelled on foot. We may sing when we are washing up, cleaningthe house and particularly, walking. Walking is rhythmic. The first and mostnatural rhythm is the unhurried rhythm of walking along. So songs are forsinging as you work and as you walk, and particularly as you do so with lots ofother people. A good song helps a company to travel a long way. Every earliergeneration knows this and this is why the songs with the strongest narrative,

images and rhythm are best for singing on the road and survive the longest.

66


18/42

We can try to re-interpret songs keeping the rhythm and versification, or evenputting new songs into better versification. We need to do this so we can singit with all our minds as well as all our hearts. It is possible to sing these hymnswithout noticing what we are singing, or even being able to make much senseof it when we do notice. But let us at least begin to notice. Our Victorian hymn

writers rediscovered some of the of treasures of the early Church. Here is ahymn by Fulbert of Chartres (960-1028), in the version by John Mason Neale:

Ye choirs of new Jerusalem,to sweet new strains attune your theme;the while we keep, from care released,with sober joy our Paschal feast:

When Christ, unconquer'd lion, firstthe dragon's chains by rising burst:and while with living voice he cries,the dead of other ages rise.

Engorged in former years, their preymust death and hell restore to-day:and many a captive soul, set free,with Jesus leaves captivity.

Fulbert tells the saints in heaven to keep singing, because we are celebratethe triumph of the resurrection on this Easter day. As he starts to give reasonsfor his joy he sets out into his narrative: Christ has broken the bonds of death,and is leading all his people out of deaths captivity. If we sing these songs,making new sense of them, we will have joined Fulbert and those choirs of

new Jerusalem.

The Church will rediscover versification when it starts to sing and walk,worshipping while travelling. The Christian pilgrimage can be a long trudge.We will persevere if we sing the songs that keep us going us, in step, andwhich give us the narrative that tells us where, why and to whom we arewalking, why we are doing so together, and why we are journeying through aworld that does not like to see us do so. But we can sing:O Jesus I have promised to serve thee to the endBe thou ever near me, my master and my friendI shall not fear the battle if thou art by my sideNor wander from the pathway if thou wilt be my guide (538)

6. Blessing and honourGod gives his Spirit to all creation and to all creatures. Words not only namethings, but they also bring things into being. Words create life and take it awayagain. People receive new strength from the words of recognition we givethem. When the right words are withheld from us our confidence and strengthrun out. Praise is the fundamental currency of human being. We talk somepeople up, and we talk others down, promoting some, but ignoring ordenigrating others. The world is a blizzard of praise, glory and honour,recognition, esteem and respect, and it is also the place where praise andesteem is withheld, misdirected and perverted. As long as we honour people,giving them praise and gentle judgment in proportion, they flourish and their

67


19/42

lives take their proper healthy course. When we withhold recognition fromthem they decline, first in morale, and then socially and economically. When,as a result of being made socially and politically invisible, they run out of thematerial means of life, they die. God sends his praise to man: When yousend your Spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the earth. When

you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust(Psalm 104.29-30).Christians acknowledge that man receives his true praise and affirmation fromGod, and say so, sending their praise back to God. Prayer is God's breathreturning to him, as George Herbert put it.

We may not take the recognition or glory that comes our way and assume thatwe deserve it and that it is ours in an absolute sense. That honour and glorymust be returned to its source. If we have done well, it is because we havebeen done well by. It is good for us to point out where all our happinesscomes from. The origin of our worship is that God speaks in our praise. Hegives us words of love and acknowledgement. It considers us worth it, he

attributes us with worth, which is the original derivation of the word worshipafter all. So in our worship, we re-direct this the traffic of praise back to God.We say that it is God who loves man, and our love of God is recognition of thesource of all human love. So we sing:Jesus we adore you,lay our lives before you,how I love you

We may adore God. Adoration sent in other direction will corrupt its object.But we may adore God with complete safety. We may and must, adore himonly. All human loves, even of parent and child, even of husband and wife,need to be defined by this love first, or they may cease to be true. God lovesand adores us, and we receive this love and so we have to give it. The morewe give ourselves to him the more secure we become. If we do not give ourlove to God, we give it to someone who is not able to deal with it, who is notable to return our identity to us. The way to love someone truly is to recognisethat that they are creatures of God: that recognition keeps them and us safe.

