Worship And The Mission Of The Church

The act of Christian worship is itself a witness to the world. Particularly important is the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, which proclaims the coming kingdom of God. This argument resists two extremes: the denial of the relationship between worship and mission on the one hand and the promotion of worship as merely an evangelistic service on the other. The following article is a detailed but persuasive presentation of this theological argument.

"?The church has missionary power in direct proportion to its liturgical integrity.?" In this thesis Stanley Hauerwas proposes that liturgy and mission have a necessary and essential relationship. The mission of the church in its most comprehensive sense is explicit witness to the kingdom of God, to Jesus, the Christ, as its ultimate grounding and final consummation. Such an understanding of mission includes calling persons to conversion, initiating them into the church. But calling, converting, initiating is not in itself the mission. Rather it serves the larger mission of the church, that is, to be witness to the kingdom of God. Liturgy originally meant citizens exercising their responsibility for the corporate life of a Greek city-state. Translated into an ecclesial context, liturgy means the baptized people of God engaging in the repeated action through which the community receives and expresses its identity. The Eucharist alone is the appropriate Sunday liturgy of the community that believes Jesus is the Christ because the Eucharist is the celebration and foretaste of the kingdom of God. The absence of the Eucharist means that the community is functioning as the pre-eschatological people of God, as if the Christ had not yet come. To be the church is to confess that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. If the gathered community does not celebrate the Eucharist, it cannot be identified as the church, and therefore it cannot give the witness it is called to give. The Eschatological Event of Jesus as the Christ The fundamental confession of the apostolic Scriptures is deceptively simple: Jesus has been raised from the dead. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. These two statements are two ways of saying the same thing. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the starting point of Christian confession. "?Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah,?" is its substance. Both are "?eschatological?" in character. When the disciples encountered Jesus raised as the eschatological Messiah, ascended to the final future of the kingdom of God, present as the power of the future, they were required to re-envision the future and re-appropriate the past. The resurrection of Jesus meant that his claim to embody and inaugurate the kingdom of God was indeed valid. His death by execution on the cross was not repudiation of his ministry. It was rather a central expression of his ministry. His mission to renewal Israel, to gather its "?lost sheep,?" and to open it to the Gentiles was, in fact, God's mission. His teaching was not blasphemy. It was rather the Word that effected what it announced. His signs pointed to the presence here and now of the kingdom of God. Taking up the cross was to be both the way and the consequence of discipleship. Hence the past was to be re-appropriated as the disciple communities retold the stories of Jesus with the "?a-ha?" of post-resurrection insight. But even more radically, they were required to re-envision the future. The resurrection meant that Jesus has death behind him. "?Death no longer has dominion over him?" (Rom. 6:9, nrsv). The future belongs to him. He can make promises not conditioned by death. The kingdom of God, not the reign of death, will have the last word. This is what lead the church to the eventual confession that Jesus is God. For if "?God?" means whatever has the last word in history, then Jesus now defines and determines what the church means by God. He and the "?Abba?" (whose mission he embodied) and the Spirit (their "?down payment?" on the eschatological future [Eph. 1:14]), are now the "?name?" by which God is finally known. Something decisive has happened to the world. The power of death and the power of sin, which depends upon the power of death, have been broken. The world is no longer the same. When it acts as if death still has the last word, it is acting in bad faith. All the powers of the "?old age?" operate on the basis of death. They measure power in terms of their ability to deal in and threaten death. We share in the reign of death, live under the "?old age?" and its bondage to sin, whenever we engage in self-defense, self-aggrandizement, or self-hatred. We trust the kingdom of God whenever we live as if there were more to do with our lives than preserve them. To believe the resurrection of Jesus is to see through the powers of death, to recognize that they are passé, and therefore to be free of their domination. Hence the ultimate martyria, the ultimate witness, is the freedom to suffer death because one knows that death does not have the last word. Jesus' mission was the renewal of Israel so that it could fulfill its function in the eschatological triumph of the kingdom of God. Israel was to be the focus for the gathering of the Gentiles. Jesus suffered the cross because of his mission to Israel and to its future for the Gentiles. Hence he died for, on behalf of, the world. But he did not die in order to found a new religious community. His death was not the repudiation of Israel. It was rather God's final total commitment to Israel. The earliest disciples of Jesus simply announced to Israel that Jesus was and is the eschatological Messiah. The words of the prophet Joel interpret the Pentecost experience. But whereas Joel 2:28 simply says, "?It shall come to pass afterwards,?" Luke pointedly uses an eschatological formula:

And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:17–18)

The gift of the Spirit to all flesh, and not just to chosen individuals, is a mark of the messianic age.

