The Meaning of the Liturgy
Part 1: Candles, Bells, and Hymns The crucifer lights the candles on the right side, called the Epistle Side, and then the Left, called the Gospel side. The Gospel candle is lit last among those candles and extinguished first, under the guideline of the phrase, “The Gospel candle never stands alone.” Drawing from imagery of the menorah from Exodus 25:31-40, the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in Acts, and the seven lamps in the Book of Revelation, the fire of the six candles represents the Holy Spirit which we have access to because of Christ’s work on the cross and which we will participate in throughout the service – with Christ in the middle as the central candle from which God’s grace flows. Distinct from the seven candles on the retable (the narrow table behind the altar), the Gospel and Epistle candles are on the altar, signifying the two witnesses in revelation, the Old and New Testament, and the twofold nature of Christ as God and man. The Gospel Candle never stands alone because the Gospel depends upon us as Christians to speak the Gospel in the Great Commission – thus the Epistle candle is lit first because we are called to be living Epistles by Saint Paul. During Easter season we also light the Paschal candle, as Christ is our Paschal Lamb, and by coming into the World and dying and rising from the Dead He became the light of the world who is the Light of Men. We begin service this morning with the ringing of the bell, calling all who hear it to an attitude of worship, rung seven times to call people to the service and represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of God. Those of us serving follow the Cross, typically carried by the Crucifer, who is a lay person authorized by the minister to do so, showing that all of us must follow the cross. The deacon and priest follow after the lay reader and crucifer, showing that we are all equal before God at the foot of the cross and that we must be led in all things by Christ.
Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” Thus it is fitting to begin and end our service with hymns.
[Processional Hymn]
[announcements]
Part 2: The Work of the People The word Liturgy means “the work of the people.” When we perform the Liturgy, we are doing the work of worship together as the Body of Christ. The liturgy is in two parts: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Sacrament. During The liturgy of the Word, which begins with the Processional Hymn and goes to the Offering, our minds are fed with God’s truth through the Law, the reading of the Epistle and Gospel, the recitation of the Creed, and the Sermon. During the Liturgy of the Sacrament, which begins at the Offering, we are fed in body and in soul by the real spiritual presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. The two liturgies need each other. By taking in the Word through our faithful minds, our bodies and souls are prepared to take in the Lord’s Supper with proper faith, hope, and love.
We usually begin with Morning Prayer as an extension of the Liturgy of the Word. In the Middle Ages there were seven, eight or even nine times of prayer each day; Thomas Cranmer simplified it to two. The vision of the prayer book is that Christians would pray once in the morning and once in the evening, thus the orders are called the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer. Once a month we do a Lay reader service which allows us to experience a complete Morning Prayer; we also have, as is traditional, our midweek service. By including the Morning Prayer service, we are able to hear the Psalm read, which was the song book of ancient Israel and the basis of hymnody in the early Church. While hymns were written in the earliest days of Anglicanism, for the first three hundred years the only formally approved hymns were the Psalms. The abbreviated form of Morning Prayer also allows us to hear ancient canticles, such as the Venite and the Benedictus es Domine, which have been part of liturgical worship since the earliest times. Furthermore, we read an excerpt of the Old Testament Lesson. Traditionally, Canticles are sung not only as a way of worshipping God but also of affirming the fundamental narrative of Scripture. At St. Joseph, after the Psalm, the Old Testament Lesson, and the Epistle, we say Amen in order to affirm that all of Scripture is God’s Word. We do not say “The Word of the Lord/Thanks Be to God,” because sometimes the lectionary includes Apocryphal lessons, and while the Apocrypha is regarded as important in Anglican theology they are not on the same level as the other books of the Bible. We will not break down the structure of Morning Prayer further – perhaps we will do that on a Lay Reader Sunday. In the interest of time we will not observe abbreviated Morning Prayer.