Our love can be corrupting and destructive if it turns to adulation. As creatureswe are so needy that our love tends to make them more than creatures, itcannot recognise the proper limits. Our adoration is too strong a force for any

creature to deal with. Our adulation will press them out of shape and temptthem to think of themselves both as more, and as less, than they are. Ourwhole existence in the marketplace is searching for, and inventing,compensations for true love. That true love and perfect recognition God gives.It enables us to withdraw our worship from all other objects, and denounceour misdirected loves, mediated through the market and the variousideologies in the public square. This true love comes to us from God, and ismediated by God through the Church, the community he has made for thepurpose. Then we can sing:Overwhelmed by lovedeeper than oceans

high as the heavens.Ever-living God

68


20/42

Your love has rescued me (422)7. The Spirit of freedom and discipleshipThe Spirit brings freedom. But for us freedom has to be learned, which meansthat we need guidance, direction and control. Freedom does not mean that we

are abandoned to our own devices. This freedom comes together withfellowship. The Lord provides for his Church, giving it the practices ofdiscipleship by which we can learn our freedom. So the Spirit does not leaveus on our own, but puts us in good company, giving us other Christians to lookafter us. The Spirit gives us apostles who are the gentleness of Christ for us,who will sustain us with the guidelines, teachers, practices and exercise thatcomes from service.

Singleness, celibacy and self-controlWe want to be disciples. This means that we see the point of discipline, andare ready for instruction and correction. Only the Christian who has accepted

and been chastened by correction is able to offer correction. A true frienddoes not just tell us we want to hear, but is able to bring us some gentle wordof correction. Not to give people the discipleship they need and want is asirresponsible as not sending children to school, or teaching them goodmanners and how to manage their emotions. They need guidance anddiscipleship in order to find out how things work, and to do so by both tellingthem and by letting them experiment and find out for themselves. These laws,guidelines, teachers, practices, exercises, books are the gifts of the Spirit.These are what the Spirit gives us, and there is no way to the Spirit except viathe gifts by which we introduces us to himself and prepares us for increasingproximity to him.

Christians are taught a self-controlled lifestyle, which involves turning awaymany apparently more compelling choices. As soon as we are able to turnsome of these options away we get better at deciding between them. Whenwe can say no so some choices, we start to develop some character of ourown and cease to be so easily moulded. When we do not acquire this self-control or self-possession we are shaped by whatever the market is selling.

Worship in Spirit and truthGod has married man to himself. Christ is the groom and the Church is his

bride. In the words of one canticle: I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, comingdown out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.The marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herselfready.The resurrection is the demonstration that the Spirit has united us to Christand, in him, to one another. Though we break the marriage-vow, we mayrenew it and be restored to him. What the Spirit binds nothing can unbind: theSpirit has bound Christ to himself, and he has bound Christs people to Christ,without limit, forever. No created power, not even death, can tear Christ awayfrom God: as a result, no created power, not even death, can tear us awayfrom Christ, or oblige Christ to let go of us. The Spirit has broken the bondsthat held us and brought us into this communion and now we can open our

mouths to speak, to judge and to praise.

69


21/42

The Lord is the Spirit. His people can worship him only in Spirit, for only thecan bring us into communion with the Son within which we may see the truth.The Spirit who raised Christ from us will also raise us to him. Christsresurrection is promise and warning of our own future resurrection. Our newfreedom is the demonstration of the resurrection, which has put its indelible

mark on us, sealing us for a future with him. We are that community thatknows itself to have been brought together by the resurrection and overcomethe power that set each things against all others. The Spirit makes a greatcompany, the train that follows the Son, and which is his glory. Jesus is nolonger alone, but with all the prophets and servants of Israel behind him. Thiswhole company of heaven is a totality cannot be broken or divided for theHoly Spirit makes us members of an impregnable a spiritual body which isto say, one which is no longer subject to decay.

The Church is drawn into ecstatic praise of Christ in which all sing in chorusand unison. But this impulse that brings them to into one voice, or harmony of

voices, intends to make them reasoning and speaking people. This singing isnot beyond our control, but strengthens our own self-control and enables us tosubordinate ourselves to one another. The whole congregation is at work inthis worship, so every part of the service is antiphonal. We confess that it isChrist is who is doing all the work in this worship by his Spirit and that we aresimply his passengers. We do not know or comprehend or control Christ orhis worship.

