Catholic Sensibility

From Neil: Bishop Wright on Liturgy

I know very little about liturgy. But the frequency of discussion about liturgy on the internet has convinced me that I should learn what I can. I will start with the basics. Perhaps it might be edifying for my one or two readers to follow me through a recent article by the Anglican bishop and exegete NT Wright on “biblical worship” (Studia Liturgica 32 [2002]). NT Wright begins with “the spectacular scene in the book of Revelation, chapters 4 and 5, where John the Seer is summoned to become for a while a spectator at the heavenly court.” Bishop Wright reminds us that John is being shown “the heavenly dimension of present reality” – to “come up here” (4:1) is to be “caught up in the spirit” (4:2), “suddenly open to and aware of the heavenly dimension of what we call ordinary life.” John sees worship in the heavenly throne-room; animals begin by shouting, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts,” and twenty-four elders fall down and declare that God is worthy of this worship. We can see that authentic worship has to involve creation, rejecting any sort of dualism, and that the particular task of humans “is to bring to conscious thought and expression the worship of the rest of creation.” This task is also inevitably political; the worship of God as the sovereign one who rules with the slain Lamb, and who makes his people kings and priests, implicitly challenges – perhaps even subtly parodies – the imperial court and cult. “The sovereignty of God in the New Testament is more about politics than about philosophy.” There is no room for escapism at all in authentic liturgy – the vision at the end of Revelation is not of deliverance upward, but rather of the New Jerusalem descending to earth. Next, Bishop Wright wishes to look at the letter to the Romans. For St Paul, Jesus Christ, is the fulfillment of the law, bringing all nations to the obedience of faith. Every nation will come to the authentic worship (15:7-13) that had been degraded by idolatry (1-3). The waters of baptism are a new Exodus (6) that renews creation itself from decay, so that here between death and the promise of resurrection, we find that “the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness” in prayer (8:26) and we are “conformed to the image of His Son” (8:29). St Paul then tells us “to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” (12.1) – there can be no dualism here either. And St Paul describes the community that is the renewed people of God: “A single community formed across the barriers of culture and race, giving allegiance to the one Lord and looking for his coming true judgment – this is an agenda that ought to make Caesar shiver in his shoes.” Again, we see the imperial court and cult called into question. Lastly, Bishop Wright looks at the New Testament theme of the new Passover, the new Exodus. After all, both baptism and the Eucharist are Passover events – the former being the true crossing of the Red Sea and Jordan River, the latter announcing that the blood of a new covenant has been shed for our sins. Both are effective signs: “Just as some kinds of speech are themselves actions, so some kinds of actions are themselves speech – a handshake, a kiss, the cutting of a ribbon.” Their visibility challenges the Enlightenment claim that “what matters in religion is the ideas you have in your head,” the Romantic emphasis on feeling instead of form, and the Existentialist focus on some sort of Gnostic “who you really are.” The ritual quality of baptism and the Eucharist reminds us also that “the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation is a great drama, a great saga, a play written by the living God and staged in his wonderful creation; and in liturgy, whether sacramental or not, we become for a moment not only spectators of this play but also willing participants in it.” What then can we say about Christian worship? Christian worship takes place both in heaven and on earth: “The Sursum Corda, ‘lift up your hearts,’ is the sign of what is really going on.” Heaven is not a distant place, but rather where we are “caught up in the Spirit,” where Jesus and the Spirit reveal the Father to us, “drawing us into a worship, love and obedience” that we, renewed in the image of our Creator, then reflect outward to the world. Christian worship must also integrate the whole person, the whole community, and the whole creation. It will celebrate embodiedness in place of dualism, it will restore the community since all “those who name the name of Christ belong together at the same table saying the same words,” it will unite the whole creation in anticipation of when at Jesus’ name, “every knee shall bow” (Rom 14:11). We might say, then, that bad liturgy will tend to promote a dualistic reverence that separates heaven and earth, rejects the very bodies that we are to offer as a “living sacrifice,” ignores the community, and has precious little to say about creation or its eschatological destiny.