Firbush Retreats Firbush retreats are organized and led by Robert T. Walker. Firbush retreats are designed to make the best theology accessible to as many people as possible and especially those not trained in theology and often not familiar with routine technical terms. They combine times of worship and prayer with reflection on a theme related to Torrance theology. For more information see https://tftorrance.org/firbush. ----------- Firbush Retreat Summer 2014 Robin Parry, "Ancient-Future Worship I: The Gospel Embodied in Worship" https://tftorrance.org/firbushS2014 The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides from their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:08-00:12 Great, okay thanks. Well it's lovely to be here, thanks for having me. 00:12-00:14 I hope you can all hear me okay. 00:14-00:17 Bob asked me to come and talk about worship. 00:17-00:19 So I've just... 00:19-00:22 Worship is not something I'd been thinking about 00:22-00:24 as a sort of theological issue for some while. 00:24-00:29 I did a few years back when I did a book on the Trinity and worship. 00:29-00:34 But I just finished a book with a Greek Orthodox guy, which is out next month. 00:34-00:35 A little fly here. 00:35-00:37 And there's a couple of chapters in there on worship, 00:37-00:42 so I thought well I could talk about the stuff in there. 00:42-00:47 And maybe, and hopefully you'll find some of it at least interesting and helpful. 00:47-00:52 So what I want to talk about in this first session is just a general thing on 00:52-00:55 what it might mean to worship God right. 00:55-00:59 And then in the next one I want to look at the Eucharist, 00:59-01:03 and what it might mean to do the Eucharist right. 01:03-01:08 So I hope that is all okay and makes some sense. 01:08-01:12 And I'll see if I can work this machine. 01:12-01:16 Great art thou, O Lord our God, and greatly to be praised. 01:16-01:21 And man desires to praise thee, for he is part of thy creation. 01:21-01:26 For thou hast prompted him that he should delight to praise thee. 01:26-01:33 For thou hast made us for thyself, and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee, 01:33-01:36 said Saint Augustine. 01:36-01:42 Making Christian worship relevant and culturally relevant is a worthy endeavour, 01:42-01:47 and one that Christians across generations have engaged in, in many and various ways. 01:47-01:52 And such contextualisation is essential, but also brings inherent risks. 01:52-01:56 And the danger is that it may be that some features of a particular culture 01:56-02:00 that we're seeking to bring into the Church in pursuit of relevance, 02:00-02:06 actually subtly undermine authentic Christian worship, and so we need discernment. 02:06-02:11 Take the entertainment culture of the modern West as an example. 02:11-02:16 We're all consumers now, and we're used to being regularly stimulated and entertained 02:16-02:20 for waiting for the next shot in the arm, as it were. 02:20-02:25 And combine this with the new social location of churches in our society as voluntary clubs, 02:25-02:30 existing in the private sphere alongside other voluntary clubs like chess clubs, 02:30-02:33 and snooker clubs, and so on. 02:33-02:37 And church, in the minds of many people then, is a leisure activity, 02:37-02:41 for old people, and for weirdos. 02:41-02:45 So if we want to pull in the punters, we have to be hip-hop rather than hip-hop. 02:45-02:49 We need to be entertaining, as it were. 02:49-02:55 And while there are many opportunities here, there are also dragons lurking in nearby bushes. 02:55-02:59 Because if we position worship as a form of Christian entertainment, 02:59-03:02 we will shape Christians who consume worship as a product. 03:02-03:06 Christians that move from one worship high to the next, 03:06-03:09 chasing one stimulating event after another. 03:09-03:14 Christians that assess how good worship it is by how fizzy it made them feel. 03:14-03:18 And Christians that leave one congregation after another with little hesitation, 03:18-03:21 if something more entertaining springs up nearby. 03:21-03:23 Or even not so nearby. 03:23-03:27 I mean, we had people who would commute all the way from Worcester to London every week 03:27-03:30 to go to the most entertaining churches about. 03:30-03:35 But this kind of worship is, at rock bottom, all about me. 03:35-03:41 And God is approached as if he was under some obligation to keep me happy, my drug of choice. 03:41-03:44 But if he gets boring, I'll move on. 03:44-03:48 And if you don't think that worship is being transformed into a consumer product, 03:48-03:55 just consider the relatively big business of selling worship music and marketing large worship concerts. 