Singing is with your heart, that is, with the whole person, body and mind.Speaking is reasoning, with your mind. The whole body alternates betweensinging, acting as whole (spiritual) persons and speaking-and-listening, whichis to act as minds that reason with other created minds. Reasoning, mind tomind, enables us to participate in the singing, in which we communicate aswhole person to another. Everything that the Church does must be done forthe strengthening of the Church, says the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 14.26).

This participate in the service of the Spirit makes us free. He brings us toChrist and so releases us from every other master, and enables us to confessno lord but this one. Now we have identified the Lord, the right Lord, we arenot taken in by any other and can be fearless in the face of them. Whenever itis in session the Christian community speaks out to the world, telling it how

demeaning, and how powerless and illusory, its gods are.

4 Praying Confession and ReleaseThe community that has received the promise of the resurrection is able toconfess their sins and receive forgiveness and new life.

1. The crossWhen we come in to Church we gather around Christ. We identify him by thecross. There is a cross on the altar and in the window above it, and the cross

is at the head of the procession that leads us in and out of our assembly. Wesign ourselves with the sign of the cross or wear a crucifix around our neck.

70


22/42

We live under this cross. He opened wide his arms for us. Arms outstretched,Christ covers and shelters us. He is the canopy of the covenant under whichour redemption is possible.

The cross stands for Christ, even when no crucified Christ is explicitly

portrayed there. It looks as though Christ is alone on the cross and thereforeas though we are not that cross. But Christ is only there as us. Man is on thatcross: the cross is an image of us. Man is the figure distorted by pain andanguish. It is not just Jesus on that cross we see before us. That is also usthere. We are man, and this pain is ours.

The cross shows us that Christ sees us, and knows that this is what we are.He is fully aware of who and what we are, for no secrets are hidden. We arethe ones squirming in the grip of our passions and being slowly consumed bythem. We inflict this conflict on ourselves and on each other. We are on thiscross, and in this misery, and heading for this death and hell.

But we are not alone there. Christ does not leave us alone there. He remainsamong us and stands with us. The figure on the cross is a composite figure, ofChrist and us together, represented as a single figure.

We shut ourselves in a small and vicious place where we were sure that Godcould not reach us. But Christ has entered that place, and become one of us,man in agony. Christ has come to the man who is pulling himself apart, andeven taken on the body of this man, entered this process of mental andspiritual disintegration. He knows the place we are in, from inside. He has noreason to be here, with us; he could leave at any moment, but he remainshere. It is we inflicting this pain, on ourselves and also on him. We do not stopinflicting it, and seem ready to destroy ourselves and him. But Christ remainshere: he abides and withstands what we inflict. Finally our ability to sustainthis agony it is broken. Man is exhausted by his own conflict and agony andhis power to inflict it is broken. Christ has withstood the power of man to inflictthis passion. The ability of man to destroy himself is overcome by the ability ofChrist to withstand man, and end his career towards destruction. On thiscross Christ has triumphed over everything that bound us. This is why wesing:I bind this day to me for ever,

by power of faith, Christ's Incarnation;his baptism in Jordan river;his death on cross for my salvation;his bursting from the spicd tomb;his riding up the heavenly way;his coming at the day of doom (St Patrick Alexander)

2. Repentance and ForgivenessIn the eucharistic prayers we hear that: God so loved the world that he gavehis only Son Jesus Christ to save us from our sins

Christ saves us from our sins. We may therefore confess our sins, bereleased from them and be free of them. Sin is made of all our unfinished

71


23/42

business, all that we cannot cope with. It is not initially serious. But if this non-serious sin is left unidentified and untreated it becomes serious. The onlytreatment for sin is confession and repentance, that is, we may name it, dropit and walk away from it.

We can repent. This is where the Christian faith is on its own. No other world-religion offers forgiveness. They can offer bravery in the face of fate, and theycan offer oblivion, and the destruction of your personality. But the gospelbrings the forgiveness of sins. We can let go of the past so we are not trappedin a cycle of revenge and retaliation. Forgiveness lifts us out a closed systemand gives us a future. The prayer of forgiveness is spoken over us:Almighty God,who forgives all who truly repent,have mercy upon you,pardon and deliver you from all your sins,confirm and strengthen you in all goodness,

and keep you in life eternal;through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We are the people who can let go off our mistakes, and let them be takenaway from us. Without that release, we are like an old computer with so muchon its hard-drive, that its has slowed to a crawl. Its memory is taken up withthe all junk it has processed. So put down your burdens, for they do notbelong to you anymore. We sing:I heard the voice of Jesus sayCome unto me and restLay down thou weary one, lay down

Each of us is curved in on ourselves. Sealed in our separate bubbles we floatby one another. I am in flight from you and you from me. Each of us stands onour own planet, defending ourselves from the incursions from others, but isutterly lonely, and ridiculously repeating that this is not loneliness butindependence. Christ prickles the bubble in which each of us is trapped,releases us and puts us in one anothers embrace. Christ unrolls us, andstands us upright before one another. He gives you to me and me to you, andso puts us together.