The first prayer of HC is the collect. Like the opening sentences in Morning Prayer, this collect focuses our mind to the truth that we are sinners and need to rely on God’s grace. Hebrews 10:22 reads, “Let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” In keeping with this principle, the Collect begins the preparation for the reception of the two parts of the liturgy. The word collect indicates that the prayer helps us to focus, collecting our attention to the core purpose of worship. When the Minister begins to pray the collect, we are called to put out of our mind our lesser thoughts and give our souls completely over to the things of God.
[Deacon Kenyon reads the Collect]
Part 3: Summary of the Law & Kyrie After the Collect, in the Liturgy of the Word we are reminded of God’s perfect and Holy Standards. Whether we read the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20 with the Summary of the Law, found in Mark 12, Matthew 22, and other places, or whether we read the Summary of the Law by itself, either way we are reminded that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God, and that the only way to make our shortcomings right is to dwell in the grace of Christ. Typically in Anglican churches, the Decalogue is read at least once a month, but the summary is read every Sunday, as it is the core truth upon which, as Christ tells us, depend the truths found in all the Law and the Prophets. It is fitting, with such a central truth, that we follow it up with a melodic, penitent prayer for mercy in the Kyrie elesion, as we know we do not live up to God’s holy standards, and the minister then prays for us to be strengthened by grace to be brought into conformity with God’s will.
[Deacon Kenyon reads the Summary of the Law and the prayer]
Part 4: The Liturgical Season After that Prayer, the minister then leads us into the collect for the liturgical season. Just as the initial collect focuses our minds on the whole purpose of God’s plan for biblical worship, this second collect again calls us to attention in two ways: first, it reminds us of the meaning of the liturgical season which we are in. To keep worship from becoming monotonous and to help us to focus on different aspects of biblical truth, the liturgical season allows us to emphasize in each act of worship a truth which might otherwise get overshadowed but which is necessary. So of course in this Trinity season we emphasize the complete revelation of all three Persons of the Trinity, and the coming of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost as the foundation of the general life of the Church. Secondly, the seasonal collect prepares our minds to receive the Word. Two things should always be involved in the reading of Scripture: prayer, and an openness to correction. Having received correction and penance in the Summary of the Law and having our hearts sharpened by the Spirit in Prayer, we are then ready to listen to the Word.
[Kenyon reads the Collect]
Part 5: The Reading of the Epistle A lay reader reads the Epistle from the Epistle side to emphasize the fact that all Christians, not just bishops, priests and deacons, have a duty to know, to learn, and to inwardly digest the truths of Holy Scripture and be prepared to share them with the world. The congregation, including the priest and deacon, sits in the posture of students, hearing the Epistle as a lesson.
[The lay reader reads the Epistle]
Part 6: The Deacon Reads the Gospel Then, traditionally, if there is a deacon present, the deacon will read the Gospel to the congregation in their midst, and the congregation stands at attention in recognition that the words of Christ the Word will be proclaimed. In Acts 6:1-15, the first seven deacons were appointed, and one of their roles was going out and serving the tables. The cross processes before the deacon and the lay reader to remind us that all of the Gospel is read to the congregation and the deacon serves you the Word in the highest point of the Liturgy of the Word. As the deacon proclaims the reading for the day, congregants will often make the sign of the cross on their forehead, lips, and heart, reciting quietly to let the word be on their mind, lips, and heart.
[The Gospel is read]
Part 7: The Significance of the Creeds Now it is fitting, as we have been reminded of our duties as Christians in the law and have heard instruction from the Epistle and been fed by the words of Christ, for us to respond with our faith. The Nicene Creed is a 1600 year old statement of the faith which summarizes the basic truths of the New Testament, and it was written to affirm the Trinity and the nature of Christ’s Church. Barbara Klein has a wonderful statement, that when we recite the Apostle’s, Nicene, or Athanasian Creed, we are taking up the shield of faith. In Matthew 16, when Peter made a confession of faith, saying of Christ, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” Jesus said, “On this rock I will build my church.” When we say the Apostle’s Creed, as Camarie once profoundly observed, we join Peter in testifying to our Messiah and witnessing ourselves as building blocks in the Church of Christ. At the end of the creed, as we say, “And I look for the Resurrection of the dead,” we make the Sign of the Cross, remembering that through the work on the Cross the words of the Nicene Creed have their truth and power as they tell the story of how we are reconciled with the Trinity through Christ. The sermon that follows should exhort hearers to the faith, drawn most often from the Epistle or Gospel of the day, though it can also be taken from the Psalm or Old Testament lesson if desired.