03:55-04:01 Increasingly, the advertising promises life-changing experiences for those people who buy in. 04:01-04:06 You'll be swept into the presence of God in a way that you've never felt before. 04:06-04:10 I've seen this kind of stuff on adverts and Christian magazines. 04:10-04:14 And of course the reality always falls short of the promise. 04:14-04:19 But it's usually good enough to keep us going and pursuing the next big thing. 04:19-04:23 Because remember that entertainment as a format is not neutral. 04:23-04:28 But it conditions us to want more of the same kind of thing. That's the way it works. 04:28-04:32 And making worship entertaining does draw crowds. It works. 04:32-04:38 At least, if by works we mean pulls in numbers of people and makes them feel good for a while. 04:38-04:44 But do we have a congregation or an audience? And do we have worship or a performance? 04:44-04:48 And are we forming disciples or are we keeping customers happy? 04:48-04:52 Are we honoring God or are we pleasing ourselves? 04:52-04:57 So, that sounds really awful and negative, so please don't mishear me. 04:57-05:03 The dangers of consuming worship are created to a large extent by the cultural context 05:03-05:06 and the cultural frame in which the church is now located. 05:06-05:10 And whether we like it or not, people, Christians and non-Christians, 05:10-05:17 will to one degree or another approach church largely as a leisure activity, at least in the first instance. 05:17-05:20 And catechesis is very important to sort of help break people out of that. 05:20-05:23 But that's how people are going to be coming and approaching it. 05:23-05:30 And this is the case for any form of public worship, whether it's traditional or modern. 05:30-05:33 And so the question is how much we accommodate that orientation 05:33-05:37 and how much we try and reshape it and resist it. 05:37-05:43 And I'm not suggesting for one moment that we should make worship gatherings as dull as possible, 05:43-05:46 just so we stop people treating them as a form of fun. 05:46-05:48 God forbid. 05:48-05:52 The tradition has never been averse to beautiful and joyful worship. 05:52-05:56 What I'm saying is that if we are to be true to the aspirations of the tradition, 05:56-06:02 the agenda for worship has to be determined by the gospel, not by the entertainment culture. 06:02-06:06 And the aspirations is the right word here. 06:06-06:11 Because throughout Christian history, worship has regularly fallen short of ideals. 06:11-06:13 But the key thing is that it had ideals. 06:13-06:16 It had an idea of what it was trying to be. 06:16-06:20 And as the old proverb says, you have to aim for the moon to hit the mountaintop. 06:20-06:23 If you aim at nothing, you're sure to hit it. 06:23-06:28 So what I wanted to do in this first session is to look at some of the ideals 06:28-06:32 as to how worship was understood within the tradition. 06:32-06:35 Oh, and I forgot entirely that there was a thing here. 06:35-06:38 There you go. 06:38-06:42 So, Orthodoxia now and not yet. 06:42-06:47 I have got a sheet, by the way, with all my key points on. 06:47-06:49 Which you can have now or later, depending on... 06:49-06:51 You can have it later. 06:51-06:55 Makes you listen. 06:55-07:01 We need to understand Orthodoxia, which is by which I mean rightly aligned worship. 07:01-07:03 We need to understand it in a two-fold way. 07:03-07:09 In one sense, Orthodoxia is a simple binary. 07:09-07:12 Worship is either Orthodox or it's not. 07:12-07:15 It's authentic worship or it's not. 07:15-07:18 Worship aims to bring an acceptable offering to God. 07:18-07:24 But how can we, as broken people that we are, bring a gift that is fitting for the Holy One? 07:24-07:27 How can we offer acceptable worship? 07:27-07:33 And the answer is, as I'm sure you will all know, being good Terenzian people that you are, 07:33-07:36 is that we do so because of our mediator, Jesus. 07:36-07:40 He is the chief worshiper of the Father. 07:40-07:44 It's the God-man himself, Jesus the Messiah. 07:44-07:48 He offers Orthodoxia as our human representative. 07:48-07:54 And Christian worship is offered then to God through Christ 07:54-07:59 by those who are united to him by the Holy Spirit. 07:59-08:04 Our imperfect worship passes, as it were, through the filter of Christ's own perfect worship 08:04-08:07 and is thereby purified. 08:07-08:13 Worship offered in our own name rather than in that of Christ is not filtered 08:13-08:16 and contains all of the impurities that we bring. 08:16-08:20 It is not rightly aligned worship. 08:20-08:28 So first and foremost, Orthodox worship is worship offered to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. 08:28-08:34 And if it is, then it brings right glory to God because Christ's worship does. 08:34-08:40 But in another sense, authentic Christian worship is not a simple binary. 