By this absolution the Church publicly authorises and empowers me to go

free. The exchange of the peace is my release from the relationships I havenot be able to sustain and my reconciliation with all those who have rightly laidtheir charge against me. The Church prays:May almighty God deliver you from the powers of darkness, restore in you theimage of his glory and lead you in the light and obedience of Christ

3. ConfessionWe can confess our sins. We confess our sins in the course of our worshipservice. We may also confess them before the service, and we will be taughtthe prayers that will carry us through such trials in the future. We can go to thepriest and tell them whatever we like and so unload everything that weourselves cannot deal with. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin thatclings so closely, looking to Jesus in penitence and faith.

72


24/42

Confession is shared. We carry one anothers burdens. The real threatrepresented by any sin or any difficulty is that it isolates us from all others.The first step is to share it with other Christians to ensure that it does not havethis effect. Let go of it: whatever it is, go and tell them. We may sing:

Burden down, Lord, burden down, Lord, since I lay my burden down, wonder will my sister know me.. wonder will my brother know me, since I laymy burden down.

In Orthodox churches you can see people making their confession as theservice is getting underway, whilst the psalms of morning prayer are beingsung. They kneel before the priest, who sits on a bench at the side of thechurch, and make their confession at his feet, with the priests long stoledrawn over their heads, concealing them from the congregation. The longstole of the priest represents the covenant of God, the covering by which weare all protected. As a result of this confession their sins are no longer their

own, and they are ready to receive communion.We encourage one another and talk one another up. We ask one another togive us their judgment, that is to give us some constructive criticism. We allneed an external eye to see what we cannot see for ourselves, and to suggestways to achieve a better, less laboured way of doing things. Of course this ispainful business, that results in hurt feelings. But we should tell them when wesee someone still doing something that they don't need to do, speaking thetruth in love, and examining and testing what we hear from people.

You are free to bear the sins of others, free to put up with the bafflement andmisrepresentations. By sins, we do not of course mean simply fault and guilt,but the whole weight of promises not kept, expectations unmet, projectionsimposed, and all the unfinished business which we have created for ourselvesor which other people have left us with, and which we have wrongly or rightlytaken as our own load.

4. Healing and releaseI give myself away. We beg others to take notice of us. We are so needy forpraise. We spend our careers looking for the one thing that will make us standout, that will finally turn heads, and bring eyes on us so we hear. We prayconstantly, soundlessly to one another, and our prayer is a single plea, Look

at me!. We are needy and we send out a stream of demands and desires thatreflect this neediness. Our entire career is premised on keep this pleadisguised, and not letting this neediness become public. All the entertainmentindustry hears us and comes to our aid, translate our longings into demandsthat they can meet and, if we let them, they intercept the desires that shouldonly be heard by God and interpose themselves between us and God.

The Church service identifies where we have been cheated of recognition andlove. When such wounds remain unhealed, the original injury must be namedMaybe the Church can help us reconstruct whether it was some particularmember of the family or group who undermined our confidence or gave us

some pervasive sense of hopelessness. They committed the sin perhapswithout any awareness at the time that this is what they were doing. But over

73


25/42

the years we may have nurtured this offence too, turning the original actagainst us into a charge that we hold against everyone else. We may forgivethose who have sinned against us, and we must do so. We may sing:Right now the presence of the Lord is in this placehe will heal the broken hearted

he will bind up their woundsthe healing cleansing fire of the Lordis in this place (Source 949)

When we come into the assembly of the Church we are called back into ourright mind. The worship of God punctures my excessive claims, and releasesme from the misery of my desperate self-promotion. The Church service,which is the service of Christ to us, takes away from us all the substitutes thatwe have interposed between one another, and between ourselves and ourLord. As we gather to sing, pray, listen and eat we let go of all that diverts usinto inconsequential forms of life. The Church service is a form of letting go of

all that has enthralled and consumed us in the course of the week. We sing:Reclothe us in our rightful mind,in purer lives thy service find,in deeper reverence praise