[The Nicene Creed, followed by Sermon Hymn]
Part 8: Symbols, Questions, & the Offertory Liturgical worship such as that practiced by Anglicans saturates our senses with thoughts of God and the truth of his Word. As the Anglican liturgist Charles Walker wrote, “Because He is the God of truth, He is glorified by that which is the representative and guardian of truth. Because He is the Lord and Creator of all, He is fitly honoured by that which employs not merely the intellect, but the senses, not merely the soul, but the body of His children; and by which the inanimate creation is pressed into the service of the sanctuary. Because He is the God of Order, He is glorified by that which ensures care.” As you drove to the church this morning, the first thing you may have seen was the church steeple. In the Middle Ages, the church was the tallest building, the steeple rising high above any other building to show that what matters to God rises above the small things we get occupied with in this Earth. You walked into Church through the traditional Church Porch, a symbol of how the church is a means of grace by which God protects and covers us from the world. You walked through the red door, which reminds us that we are received into the Church by means of the power of Christ’s blood shed for our sins. You walked over a floor which had a cross pattern in it, reminding us that Christ’s work on the cross is the foundation of our hope. As you walk into this sanctuary, you see a room shaped like the upside down prow of a ship, reminding us that the Church is the spiritual Noah’s Ark in which we take refuge from the storm of ungodly thoughts. Even the pews, with a vertical center aisle and a horizontal path separating the altar area from the rest of the sanctuary creates a cruciform shape. We walk past the baptismal font, a reminder of our entry into the Kingdom, and see before us the Crucifix by which our citizenship in that Kingdom was made possible. This space is a Christian fulfillment of the Old Testament temple and tabernacle. Before Christ, the Tabernacle was split into two parts, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. When Old Testament priests walked behind the curtain which separated this area, they had bells on their garments because if they entered the Holy of Holies with unrepented sin, the Holy Spirit would strike that priest dead. But when Christ died, the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the Holy ripped in two, so now you can see into the Temple, to see where Christ has taken up his place as God in the flesh, the leader and perfecter of our worship. The pulpit and lectern are to the side of the Cross, showing that Christ, not a human minister, is the center of our worship. Likewise, the vestments of the ministers do not elevate the clergy but show that God’s grace must cover us for us to do our jobs properly – Exodus 28:2-3, Ephesians 6, Revelation 4:4. “Sunday best” is also connected to this – clothing should be clean, hair well kept, clothing not immodest or distracting. When you approach this altar rail, you are reminded of the sober nature of the Holy of Holies, but are welcomed to the Lord’s Table because by Christ’s redeeming blood you no longer need fear the deadly effects of sin. That is why we ring bells at the institution of the Lord’s Supper: we are preparing to enter the Holy of Holies through the communion feast, also called the Eucharist, which means the Thanksgiving. That is because the Lord’s Supper is chiefly about grace. The table reminds us of the time when the Lord, on Maundy Thursday, instituted the Lord’s Supper, though it also evokes the place where temple sacrifice once happened but which is no longer needed because of Christ. The altar linens remind us of Christ’s burial shroud and are the color of the liturgical season.