08:40-08:42 It's not either on or off. 08:42-08:45 There is a process of sanctification involved. 08:45-08:50 And what I want to focus on really today, in the Trinity book I focused on that other bit, 08:50-08:53 I want to focus on the process of sanctification in worship. 08:53-08:55 Because worship then is a journey of transformation 08:55-08:59 as our devotion is changed from one degree of glory to another. 08:59-09:06 The Holy Spirit leads us both as communities and as individuals on a voyage, 09:06-09:12 teaching us how to become in our experience what is already a reality in Christ. 09:12-09:17 And here, Orthodoxia is like water flowing from a tap. 09:17-09:23 It can be dripping or dribbling or flowing or gushing or pounding. 09:23-09:29 In experienced reality, our worship is right to the extent that it's conformed to the image of Christ. 09:29-09:34 And so Orthodox from this angle is not so much what we are as what we are becoming. 09:34-09:37 Not so much where we're at as where we're heading. 09:37-09:42 I do hope this is right, so tell me if I'm completely wrong afterwards. 09:42-09:45 If anyone will tell me that, it will be you guys. 09:45-09:50 It is an eschatological feast that we can taste in present reality. 09:50-09:54 So as we travel along this road in Christ and assisted by the Spirit, 09:54-10:02 it's helpful to have some sense of the features of worship that is rightly aligned. 10:02-10:09 Oh, so I just said that. 10:09-10:14 So Orthodox here first of all is God focused. 10:14-10:17 One of my worries was all this stuff is so blindingly obvious. 10:17-10:20 Like, why am I telling you all this? 10:20-10:21 Who doesn't know this? 10:21-10:25 But there you go, I'm going to say it anyway and hopefully it will spark a conversation. 10:25-10:30 One interesting observation on human psychology is that when we focus exclusively on ourselves 10:30-10:34 and make the pursuit of happiness our life project, 10:34-10:41 we often find that happiness always seems just beyond our reach like the gold at the end of the rainbow. 10:41-10:45 And when we turn our gaze outwards towards others, 10:45-10:50 we discover that joy finds us, even when we're not looking for it. 10:50-10:54 And there is something of that kind of dynamic in worship 10:54-10:57 because there are in fact many benefits for us in worship. 10:57-11:03 We can find love, joy, peace, healing, restoration and the sense of belonging. 11:03-11:06 We can find rest for our restless hearts. 11:06-11:10 Worship is spiritual formation and worship is good for us. 11:10-11:16 However, if we are engaging in worship primarily in order to gain these benefits for ourselves, 11:16-11:19 then we will find them in small measure. 11:19-11:24 The more we move our focus away from ourselves towards God giving him honour, 11:24-11:27 whether we get anything from it or not, 11:27-11:31 whether we feel warm and fuzzy or not, 11:31-11:36 the more we find that our cup runs over with the wine of divine blessing. 11:36-11:43 Because joy is found when we stop pursuing joy and start pursuing God. 11:43-11:48 Obviously, with the qualification as the Holy Spirit enables us to pursue God, 11:48-11:54 any response to God is a gifted response and I'll take that as given in everything I say. 11:54-11:59 So giving glory to God for God's sake, 11:59-12:05 whether or not he blesses us, can seem a very pointless thing to do for many people. 12:05-12:09 Because our culture is one that runs on a very functional logic 12:09-12:16 and taking time aside to do stuff without any obvious benefit or payoff seems an inefficient use of time. 12:16-12:20 Why pray? You'd be better off doing something useful. 12:20-12:24 But such an extravagant time-wasting in the presence of God 12:24-12:28 is at the very heart of the loving devotion to which we are called. 12:28-12:32 It's a crazy Godward orientation of the self. 12:32-12:37 Martha Dawn provocatively speaks of worship as a royal waste of time. 12:37-12:43 Quite right! A glorious counter-cultural waste of time. 12:43-12:50 I am not suggesting that the pleasure of worship is something to be avoided 12:50-12:54 in the pursuit of some stoic detachment. Far from it. 12:54-12:56 St. Augustine, to take one major voice from the tradition, 12:56-13:01 is quite clear that human life finds its fulfilment in the enjoyment of God. 13:01-13:05 And the great saints often speak of the rapturous joy of knowing God. 13:05-13:11 One might even speak of this somewhat provocatively, as John Piper does, as Christian hedonism. 13:11-13:14 One might. 13:14-13:21 But our point is simply that pleasure comes when we are focusing not on it but on God. 13:21-13:24 In losing ourselves we find ourselves. 13:24-13:29 I'm also not suggesting that there is no place for introspection in worship. 