On Liturgies and Gospel Preachin’
Doug Phillips writes of a C of E service he attended at Westminster Abbey [Reformation21]:
…the freight of the worship service was carried by the liturgy, which of course was straight Cranmer. It was tremendously redemptive in focus and extremely rich. It strikes me that this liturgically-loaded service has a great strength and a great weakness. The strength is that 450 years after it was written, the liturgy still presents a robust and rich gospel message, dialogically worked out in the presence of God. I very much enjoyed (I know that is the wrong way to say it, but it was the truth) the liturgy and was greatly blessed in worshiping God. But the negative side is that it seems that perhaps the majority of people are able to participate in the liturgy without really imbibing or participating in the gospel thus presented.
I found this helpful because I feel the same way. Liturgies, creeds, prayerbooks, confessions of faith, and so on, are amazing and helpful tools for preserving the purity and correctness of Christian doctrine. But in themselves they are not evangelistic. It takes the preached word of God to do that.
…as for leading the bulk of the participants into a true relationship with God, it seems not to be very effective. For that reason, and for all the interest I had in participating in such a worship service, I really would have preferred a good sermon about the grace of God in Christ.
Now, of course, it might be possible to have both. I’ve just never experienced it.
Ligon Duncan quotes J.C. Ryle on the same blog:
“Daily services without sermons may gratify and edify a few handfuls of believers, but they will never reach, draw, attract, or arrest the great mass of mankind. If men want to do good to the multitude, if they want to reach their hearts and consciences, they must walk in the steps of Wycliffe, Latimer, Luther, Chrysostom, and St. Paul. They must attack them through their ears; they must blow the trumpet of the everlasting Gospel loud and long; they must preach the Word.”
Soli Deo Gloria.
I agree with Phillips especially and also Duncan. Liturgy is fine but true worship also requires meaningful preaching and personal worship.
Love to Peter from his grandpa.
Funny, then, that there is no “gospel preachin’” in divine worship, which the liturgy mirrors. Those crazy Catholics, they believe they are actually transported to heaven during worship, so much does their worship reflect heaven’s. Read the book of Revelation.
The Eucharist, the breaking of the bread, is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART of worship for those of us who believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine. This is how we honor Christ, this is how we proclaim his death, not a sermon that could or could not be theologically sound, depends on the mood of the preacher, and can be chosen from any Scripture he bloody well feels like (in liturgical churches, you hear the ENTIRE BIBLE over two or three years, rather than the same preachings on the same books year after year).
It is precisely BECAUSE of the so-called “impersonal” (i.e., not subjective, not catered to personal taste) aspect of liturgy that it is true worship. It completely takes the focus off self. You have to stand when you would rather sit, kneel when you would rather stand, and you have to do it a bunch of times. YOU HAVE TO BE AWAKE during a liturgy. You have to be in communion with the rest of the congregation, and say the same words and the same responses.
Yours is a very shallow understanding of liturgy, anyway. The word means “public duty” and it is considered what the Church DOES–whether in church or out. That the state of the liturgy in the last few decades has been poor (and that homilies in liturgical churches are, admittedly, poor these days) in no ways speaks on the value of liturgy itself, merely that Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglicans are in need of revival in the Church. And anyway, if a person is going to be impious, they are going to do it in a liturgy, or in spontaneous worship.
For smells and bells, try a Catholic Tridentine Rite (very rare nowadays, although Benedict XVI is sympathetic and is moving and shaking in that direction) or a Greek Catholic or an Orthodox liturgy. THAT is true worship–taste, sight, smell, hearing, and touch! And the best thing you can do is let go of YOUR idea of a “good worship service” and approach a liturgy without any of your preconceived notions. Then you will see its beauty and its truth. May God bless your search.
Not going to respond to my blasting of Calvinism???
Oh, I don’t know, I think there is “Gospel preaching” in divine worship. What is the gospel but the story of Jesus’s redeeming work? I don’t see that being old hat once we get to heaven. It’s the glory of Christ. “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!”
It’s true that the celebration of the Eucharist is an important part of the church’s liturgy. But remember that pastors have the responsibility to, well, pastor, their flock, and teach them from God’s Word. This involves exposition and application of specific scripture to specific situations. The reason I go to the church I do is not about “taste” (my “tastes” probably fall more on the liturgical side of things).
I’m not advocating ditching liturgies, by any means. I’m just saying that if my church is deficient in one thing, I would rather that thing not be scriptural preaching.
(And I don’t think I need to respond to your “blasting” of Calvinism, since most of it doesn’t touch me.
)
In Christian love,
Peter
That’s what I mean—the liturgy IS the gospel.
I would humbly submit that liturgy, rightly understood, is not supposed to be “evangelistic” in the narrower sense — it is intended to be the “work of the people,” specifically the people who are the Body of Christ. It is (or had better be) simply brimming with the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; but it is not intended to call people to salvation.
I would further suggest that it may or may not be fair to judge the spirituality of those participating in the liturgy — which often looks pretty poor from an Evangelical perspective, but can contain a very real (if quiet, and sometimes inadequately integrated) faith.
That being said, someone simply MUST do something about all the bad preaching foisted off in many more sacramental streams of Christianity. It’s inexcusable. Fortunately we DO get a lot of good stuff in the liturgy, and in the Scripture (of which rather more is read, on average, than in most “less liturgical” churches)… but I fully agree with Peter that there’s no defense for the dreadful homilies with which so many of the faithful are abused from week to week.