Paul, among others, drew the conclusion that if Jesus was and is the Messiah, if the messianic age has truly come, then Gentiles are to be gathered to the people of God. If Jesus is now "?the Way,?" the Torah, then to be baptized into Jesus replaces both Torah (see Galatians) and the "?old age?" powers of death (see Colossians). Jews and Gentiles together witness by their being one people that the messianic age has begun (see Romans, Ephesians). The significance of this for the assemblies of the apostolic communities now becomes clear. The development of the communal rituals can be reconstructed. The Jewish disciples of Jesus continued to participate in the life of the synagogue and in the rituals of the temple. Paul also goes first to the synagogue when he comes to a new city, and he continues his devotion to the temple in Jerusalem. Simultaneously, however, the disciples of Jesus assembled in homes for that ritual which identified them uniquely: the messianic meal. We find both features in the same passage (Acts 2:42): "?And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.?" Obviously, the majority of Jews did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. But those who did were identified by the ritual Luke calls "?the breaking of bread,?" a phrase which became a technical term for the Eucharist. This is significant because the meal was understood to be a characteristic of the messianic age. If Jesus was indeed the Messiah, and if the messianic age had begun, they would witness to and participate in this messianic event by being at the messianic banquet table. Initially, then, the worship of Jesus' disciples was participation in the Scriptures, exposition, and prayers of the synagogue in common with all Jews; and participation in the messianic age inaugurated by Jesus through the common meal for those baptized into Jesus in private homes. By the end of the first century, the break between Jesus' disciples and other Jews became complete. Jesus' disciples were no longer admitted to the synagogue. The place once occupied by the regular meal in the assemblies of the disciples of Jesus was not filled by a synagogue-type ritual of Scripture and prayer. Justin Martyr describes the ritual in the mid-second century (Apology I, 67):

On the day which is called Sun-day, all, whether they live in the town or in the country, gather in the same place. Then the Memoirs of the Apostles or the Writings of the Prophets are read for as long as time allows. When the reader has finished, the president speaks, exhorting us to live by these noble teachings. Then we rise all together and pray. Then, as we said earlier, when the prayer is finished, bread, wine and water are brought. The president then prays and gives thanks as well as he can. And all the people reply with the acclamation: Amen! After this the eucharists are distributed and shared out to everyone, and the deacons are sent to take them to those who are absent.

Behind this simple ritual structure and action lies a consistent self-understanding: Jesus is the eschatological Messiah. The messianic age has begun and will be consummated. Here and now the mission of the community is to bear witness both to what has happened and to what it anticipates. The messianic community is identified by the messianic banquet. The Eucharist as Messianic (Eschatological) Banquet Such an understanding of the Eucharist as the ritual which uniquely identifies the communities of Jesus' disciples has its roots deep in the Scriptures of Israel. The basic work on this has been done by Geoffrey Wainwright in Eucharist and Eschatology (London: Epworth Press, 1971). After tracing the role of the meal in cultic life of Israel, Wainwright explores the linking of the meal and God's future salvation in the prophets of the Exile, Deutero-Isaiah, and Ezekiel. According to Isaiah the Lord will feed his people on their homeward journey through the desert (49:9ff) as he fed the people of old in the wilderness (48:21). The nations will come to Israel to share in the blessings of the everlasting covenant (55:1–13). Wainwright calls special attention to the passage in the late Isaianic apocalypse "?which is of particular significance for the Eucharist; it speaks of a future feast for all peoples, in a context of the abolition of death and a day of salvation and rejoicing.?"