13:29-13:34 On the contrary, to focus on God usually requires that we deal with issues where we're at. 13:34-13:37 There are worries that need to be brought before God and laid down. 13:37-13:42 There are intercessions that need to be made, sins that need to be acknowledged and dealt with. 13:42-13:45 Worship is relationship and so these matters are important. 13:45-13:49 But all of these matters find their resolution as we are enabled by the grace of God 13:49-13:54 to look away from ourselves, from our worries and our circumstances and our sins and our sorrows, 13:54-13:57 and to fix our eyes upon God. 13:57-14:02 The great liturgies of the past were all designed to draw the attention of the worshippers towards God. 14:02-14:06 And the same can be said of the hymnic tradition. 14:06-14:11 And they do draw attention to our sins and to our needs, but not such that our focus remains there. 14:11-14:16 Instead they direct us to look to the Lord and to leave such matters at his feet. 14:16-14:21 One of the dangers of any form of Christian devotion, whatever the tradition of music, 14:21-14:25 or the buildings or the sermons, is that these things, 14:25-14:29 the music, the icons, the sermons, the rituals, etc., 14:29-14:34 which are all valuable because they are all signs that point beyond themselves to the divine, 14:34-14:37 become the focus of our attention. 14:37-14:42 And the extent to which they do is the extent to which an act of worship is no longer occurring. 14:42-14:46 Consider a Gregorian chant. 14:46-14:51 At first it is not art at all. It is a heightened form of prayer. 14:51-14:58 Not that it doesn't have aesthetic aspects to it, but those dimensions don't draw attention to themselves for their own sake, 14:58-15:00 but they are aids to prayer. 15:00-15:04 Now the chant can also be viewed at a level of abstraction, 15:04-15:08 as something that helps us to reflect on our mortality and on God. 15:08-15:13 And here it's not prayer, but it's still located within a God-directed life. 15:13-15:18 However, the chant can suffer a second level of abstraction, 15:18-15:24 where it simply becomes a beautiful sound, art for art's sake, a concert to attend. 15:24-15:29 And with the advent of musical consumption by individuals in their own homes on CDs and so on, 15:29-15:34 it can eventually just become a kind of background musical wallpaper. 15:34-15:40 When the Gregorian chant draws attention to itself as an artifact, it's in danger of losing its soul. 15:43-15:48 There are many aspects of worship that are like a window looking out across a beautiful vista. 15:48-15:51 The window is not intended to be the focus of our attention. 15:51-15:55 We're supposed to look through it, not at it. 15:55-15:59 Of course, in the case of God, things aren't quite so simple. 15:59-16:05 Perceiving God by means of the sight and sound and touch and taste and smell of worship is something we need to learn. 16:05-16:09 And as with learning a language, it can take time and practice. 16:09-16:14 When we learn a language, which can be quite torturous sometimes, 16:14-16:19 we need to think very carefully about most of what we're saying. 16:19-16:24 And our focus is on getting the words right and inflecting them properly. 16:24-16:28 And it's clumsy and it's stuttering and we make all sorts of mistakes. 16:28-16:33 But as time goes on, the new language becomes easier and easier until it's second nature 16:33-16:38 and we no longer think about the language, but we think and communicate through the language. 16:38-16:42 The language itself becomes, as it were, invisible. 16:42-16:47 Even though without it, there would be no thought or communication at all. 16:47-16:52 Orthodoxia is also Trinitarian. 16:52-16:57 Basil of Caesarea wrote, "As we are baptized," 16:57-17:00 meaning in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, 17:00-17:03 "As we are baptized, so also do we believe. 17:03-17:08 And as we believe, so also do we recite the doxology." 17:08-17:12 Christian worship is not directed to some generic God. 17:12-17:16 It's about the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, the triune God. 17:16-17:19 And as such, Christian worship has a Trinitarian shape. 17:19-17:22 And it has this in two ways. 17:22-17:26 First, Christian worship is Trinitarian in its very dynamic. 17:26-17:27 And I've already said this. 17:27-17:31 In prayer, we approach the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. 17:31-17:36 And our response to God is acceptable because it is, as Matt Redmond says, 17:36-17:40 a gifted response, enabled by God himself. 17:40-17:47 But second, Trinitarian worship is also Trinitarian in its focus. 17:47-17:50 All right, did I say that? 17:50-17:52 And that. 17:52-17:59 In its focus, we give glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. 