Everything we do with our bodies in the space of liturgical worship teaches us something. When we sit, we are in the posture of students learning. When we stand, we are in the posture of celebrants worshiping and letting our spirits rise with our bodies in the joy of worshipping the Lord in the beauty of Holiness. When we kneel, we pray, remembering that God is the Lord of the Universe and should be supplicated with reverence. At times, such as when the Nicene Creed or the Gloria conclude or we say “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,” we make the sign of the cross to participate in sign language with the truth we are saying. We bow at the cross, when crossing the altar, or when acknowledging God in the Gloria Patri, “Glory be to God the father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” to show our submission to the Triune God and Christ the Incarnate Deity. At occasions such as the Sanctus, “Holy Holy Holy,” during the Gloria, and during the Agnus Dei, we may lift our hands in what is called the orans position, which is an ancient posture of worship found across many cultures, both Christian and pagan, and Scripture itself speaks of the lifting up of Holy Hands as a practice which pleases God. 1 Timothy 2:8 says, “I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.” It shows that we give all to God, and that we receive all He would give us. It is a posture of acceptance, of surrender, and in lifting up our hands we manifest the lifting up of our hearts to our Savior.
Now I don’t have time to show you all of this this morning, but I can tell you that each of these practices can be found in Holy Scripture. The Old Testament shows liturgical worship, the worship in Heaven in the Book of Revelation has liturgical worship, and various passages in Acts also imply that orderly worship existed in the early Church. Certainly we see that prayer, hymns and songs, reading of Scripture, preaching, the Lord’s Supper, and other elements were familiar to the early church. It is true, if you read through the New Testament, you won’t see a chapter in the Bible which gives a how-to manual for establishing the specific elements of worship. However, what Scripture does have is clarity about specific elements that are part of such a liturgy, and patterns in the Old Testament and in Heaven which can be completed through the principles found there. So while the specific details of liturgy can have some differences, as can be seen between Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Presbyterian orders of worship, the Lutheran Service Books, and the sadly disused Methodist prayer book, we all generally come to fairly similar ideas about what biblical worship should look like in broad strokes. Thomas Cranmer, the first and most brilliant author of the Prayer Book, was steeped in Scripture and the history of the liturgy, and developed the Prayer Book liturgies from his knowledge of the Bible and of Christian liturgy dating back to the ancient church. When we participate in the Prayer Book, itself a five hundred year old tradition, we are really stepping into the Jeremiah 6:16 form of Christian worship, the ancient paths which teach us how to develop a personality and perspective on worshipping the one, true, and Holy God. It’s been estimated that the Prayer book is something like 95% direct quotation or adaptation from the Bible, adjusted to the needs of corporate worship, as in an original verse where it says “I” will be changed to “We” for the public setting. If you are curious about all of the Bible verses which are the sources for the Book of Common Prayer, you can go to the Scriptural BCP for more information. But know that nothing done in an Anglican Church should ever be thoughtless ritual – it is all meant to glorify God and to kindle the fires of faith more brightly in our hearts.
Questions?
The Book of Common Prayer itself has verses which demonstrate the biblical requirement for making an offering to the Lord, pgs. 72-73, and the Offering signals the transition from the Liturgy of the Word to the Liturgy of the Sacrament. During the offertory hymn, the priest prepares the elements on the altar, assisted by a lay reader or acolyte who hands items from the credence table to prevent the altar table from becoming a cluttered work space and to ensure cleanliness. The meaning of this moment is summed up in the beautiful words from 1 Chronicles, “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” We should at this time take a moment to recognize Jenny Pate, our business manager, who does a great deal of work to make sure that our church’s finances run properly. She gives dutiful reports at every vestry meeting, so that the vestry knows how to best steward the church’s finances. She gave me the following breakdown of a month’s expenses: $907.27 for the mortgage, $81.24 for Suddenlink, $150 for Liberty Electric, $14.21 for Taney County Water, $37.50 for sewer, $8.34 for trash, $120 for maintenance, $400 for the clergy stipend, $50 for the national church, $119.96 for flowers, bringing the total monthly expenses to $1888.51, which does not include the $5000 the church must pay every six months for insurance and other miscellaneous expenses. These costs point to why it’s important for us to fill out our pledges and to meet those pledges, so that Jenny can help the vestry to manage the church’s funds and so that we have a clear sense of what to expect financially. Now of course this is a responsibility of stewardship I must address, but I want to thank you all for your generosity and the work you put into making all of this possible, not only for the money but also the time and effort so many of you put in to making this church run.
