Together on the Journey: A Weekly Blog from Fr. Andrew Sheldon
When we gather together on a Sunday or a Wednesday, we tend to think of what we do as ‘worship’. Indeed, our communications often use the term ‘Sunday Worship’ when providing details of the services we hold on a Sunday morning.
But there is another term that we use called ‘liturgy’. And so, we may also talk about the Sunday liturgy or the Wednesday liturgy. Are these terms merely naming the same thing in different ways? Well, no, actually; worship and liturgy are different things.
Worship is very much a verb, and very much wrapped up in feeling. To worship someone or something is to feel adoration and reverence towards the object of our worship. Additionally, worship is how we express that adoration and reverence. We can do that quietly or loudly, with words or without words, with our bodies or with our thoughts. For us as Christians, worship is what takes place when we come so close to God and God comes so close to us that our experience of that closeness leads to some kind of expression on our part. Looked at in that way, worship can take place at any time and in any place. Indeed, some of my most profound experiences of coming close to God have taken place outside of church, and more often than not it is when I experience God in God’s creation. And, given this definition, it would also be possible to experience an entire church service without ever once actually worshipping. Perhaps an all too familiar outcome!
Liturgy is the vehicle that we use to facilitate this encounter with God. As such, liturgy is decidedly a noun. It is a carefully planned and created construct whose disparate parts have one goal and one goal only: that those present come close to God and, in coming close, worship God. And I have a deep belief that the nature, indeed the quality, of the liturgy either enables an encounter with God or gets in the way of such an encounter. That is why, at St George’s, we engage the creative skill and imagination available to us to fashion liturgies that we are confident will allow participants to come close to God. The resources we use are from Prayer Books and hymnals, but also from online sources that span the globe.
But this is not a performance piece put on by one group for another. And certainly not a performance piece put on by some special ones for some not-so-special ones. Liturgy, from the Latin, means ‘the work of the people’ – all the people. We are all celebrants, not just the Priest. The default position for music in the liturgy is congregational singing; the primary purpose of musicians and singers is to support that. The prayers of the people are the prayers of the people, not just of the person saying them. The sermon is not a treatise offered by a public speaker, but an invitation for all present to make meaning for themselves.
In other words, the liturgy calls on all present to engage in such a way that the possibility of all present encountering God is enhanced. And only then may our liturgies lead to worship.
More on this to come.
Andrew +