Worship And Spirituality

This author suggests that Christians reexamine the specific nature of worship and spirituality. Worship has to do with interiority and with patterns of living that are shaped by the living, dying, rising, and coming again of Christ. In worship, the emphasis is less on the mind and more on the spirit. In spirituality, the emphasis is less on rules by which we live and more on the formation of the person.

Until fifteen years ago, my spiritual pilgrimage was within the context of a Protestant intellectual Christianity. The emphasis in this tradition was on believing the right things and doing the right things. In this context, the relationship between worship and spirituality was tied to the sermon. The sermon was the main event and everything else was regarded as a preliminary. A major purpose of the sermon was to clarify right belief and to inspire the congregation to live by those beliefs. In the early 1970s, I came to a dead end in this intellectual tradition of worship and spirituality. I believed that the worship had to be something more than singing a few hymns, saying a few prayers, and listening to a long sermon that was frequently tedious and uninteresting. I also believed that spirituality had to go beyond rule keeping. So I went on a search. My search took me into the early church, into the ancient tradition of worship and spirituality. Obviously, the ancient tradition does not reject a Christianity rooted in an intelligent understanding of the faith. Nor does it deny the importance of a moral life. Where it differs from worship and spirituality today is in its specific understanding of the nature of worship and spirituality. It goes much deeper than a mere intellectual tradition. It has to do with interiority and with patterns of living that are shaped by the living, dying, rising, and coming again of Christ. In worship, the emphasis is less on the mind and more on the spirit. In spirituality, the emphasis is less on rules by which we live and more on the formation of the person. Let me explain. Worship in the Early Church Worship in the early church may be defined as telling and acting out the Christ event. What was of supreme importance was not the sermon nor the experience of the worshipers but the event that called the church into being, the event that it now actualized in its celebration. In order to understand how worship was related to spirituality in the early church, we must first understand the nature of worship among these ancient Christians. Therefore, I will summarize early Christian worship in three basic principles; then I will relate these principles to the development of spirituality. Worship Celebrates Christ. The focal point of worship was Christ—not the window to the father of liberalism nor the isolated satisfaction theory of Fundamentalism. The Christ that was celebrated in worship was Christ the Creator, Christ the Incarnate one, Christ the inaugurator of the kingdom, Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ ascended, Christ coming again to renew and restore the universe. In the early church, it was the whole Christ—the Alpha and Omega, the one in whom all things had been created, the one in whom all things consisted, the one in whom all things were reconciled—that was worshiped. But this worship was not an intellectual presentation of Christ. It was a celebration: a celebration of his victory over the power of evil, a celebration of his resurrection—a celebration of his coming again to put evil away forever and to renew the world. Like the worship celebration of the Jewish roots from which it sprang, the Christian celebration of Christ was characterized by three things: Primarily, worship celebrated the Christ event. Early Christianity rejected Gnosticism with its implication that the living, dying, and rising again of Jesus was an apparition. Rejecting such mythical ideas, early Christians insisted that worship celebrated a significant event that took place in time, space, and history. Next, early Christians believed that through celebration the historical event of Christ became contemporaneous. It was not an event that was imprisoned in history. But, like the Passover, which celebrated the Exodus and made it present in the experience of Israel, the celebration of the Christ event made Christ and his saving action present in all its original power to the worshiping community that gathered in his name. Finally, the means by which this event was made alive was through story—story told, story acted out. In the reading and preaching of the Word, the story was told. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the story was acted out. Thus, in the telling and acting out of the Christ event, worship happened. In Worship, a Divine Encounter Takes Place. In the ancient church, the assembly of people for the purpose of worship was seen as something distinctly different from a secular gathering. In worship, something supernatural happened. In the gathering of worship, the church was actualized. The body was formed. The eschatological vision was momentarily realized. Earth was brought up into the heavens and gathered around the throne together with the cherubim, the seraphim, and all the angels. For example, in the opening acclamations of worship, the Gloria in Excelsis lifted up the worship to the heavens as did the Sanctus in the eucharistic prayer. In these actions, the worshiper was encountered by the living God seated on the throne, surrounded by the myriad of angels singing, "?Holy, Holy, Holy.?" This was not mere ritual or a mouthing of words. It was an experience of eschatological glory, a fleeting moment in the realty yet to be revealed. An encounter with God also occurred through the reading and preaching of the Word. In the kerygma, the Word proclaimed became realized. The kerygma actualized a moment of covenantal community in which, like in ancient Israel, the agreements were reiterated and acknowledged again. But the supreme moment of the liturgy, the climax, the summit toward which the entire movement of worship was directed was the eucharistic action. Here, common bread and wine became, by the word of consecration, the body and blood of Christ. Christ became present in the action, present to bring salvation, healing, and restoration, which he brought at the cross and which he finally brings in the eschaton. This was no mere memorial. It was a divine action in which the words of Jesus, "?Where two or three are gathered, there am I in their midst,?" were fulfilled. Divine Action Is Realized through Human Response. Nowhere among the early fathers or in the liturgies of the early church does one find the late-medieval idea of ex opere operatum. Divine action does not automatically take hold and reshape a human life without a response born from within, however faint. But response is not a one-time action taken here or there. It punctuates the liturgy, occurring at every stage of encounter with the divine. For example, the response to the Gloria, to extolling God in the fullness of glory, is like that of Isaiah's "?Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips—mine eyes have seen the glory of God.?" The Kyrie is the proper heartfelt response: "?Lord have mercy.?" Similarly, the response to the Word read and preached is "?Thanks be to God.?" This acclamation is not to be mouthed as mere external words, but as the experience of the heart. Thanks be to God, who enters our history; thanks be to God, who becomes one of us; thanks be to God, who will restore and renew the whole creation in the consummation. But the ultimate thanksgiving is the response to the eucharistic action itself. By taking the bread and the wine in the mouth, saying "?amen,?" and swallowing it into the stomach, the worshiper is saying "?yes,?" "?so be it,?" "?that is for me.?" But now we must ask how does this understanding of worship relate to spirituality. The Effect of Worship on Spirituality A summary of worship as understood and practiced in the early church will help to build the bridge between worship and spirituality. That summary is this: Worship reenacts the Christian vision of reality. Therefore in worship, a relationship with God is established, maintained, repaired, and transformed. But when does this take place and how? The Sunday Liturgy Viewed as a Rehearsal of Relationship. The Sunday liturgy, which tells and acts out the Christ event in word, eucharistic prayer, and song, is the context in which the worshipers' life is continually brought back into the story of Christ. Worship from the divine standpoint is "?Tell me the old, old story.?" Worship from the human standpoint is "?Just as I am without one plea.?" The divine and human encounter that occurs between God and God's people again and again and again is the context in which the worshiper is formed after the image of Christ. True Christianity is not "?believism,?" "?liturgism,?" or "?legalism,?" but the formation of character. What forms, shapes, and molds our person, our values, our character, our integrity is the frequent encounter with the living Christ in the liturgy. This encounter is no mere intellectual idea, nor can it be reduced to an emotional experience. It is an encounter within community. And insofar as the community truly seeks to be formed by the Word, the individual is drawn up into that formation. What God is about in history is the formation of the body of God, the people within a people, the society within a society, the fellowship in faith. This family is stamped by a character—the character of Christ delivered by the Spirit, especially in worship. From a human standpoint, this means that spiritual formation occurs not merely from being at worship, but allowing the vision rehearsed in worship—the vision that sweeps from creation to re-creation—to become the vision out of which and by which each worshiper lives. The Church Year and Spiritual Formation. In the early church, a relationship with God through Christ not only occurred in the liturgy of every Sunday, it also occurred daily through the church year. The power of the church year is that it provides an external organization of time through which an internal experience of the Christian vision of reality is experienced. It serves as an elongated service of worship that stretches across the year. Each portion of the annual cycle is an aspect of the Christ event, drawn from the Sunday worship and applied to the life of the church and the individual. In Advent, the church enters the Old Testament experience of longing for the coming of the Messiah and the promised restored earth where swords will be turned into plowshares. At Christmas, the people of God reflect with awe and wonder on the Incarnate one—God with us. And at Epiphany, the church witnesses the manifestation of Christ to the whole world. Then, during Lent, Christians travel the road of death through Holy Week into death itself. They let their sins be nailed to the cross and buried in the tomb. Then on Easter, Christians experience the Resurrection as a living reality. Finally, Pentecost becomes the experience of the Spirit, the outward mission of the church toward the world. These examples cited above describe how corporate spiritual formation, which occurs primarily through Sunday worship and extends through the year through sacred time, becomes the impetus for daily spiritual formation. Every day has its meaning rooted in the event that broke the powers of death, shifted history into the end times, and shaped God's people toward the end of history, the new heavens and the new earth. But what about us? What are we to do today to bring worship and spirituality together again? Let me make four suggestions: (1) Restore a Christocentric focus to worship. Some pastors and worship committees begin by asking, "?What does worship accomplish??" They conclude that worship should accomplish education, evangelism, spirituality, or some other well-intended result. They then organize the service around that purpose. Judged by the early church, this is a fundamental mistake. The initial question is not, "?What does worship accomplish??" but, "?What does worship represent??" Worship represents Jesus Christ. The whole theme of heavenly worship envisioned in Revelation 4 and 5 centers on Christ. Christ is worthy to receive glory and honor and power because he "?created all things?" (Rev. 4:11); he is worthy because he was "?slain?" and has "?redeemed us to God?" by his blood (Rev. 5:9); he is worthy because he has made us "?kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on earth?" (Rev. 5:10). Worship centers on the Christ who defines existence from creation to consummation, the Christ who has created a people, the Christ who gives meaning to all of life. Christian spirituality is rooted in this vision of life and must therefore grow out of it. Christian spirituality is fundamentally a life lived out of this vision. It