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. And he will destroy on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth; for the lord has spoken. (Isa. 25:6–8)

Following the Exile, the meal motif in relation to messianic expectation intensifies. The age to come will be an age of plenty. The God who fed the people with manna in the wilderness will feed his people again (2 Baruch 29:8). Wainwright quotes the Midrash Rabbah: "?Just as the former deliverer (Moses) made manna descend, so also the latter deliverer (the Messiah) will make manna descend.?" Strong eschatological and messianic expectations came to be attached to the Passover by the time of Jesus. According to the Ethiopian Enoch (62:13–16), "?The righteous and elect shall be saved on that day, and with that Son of Man shall they eat and lie down and rise up for ever and ever.?" It is evident why and how the meal plays such an important role in the teaching and activity of Jesus. The feeding of the multitude is the only incident besides Jesus' baptism and the Passion week narrative that is present in all four Gospels (Matt. 14:13–21; Mark 6:32–44; Luke 9:10–17; John 6:1–15; additional feedings of multitudes are found in Matt. 15:32–39 and Mark 8:1–10). In John the feeding is the occasion for explicit messianic reflection (John 6:15–59). Central to Jesus' activity is his table collegiality with sinners and outcasts (Luke 15:1–2), and the parables that follow conclude with feasting when the lost is found or restored to the family. Jesus' parables of the kingdom of God include meal settings (Matt. 22:1–14; Luke 14:16–24). Jesus' sayings pick up the eschatological expectations of Gentiles at the messianic banquet table (e.g., Matt. 8:11). In the last meal with his disciples before his execution, Jesus interprets the bread and cup in terms of his imminent death. But of equal importance, Jesus looks beyond his execution to the eschatological consummation. "?I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom?" (Matt. 26:29 and parallels). In Acts the apostolic communities assembled on the first day of the week (to which they gave an eschatological name, the "?eighth day?") and when they assembled, it was for the "?breaking of bread.?" In the resurrection of Jesus the eschaton had begun. They were at the messianic banquet table. Through their participation in the meal they were identified by the Messiah as the messianic community, the eschatological people of God. Paul addresses the Christian community at Corinth on the subject of the Lord's Supper with a noteworthy preface, "?when you assemble as church?" (1 Cor. 11:18). Groups could assemble to be many things, but the ritual of a group's assembly as church was the eschatological meal. The apostolic scolding that follows involves the way in which some Corinthian Christians were violating their identity as church, as an eschatological community, by what they were doing (or not doing) at the eschatological meal. The more affluent members of the community had refused to share the food and wine they brought for both the regular and eschatological meal with the poor. Their self-protective refusal meant that their meal was no longer "?the Lord's Supper,?" and they could not be the church when they came together for such a distorted meal. They could just as well stay home and eat. By their action they were oppressing and humiliating others, and thus they denied their identity as eschatological community. By their inability to engage in self-offering they demonstrated that they were still in the grasp of the power of death. Hence Paul rehearses the tradition once again, that the kingdom of God is characterized by Jesus' self-offering, not by his self-protection. When they participate in the messianic meal they proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. They participate in Christ's self-offering by offering themselves to be his body for the world. The Eucharist and the Mission of the Church The church eventually lost the apostolic understanding of itself as eschatological community. Whenever the church does not understand itself as eschatological community it has historically assumed a consumer orientation. The Eucharist is then no longer eschatological meal but becomes consumer goods, couched in terms of the minimum required for maximum benefit. In the competitive denominational climate of the USA, the consumer orientation reached its zenith. The Lord's Supper was offered on the basis of the presumed need of the congregation. The result was that in both Protestantism and pre–Vatican II Catholicism the connection between church and Eschaton, Sunday and Eschaton, Eucharist and Eschaton was no longer understood. The insight of J. J. von Allmen is that Protestants falsify Sunday by not having the Eucharist every Sunday; Catholics falsify Sunday by having the Eucharist every day. When the eschatological character of church and day and liturgy were lost, the church lost the connection between liturgy and mission, and with it lost authentic understanding of its mission. Recovery of the church's liturgical integrity means recovery of the church's identity as eschatological community. Recovery of the church's liturgical integrity means recovery of the church's authentic mission. That mission is witness to the kingdom of God as it is grounded in Jesus and as it will be consummated in the outcome of history. The church witnesses to the kingdom of God by its being, by the way it is constituted at the eschatological table, by the way it takes responsibility for the liturgy. Because the coming of the reign of God is the breaking down of the "?dividing wall of hostility?" between Jew and non-Jew (Eph. 2:11–22), the community which gathers for the Eucharist pre-figures the eschatological unity