As we gather to sing, pray, listen and eat we let go of all that makes life easyand that diverts us into inconsequential forms of life. The Church service is aform of letting go of all that enthrals us and consumes us in the course of theweek. It is therefore a form of fasting, which is what we call the period ofpreparation before any feast. We receive again the ability to decide what isimportant and let go of the rest. We are released. We can sing:As through man death comes to all,So has man unlocked deaths prison.As in Adam all are dead,So in Christ shall all be risen (155 Le Grice)

5. Prayer is learnedOnly the people of the resurrection can suffer and experience the passion,and become intercessors for the world, and experience and acknowledge itsredemption with worship and thanksgiving. Prayer also has to be taught andlearned. The whole service teaches us, how to speak and pray. But prayer

and worship as a whole requires catechism. We have to be taught to pray,and we have to be led in prayer and worship, by good example. For thisreason we should not prefer spontaneous prayer over learned and practisedprayer, but equally we should make room for spontaneous prayer. We followthe forms given to us. So we follow the form that we received from the Lordhimself:Our FatherWho art in heavenHallowed be thy name

Our worship sets out patterns which set out an alternation between prayer

leader and people. He gives pauses in which we put our own prayers for theparticular people and situations that concern us. They introduce their prayers,

74


26/42

and then gathering them in a prayer (the collect) that collects andsummarises all our prayers. This prayer must refer to the Scripture we haveheard and all the other people we have prayed for. Once again we have aconversation. The congregations learn this pattern and so they know when itis their turn. For this reason it is not a good thing that all prayer be made up

on the spot, ex tempore. It is no kinder to suggest that this is possible, anymore than it is kind to insist that a beginner get up and give a concert withoutrehearsal.

We make public confession of our sin. We do not attempt to portray ourselvesas either better or worse than we are. The jury is out on us, but we point outthat there is a just and merciful judge and we entrust ourselves to him.We prayForgive us our trespassesAnd we prayforgive us all that is past

and grant that we may serve you in newness of life

5 Eucharist New Life

God draws us into communion with himself. God himself prepares us for life inhis presence. In his communion we brought into lasting encounter with oneanother. In the Church we learn how to be with the other people of hiscommunion. They are given to us in instalments and represent a longpassage for us. At the end of that passage we will have learned how to love

and be present to them in the fellowship of God. We receive the presence ofChrist as we wait with his body, and from him we gain presence and throughhim become more truly present to one another.

1. PassoverChrist is our way into life. He has breached the prison wall which enclosed allhumanity and broken out, so he is our escape from death. He put an end todeath by dying for us. He now takes us with him. The Christian life is the longpassage that we will follow through the whole course of lives. We are passingover from mortality to eternal mortal life. When we gather around him in theeucharist, Christ takes us through the opening he has made, and which weidentify with the altar and the broken bread on it. On this side is the narrowconfinement, and on the other side is the whole infinite space of thecommunion of saints who enjoy all time and are of all places. But between thisgateway and that eventual kingdom there is a long passage and a roughcrossing. We pray:You delivered Noah from the waters of destructionYou divided the waters of the seaAnd by the hand of MosesYou led your people from slaveryInto the Promised Land (All Saints, Common Worship 368).

75


27/42

The Lord has come to us, and is now bringing with him the whole life andcommunion of God. This gathering of people in the eucharist around this altarlocate this coming and enable us to recognise this holy life and communion ofGod that comes to us from Christ. Led by him we begin to march through intothe unlimited territory of the communion of God in which all creatures can

meet. Christ has opened up this passage and he keeps it open for us by hisbody. Christ opens the Church to let us and all humanity enter through it intohis kingdom. The Church lines this route and accompanies us along it, so thatwe travel along it together. Those with the most experience of captivity singthe best songs about waiting for this redemption:Deep River, my home is over Jordan. Deep River, Lord I want to cross over,into camp groundJordan stream is wide and deep, Alleluia, Jordan stream is wide and deep,AlleluiaWade in the water, wade in the water children, wade in the waterRun river and darkness come, Alleluia, Run river and darkness come, Alleluia