is not a mere do-goodism or a head belief, but a life lived in the conviction that the Christ of the Bible is the meaning giver, that all things, including one's whole life, is of him, through him, and to him. (2) Restore an order for worship that tells and acts out the fundamental story of human existence. Many Protestant churches have lost the meaning of order. These churches' emphasis on "?doing things from the heart?" frequently ignores the axiom that external order organizes internal experience. Therefore, we Protestant churches must find an external order in worship that tells and acts out the story so that our internal experience of being encountered by the story will be maximized. The rule of thumb for order in worship is rooted in the nature of worship. If worship tells and acts out the story, then the order must be the servant of the message. The ancient order of worship was a single four-fold action: (1) Preparation to worship (2) Encounter through the Word together with response (3) Encounter through Eucharist together with response (4) Dismissal This order organizes the internal experience of (1) Coming before God (2) Listening to God speak and responding to this spoken Word (3) Receiving Christ through the symbols of bread and wine (4) Dismissal to live in Christ's name The worshiper who comes to worship with an intelligent understanding of worship and with intentionality is carried through an actual rehearsal of her or his relationship to God through the order for worship that organizes that relationship. Worship is then the context in which a meaningful encounter with God actually takes place. In the preparation, forgiveness of sins known and unknown is made; in the Word, God addresses the worshiper with the saving message; in the Eucharist, Christ encounters the worshiper in a healing way. While this relationship may happen on a subliminal level without understanding and intention, the probability of its occurrence is increased when the worshiper understands what is happening through the order and chooses to make it happen through intention. The consequence of this choice is an intensified spirituality. (3) Restore more frequent celebration of the Eucharist. The norm of early Christian worship is Word and sacrament (Acts 2:4). The Word rehearses revelation while the Eucharist is the rehearsal of the Incarnation. God not only spoke in history, God became one of us in Jesus Christ. Worship that stops short of the full action of God in history withholds from the worshiping community the full story and a chief means of spirituality. Beginning with the primitive Christian community, the church has always and everywhere recognized that Christ becomes mystically present in his saving and healing power at the Eucharist (except for Protestant rationalism). The ancient anamnesis (remembrance) was not seen as a mere memorialism, something we do with our memory. Rather, the remembrance is an action of God in which Christ's saving action becomes present. The epiklesis (invocation) done over the bread and the wine is the symbol that this bread and drink becomes the body and blood of our Lord. Calvin rightly insists that Christ is not contained in bread and wine, but like contemporary thought, recognizes that the bread and wine conveys the saving action of Christ to heal our wounded spirits, to bind up our broken hearts, to forgive our sin, and to reinvigorate our journey. If this is true, the neglect of a regular eucharistic spirituality is to our own spiritual peril. On the other hand, a regular encounter with Christ at the Table is a source of spiritual renewal. Each time we come to the Table and stretch forth our hands to receive the bread of heaven and lift our lips to receive the cup of salvation, our vision of life in Christ is re-conformed. Consequently there is an urgent need among Protestant churches to restore weekly Communion. Together with the restoration of weekly Communion, however, there must be an attending instruction in its meaning and a call to intentionality from the worshiper. Music plays a significant part in the entire service by accompanying the order and actually moving it in its various parts. At the Lord's Table, the restoration of song that captures the meaning of the encounter taking place with God is of paramount importance. Modern Taizé music, such as "?Jesus, Remember Me When You Come into Your Kingdom,?" strikes the theme of Christ's action and our response. (4) Restore the church year. The church year is one of the most important sources available to the Christian for an ongoing spirituality. It not only links Sunday to Sunday, but provides a Christocentric daily spirituality for the worshiper. The neglect of the church year by Protestants has left us without a significant external order for the annual organization of a spiritual pilgrimage linked with worship. The church year marks times for us Christianly. We have many ways of marking time. We organize time personally around birthdays, anniversaries, and other special events. We mark time nationally around Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and the like. We mark time around the academic year with the opening and closing of school and vacation. But how do we mark time in and through Jesus Christ on a day-to-day basis? The church year celebrated through a daily devotion marking of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost is the Christian way of sanctifying time, thus bringing time under the lordship of Christ. To neglect this Christian marking of time is to succumb to a secular calendar. To restore this Christian concept of time in the church corporate and in individual daily devotion links worship and spirituality in a way that no other discipline can match, for it links every day of life with the story that gives meaning to all of life. Finally, let it be said that recovering the relationship between worship and spirituality outlined here is no mere gimmick. It reaches back into a tradition by which a multitude of Christians have lived for centuries. It has staying power. But unless it is vitalized by true faith in Christ living, dying, and rising again for the salvation of the world, it becomes a dead ritual. Ritual is important because it organizes experience. But what we want is a ritual accompanied by faith. This is the kind of ritual that brings depth to our relationship with God, provides us with significant religious experience, and shapes our spirituality.