of all humanity. Every evidence of discrimination against and/or oppression of those who are "?one in Christ Jesus?" (Gal. 3:28) compromises the church's witness. Concern for the visible unity of the church is a necessary dimension of the church's life (1 Cor. 1:10ff; 1 Cor. 12:12ff; Eph. 4:1–6; John 17:20–26, etc.) Because this witness is the function of the community's very being in the world, the liturgy is fundamentally the celebration of the people. It is what the people come together to do because they are and understand themselves to be the eschatological people of God. They come together to rehearse the stories of God by which their communal identity is created and shaped. They come together to offer themselves (and time and possessions) into the service of the kingdom of God. They come together to participate in the eschato-logical meal that anticipates the final banquet of the Messiah and that therefore shapes their witness in the world. One of the functions of common responsories and public books for liturgy is to facilitate the people's ownership of the Sunday liturgy. This understanding of the church as the eschatological people of God gathered to anticipate the eschatological banquets helps explain why the documents of the New Testament are utterly unconcerned about the identity of those who preside over the eucharistic celebrations. Although priests are among the disciples of Jesus (Acts 6:7), they do not function as priests in the liturgical gathering. There is evidence from the second century c.e. (Didache 10:7) that itinerant prophets functioned as liturgical presidents along with presbyter-bishops. That eucharistic presidency is now assigned to ordained clergy must not preempt the responsibility of the people of God for the celebration of the liturgy and therefore for the mission of the church. Thus it is significant that the leader is designated president. At the time of Justyn Martyr the president of the liturgical assembly is responsible for just two features of the rite: the sermon and the Great Thanksgiving. If the being of the church is its witness, it is important that ordained leadership be open to all, specifically to men. The basis for this is most profoundly the church's identity as eschatological community. For in the eschatological community authority comes from the future, from the eschatological promise of the kingdom of God. As eschatological community the church offers hope and possibility to those who receive neither from the precedents of the past. That is central to the meaning of the Holy Spirit as eschatological gift. The Spirit is the "?down payment?" on the future (Eph. 1:14; 2 Cor. 1:22). The full participation of women in every dimension of the church's life is in our time one of the most eloquent signs of the church's witness to the kingdom of God. The most important function assigned to the laity is prayer. Prayer in the Christian community does not mean finding the right words or fulfilling the condition through which we have a chance of getting whatever we request from a manipulated deity. Rather prayer in the name of Jesus identifies us as the messianic community and becomes the place where we work at the concrete implications of that identity for our life and mission. The people of God have the responsibility of identifying their agenda. Prayers for the sick, the bereaved, those about to be married, and others seeking pastoral services emphasize that these are ministries of the community, not chaplaincy services of the clergy. Prayers for the whole church, the nations, and those in need will expand the vision beyond the parochial. Attention to the specific needs of other Christian communities, of synagogues, and of adherents of other religions will enable us to struggle with the ecumenical (universal) character of God's mission in the world. Two aspects of Christian prayer must never be neglected. First, the eschatological gospel of the kingdom of God shapes and even changes our asking, our petitions, our struggle to discern the will of God as revealed in Jesus. Second, we become the agents and ministers of the kingdom of God individually and corporately in our vocations. As a matter of course, the community's "?business?" will come to expression in the prayers of the people. Everything that the community does—stewardship, evangelization, ministries of care, social ministry, ecumenism, education—should and can originate in and be shaped by the Sunday liturgy. Of special significance for the relationship of liturgy and mission is the offertory prayer. The laity should set the table with the offertory prayer because they are placing themselves on the table. Through baptism they are initiated into the community of the Messiah, the community which anticipates the final consummation of the kingdom of God. The Eucharist is not a private tête à tête with God. To be part of the eschatological community at the banquet table of the present and future kingdom of God frees us for witness to the universal vision of peace with justice when every tongue confesses "?that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:11).?" We can receive our sending with the acclamation, "?Thanks be to God.?" Whatever we ask, believing, in the name of Jesus, will be given. For what we ask in that name is nothing less than to participate in his mission. "?The church has missionary power in direct proportion to its liturgical integrity.?" If identity and mission are determined by the eucharistic liturgy of the gathered people of God, then time spent in teaching about, planning for, and doing the eucharistic liturgy is not time taken from other ministries that serve the mission of the church. It is rather time devoted to and determinative of all ministry and mission of the church.