[Offertory Hymn]
Meaning of the Liturgy 9: Communion of the Saints The prayer for the whole state of Christ’s Church has its basis in many Scriptures, but most explicitly in 1 Timothy, where Paul commands us, “1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” We are reminded of the literal meaning of the words Holy Communion – the purpose of the Lord’s Supper is to feast in communion with all saints, those in Heaven and on Earth, and this prayer reminds us of that, along with the sanctus which we sing in communion with “angels, archangels,” and the whole company of Heaven. We are told in Scripture of the serious nature of Communion, that we should never partake of it in unrepentant sin, which is why the General Confession and the Prayer of Humble Access are so important. Then the priest has the authority to declare and pronounce the forgiveness of sins which the Holy Spirit alone washes away through Christ’s blood (John 20:22-23). We are reminded that if we wait until we are free from sin to take Holy Communion, we never will, and so the holy manner in which the Lord’s Supper is taken is one of total reliance upon the shedding of Christ’s blood. With our forgiveness in Christ assured, we enter into the celebratory mood of Holy Communion which should always follow the solemn recognition of sin, as Christ is victorious over sin and death.
[Prayer for Church Militant to Sanctus]
Meaning of the Liturgy 10: The Real Spiritual Presence Now we come to the Holy of Holies moment in the Liturgy, with the words which Christ himself gave us when we celebrate Holy Communion, also reiterated in the Epistles. You could say this is the cornerstone of the liturgy, as the words and actions were instituted by Christ. Here we partake of Christ through the real, spiritual presence of Christ. Does God seem absent to us? Now we taste, see, smell, and hear the goodness of the Lord as He tends to our needs in a manner visible to our senses. The sacraments are an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, and it is one of the chief comforts and consolations of our faith, that in it our salvation and sanctification is promised, signed, and sealed by the finished work of Christ in the cross working itself out in our thanksgiving as we commune in him in the Words of Institution. We follow this observation with the Lord’s Prayer, which is the purest pattern of prayer provided by Christ himself for the essence not only of Christian prayer but of the meaning of the liturgy itself, followed by the Words of Humble Access in keeping with 1 Corinthians 11: 28-29, where Paul warns us: “Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” If there is sin in your life which you refuse to repent of, you should not partake of the Lord’s Supper. But if there is Sin in your life which you lament and wish for Christ to make clean, then upon listening to the Words of Institution and in praying for Christ’s redeeming blood to wash out the spots of sin, then you can come forward to the Lord’s Supper with a lively faith. For this reason we even take the bread with our hands held in the posture of a cross. Emphasizing the idea that the Lord’s Supper is a communal activity, we wait to leave the altar rail with our fellow communicants until the priest has said, “Go in peace.”
[Words of Institution, Lord’s Prayer, Words of Humble Access, Partaking of the Lord’s Supper]
Part 11: Gratitude, the Gloria, and Going Forth In Old English, the construct “for that” means “because,” so the prayer of thanksgiving is saying, “Because Christ has promised to feed us spiritually,” we are thankful to God – remembering that that is the meaning of Eucharist – the holy gratitude which comes from participating in Christ’s victory over sin. Fittingly, after a prayer of thanks, we conclude this service with the joyful words of the Gloria, knowing that we have been made free in Christ, and in the words of benediction are sent forward, not only to feel better about ourselves, but that we have been equipped by this service to model Christ in the world and bring others to him. Sunday worship is the beginning of a week lived in service to Christ, which is why our lay readers, after the closing hymn, tell us to Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
[Prayer of Thanksgiving, Gloria, Benediction, & Closing Hymn]