Eucharist and Liturgy make sense

Coming into the Church of England from a non-conformist background, I have always had issues with the Liturgy. Not the words themselves in general, but the simple fact of it's existence. My relationship with my wife and children is not governed by written phrases prepared in advance by others, so why should my relationship to God be so governed?

But apart from that, I have sometimes asked proponents of liturgical forms why we use these particular words, rather than others. The words are OK, I reasoned, but they are not so outstandingly good as to warrant endless repetition over the years. Furthermore, when I visit churches that do use a full liturgy (my Anglican Church uses the minimum) the congregations rattle quickly through words that are really pretty good but without any real meditation on them. Which annoys me. I know some argue that by familiarity, you get beyond reading the words to saying them from the heart. OK, but why rush them?

Anyway, this is all a digression; a little rant to set the scene for my generally negative view of repetitive liturgy.

And one phrase that has particularly wound me up is in the Eucharist - "we offer you our sacrifice of praise" (or something like that). This has always been a trivial phrase in the middle of some good stuff, which doesn't have a direct parallel in the relevant scriptures.

So I was very interested to read in "The Cross of Christ" by John Stott a little of the background to the phrase.

You see, Cranmer was very keen to distinguish between propitiatory sacrifice, that saves us from sin, and other sacrifices that are thanksgiving and praise. So in calling it a Eucharist, and in putting in what I now see as an important phrase in the Liturgy, he emphasises that the Anglican communion service is NOT a propitiatory sacrifice that saves us from sin. In we may offer sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, but we don't come out any more saved than we went in. Christs sacrifice was 'once for all', and is commemorated, not repeated or continued, in the Eucharist.

So good for Cranmer!

I will now say that bit of the liturgy with more enthusiasm!

Theology, pills, and sacraments

I went to the rheumatology specialist with my wife recently, and was well impressed by her knowledge of the subject, compared to the registrar who saw us the previous week. She had some students with her, and was explaining to them how to diagnose the disease and distinguish it from other inflammatory arthritis forms, and how to medically describe the deformities in my wofe's hands and what their impact on the diagnosis is. And loads of stuff like that. i am always fascinated by biology, and drink in all that information.

But all that information was bonus - what we really needed to hear was "take these pills", "have this injection". That is the root of the matter. That is how theory is translated into healing.

Back home, sitting on the loo is the only chance I get to read and I was dipping into McGrath's Historical theology and his bit about Baultmann (spelling?), and it twigged - theology is just the same. We can have all the knowledge in the world about the Bible, the great theologians and their ideas, etc etc, but when people come to us what they really need to hear is "take this bread", "drink this wine".

(apologies to my evangelical theology of sacraments)

Vicar interferes with sermon again

Well, my latest sermon, based on “Velvet Elvis” by Rob Bell, seems to have gone down well. This despite the Vicar doing his usual act of interfering and asking me to do things differently form what I had planned. Fortunately I am used to him doing this now, and almost expect it. And to be fair, it is usually an improvement. But it does rile me that he does not implement his recommendations in his own sermons.

My son was on the PA system that night, and resisted all urges to turn me off.

My sermon was primarily about spiritual maturity, not getting dogmatic about things but being able to stretch ones faith and work with people who disagree rather than building exclusive doctrinal walls. Since it was a communion service, I was going to ask people as a practical exercise to approach the table with either a more or a less sacramental idea than they normally would. Mr Vicar extended this, by making me ask people to get up form their chairs and form groups – i.e. transubstantiation in that corner, consubstantiation over there, symbolic remembrance over here, etc. The idea was that people would then discuss these ideas, and possibly move to another group. Of course the groups comprised like-minded people, so it wasn’t 100% successful. But it made people think, and that was the main thing.

The disturbing thing is that our Vicar didn’t really seem to be aware of the range of opinion, and found this line of teaching to be quite informative. Since the Eucharist is central to Christian worship, I would like to think that an ordained minister in the Church of England has been fully trained in the theology around it.

Tight Scehdule III

OK, so I turn up for the 9:30 service at 8:00, since the Vicar has already asked me to be there early.

When I get there, he is having a panic becaue he ahs forgotten that next week there will be no ordained ministers, so they have to do communion this week. (This is one of the shortcomings of the Anglican Church - depriving the laity of its right to preside at communion.) So that measn that they don't need me to lead the service after all. But as a token, they ask me to do the prayers. Oh, and since the people that normally assist with the distribution won't be there owiong to the change, can I do it? Oh, and since nobody has brought any bread (we don't do those wafer things), can I pop out and buy some rolls?

So it seems that I was sent by God to help out in a moment of crisis.

However, one would like to think that these things can be organised a bit better.

Then in the evening service, it is again communion as planned. This time, none of the distibutors on the rota have turned up, and the new warden (whose duty it is to chase them up) hasn't done so. So at the critical moment when they are supposed to go to the front, no one does. and so, I have to step in to the breach once more.

One would like to think that these things can be organised a bit better. But when I am perfect, I can critisise.

At least it wasn't a U2charist!!