Jesus stand in the other side, Alleluia, Jesus stand in the other side, Alleluia

2. ReleaseIn baptism we are stripped and washed. Baptism commences the permanentpurificatory service of the eucharist. Christ removes our sin from us, giving uswhat we do not have and taking away what we cannot cope with. We receivethis stripping and cleansing. In the eucharist we receive the strong medicinethat drives out all other toxins out of us, and divested of all that does not fit us.As canticle from Ezekiel tells us:I will sprinkle clean water upon you,and purify you from all defilementA new heart I will give you,and put a new spirit within you

This stripping, washing and purification continues all our lives. The Christianlife is the public continuation of our baptism. The whole Christian life ispreparation for the resurrection to eternal life. It is preparing us for thecelebration that will follow. We prepare by concentrating on what is ahead,and this concentration effects our whole routine and the place of food in it.Fasting is what we call the preparation before the eucharist. We tend not toeat before the eucharist. We fast together: if you fast on your own your fasting

may separate you from your community, which is the opposite of what ourpreparations are for. The whole Christian life is a preparation, punctuated byregular anticipations of arrival. Each Sunday and festival of the Church year isan anticipation of that celebration. We are waiting for our Passover and weare already undergoing it.

3. Living sacrifice, permanent serviceChrist gives presence to his bodyChrist carries us, serves us and cares for us as anyone one of us cares for hisown body. He serves and renews us with his life. He is the source of the life ofeach one of us and of the whole body together. We sing:

O Risen Christ today aliveAmid your church abiding

76


28/42

Who now your risen body giveNew life and strength providing (NEH 487 Morgan)

God dispenses himself to us gently. He is always able to give himself to us,yet slowly and always waiting until we are ready to receive more from him.

The whole created world represents the provision Christ has made for us andis the tangible aspect of the service that he makes to us. He refreshes theworld, so that it remains good for us, and he brings us into closer and morelasting relationship with it.

We are being made members of that communion of God. We are members ofthis communion in the material world that God has created for us. We arereceiving the spiritual and permanent life, which will preserve us as biologicalcreatures no longer constrained by the limit represented by mortality. We arethus being made real and present to one another with a presence that will nolonger be constrained by sin or death. So we shall be biological and spiritual

creatures. As the Liturgy of St James proclaims:Lord of lords, in human vestureIn the body and the blood;He will give to all the faithfulHis own self for heavenly food

Sacraments are instalments of the presence of God. They come to us in theform of creation redeemed and made holy. These instalments are sanctified,that is to say, dedicated to us by the Holy Spirit to do us good.

4. PresenceWe go up to the altar to receive the body and cup. They are given with thewords: The Body of Christ, The Blood of Christ. We reply with our:Amen

In this service and in this cup, we receive the presence of Christ. By thepower of the Holy Spirit he took flesh. He makes himself present to us and hegives us presence, so that we may become truly present to one another. Forwe are not yet truly present to one another, not yet real as Christ is real, notsolid as he is solid. We have a sketchy being, which requires to be constantlyrenewed, added to and filled out. But supplied by him with his abundant life,we gain greater reality and become more truly and constantly present to one

another. Then, formed and transformed by the presence of Christ, we mayappear before one another truly as representatives of Christ and so asservants of one another. According to the canticle from Ezekiel:A new heart I will give you,and put a new spirit within youAnd I will remove from your body the heart of stoneand give you a heart of flesh

The sacraments are instalments of reality. In that cup is the presence ofChrist, gently portioned out so that, given time, we gain more presence fromhim and so we become truly established. The eucharist provides us with

instalments of reality which will make us more real and more permanent.Christ is present with his body in the eucharist, and within that body each

77


29/42

other us is being made more truly present. How is Christ present, and we arebecoming present?

Christ is present here by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings us here beforeall these other people and holds this disparate community together, making it

one increasingly holy body. The Holy Spirit holds Christ distinct from us, out ofour grasp and beyond the powers of our perception, so that he is hidden fromus. And the Holy Spirit, and reveals him to us infinitely slowly in the persons ofwhom this community it made up. So we sing:Pray we then O Lord the SpiritOn our lives descend in mightLet thy flame break out within usFire our hearts and clear our sight (NEH 142 Hewlett)

Christ has come within the bounds which we inhabit. He has broken thesebounds and leads us out of them. But he also waits until each of us decides

that we will follow. We have to wantto be free of death and so it is for us topray that he will lead us. The Holy Spirit allows us to call Christ, and willinglyto receive him and be transformed by him as he comes. This takes time, andall the time in the world is given for this purpose. Because Christ holds out thislife and gives each of us all the time we need to take it from him, it is not anunilateral imposition. We do not lose our identity it in accepting it, but ratherwe gain our identity, for in time his act for us becomes our act too.

So the Holy Spirit humbles himself before each one of us. He never makeshimself available as a single person visibly before us. He leaves no trace ofhimself. He is here to give us what we need and take away whatever wecannot cope with. Having prepared the place for us, he withdraws just weenter, like a good servant, so that it may be entirely ours. For our sake theSpirit subordinates himself to every other person, making possible for us toreceive them without coercion and so in complete freedom. He is able tooutlast the resistance each of us puts up to one another and to Christ. Hewaits for us to consent to receive Christ, freely. For this reason he does notyet allow Christ to become visibly present to us. So we sing:Holy Spirit come renew usCome yourself to make us liveHoly through your loving presence

Holy through the gifts you give (NEH 140 Foley)

Christ makes himself present to his gathered people, and extends hispresence to them so that they may gain from him a lasting presence. Thepeople gathered at the eucharist are with Christ, and are on the way to Christ.The body is becoming present, so it is not yet present in the way that it will be.There is a presence and an absence, so we have to look forward to, andyearn for, he who is not yet here.

5. Waiting for the bodyWe who are many, are one body, because we all share the one bread

Christ is not yet all in all. The body is not complete, so it waits, for the last andleast to come in. Our account of his presence with us must include an account

78


30/42

of his continuing absence. The continued waiting and suffering of the body ofChrist and our imperfect communion is acknowledged in the eucharist. He isnot here he is risen! We look for his coming again in glory. In ourintercessions and anaphora we have to name those for whom we are waiting,or from whom we are divided: by naming them, our intercessions make them

present to us. We discern the body of Christ correcting when every member ofthe body is present.Anyone who eats or drinks without recognising the bodyof the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself (1 Corinthians 11.29). In ourown church this means waiting for those who are not present, and notbeginning to celebrate until they arrive. When they do not arrive, the Churchmust go to find this particular Christian and bring him back. We name thosewho are not present because they are still separated from the Church. Thecommunity may not start celebrating the feast without last member brought tosafely within the body. To start before the last arrives would indicate that thismember is not a vital part of the body, and that he does not matter to the body.But we cannot be the Body without him; every last member must be brought

in before the body is whole and present. The body that eats before thismoment, swallows division and weakness and condemnation. To remindourselves of this, we sing:One body we, one body who partakeOne Church united in communion blest;One name we bear, one bread of life we breakWith all thy saints on earth and saints at rest(Briggs)

All created things are good for us when they bring us into proper relationships.The things we use and consume have to be released by those who wereresponsible for their production. We may not eat alone, our group without allother groups. Only when they are given their proper position in this worship docreated things become blessings and so good for us. We have to eat with theleast of these before our food will do us any good. In the prayers of theeucharist we ask God to give us all those whom we are waiting for, and somake this body complete. We mourn for those who are not yet present, fortheir absence means that we ourselves are not yet present as we want to be.In our intercessions and offertory prayers we raise them. We are not allpresent, but we are here for those who are not.

6. Embodied persons

We are persons, made up of soul and body. Because we are bodies we arepresent to each other. It is our bodies that make us present to one another, sowithout them we would not communicate or be with one another in any sense.Because we are more than bodies, we are not entirely controllable anddefinable by each other.

Each body, in all its particularity, is a gift from God. it is the gift that God hasmade to the rest of us, and it is a good gift. It is only our bodies that make itpossible for other people to find us, access us and address us. Our bodiesmake us available to one another; they are the medium of all our communion.Our bodies are made up of material elements taken from the creation which is

given to us for the purpose. They are made up of all thing things that we haveeaten, crops and vegetables and the meat of the animals which have

79


31/42

themselves been nourished by vegetation. This animal and vegetable matter,taken from the soil and transformed by the inputs of sunlight and water,makes up the tissue of our own bodies. All creation is summed up in man,who is witness to, and his own body is evidence of, this marvellous complexof relationships. Each human body is a miniature version of the world. As we

stand before one another, and in particular as we are gathered to d

III Many Different Churches

Documents