18:00-18:03 We offer adoration to the three Persons of the Trinity. 18:03-18:07 And of course, this Trinitarian balance can easily be lost. 18:07-18:11 Often the Spirit disappears off the radar, even in Pentecostal worship. 18:11-18:14 There is a myth that Pentecostals sing about the Holy Spirit all the time. 18:14-18:15 I can assure you they don't. 18:15-18:18 Most of the time, the Holy Spirit doesn't get a look in. 18:18-18:23 And even in some evangelical groups, it seems to be everything's about Jesus. 18:23-18:27 And the irony being, of course, to neglect the Father is to dishonor the Son 18:27-18:29 who came to lead us to the Father. 18:29-18:35 Christian worship should seek to bring God's church into a dynamic encounter 18:35-18:37 with the Christian God, the Holy Trinity. 18:37-18:42 It will ceaselessly and effortlessly move back and forth between the three-ness of God 18:42-18:44 and the unity of God. 18:44-18:48 It will shift focus from Father to Son to Spirit and back again 18:48-18:51 in a restless celebration of divine love and mystery. 18:51-18:55 It will also highlight the perichoretic relations within the Godhead 18:55-18:58 by not allowing the worshippers to lose sight of any of the Persons. 18:58-19:02 At times, worship will draw attention, the Father, into focus. 19:02-19:07 But the Son and the Spirit will be there, out of focus maybe, 19:07-19:10 but always in our field of awareness. 19:10-19:13 At other times, the Son will attract our attention, 19:13-19:16 but not in such a way that we don't see the Father and the Spirit. 19:16-19:18 And when the Spirit draws our worshipping attention, 19:18-19:23 it will always be as the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son. 19:23-19:27 Worship that makes us aware of the inter-Trinitarian relationships 19:27-19:29 is fully Trinitarian worship. 19:29-19:33 Trinitarian worship is always through the Son and in the Spirit, 19:33-19:37 but is woven from an ever-changing mosaic of songs and prayers, 19:37-19:40 Bible readings, testimonies, Spirit gifts, sermons, Holy Communion, 19:40-19:43 drama, dance, art and more besides. 19:43-19:46 The variety is endless and the possibility is infinite, 19:46-19:50 but at the heart of it all stands the mystery of the Holy Trinity. 19:50-19:53 And that's what Christian worship is. 19:56-20:00 Orthodoxia is also Gospel-shaped. 20:00-20:03 Christians are Gospel people, 20:03-20:06 and the Gospel story determines the shape of Christian worship. 20:06-20:11 Indeed, the key criterion of whether worship is Christian 20:11-20:13 is whether it is Christ-centered. 20:13-20:17 And here the tradition offers us a wealth of possibilities. 20:23-20:27 The great liturgies of the Church are all Christocentric. 20:27-20:32 They contain countless manifestations of the Gospel in word. 20:32-20:36 Gospel-shaped prayers of all shapes and sizes, 20:36-20:38 songs that celebrate the evangel, 20:38-20:42 readings from the four Gospels, sermons that expand on the good news. 20:42-20:46 You cannot get away from the core message. 20:46-20:49 Jesus, the Messiah, has died for our sins, 20:49-20:53 was raised from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God. 20:53-20:57 Bow at your knee and acknowledge him as the Lord of Creation. 20:57-21:04 The Gospel also informs the shape of the sacraments of the Church. 21:04-21:09 To take the two sacraments instituted by Jesus himself, baptism and Eucharist, 21:09-21:12 and I'll have a lot more to say about Eucharist tomorrow. 21:12-21:14 It is tomorrow, is it? 21:14-21:15 Tomorrow. 21:15-21:18 I actually looked at the schedule, which is my fault. 21:18-21:19 Should have done. 21:19-21:24 In baptism, the narrative of an individual person's life 21:24-21:28 is united by the Holy Spirit to the narrative of Christ. 21:28-21:31 And in this original form of full immersion in water, 21:31-21:33 a form still found in many churches, 21:33-21:35 the person symbolically, 21:35-21:38 and this is the case even when the full immersion isn't used, this is the symbol, 21:38-21:41 but it is seen more clearly in the symbol of immersion, 21:41-21:46 enacts the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, 21:46-21:50 as they're joined with him in his death, burial and resurrection. 21:50-21:55 They die with Christ and are buried with him in the water and are raised to new life. 21:55-22:00 In the early church, baptismal candidates would symbolically remove their clothing 22:00-22:04 before entering the water and would put on new white clothes when leaving it, 22:04-22:09 representing stripping off their old self and being clothed with a new life of Jesus. 22:09-22:14 And in this way, candidates, what is being said of the candidate, 22:14-22:17 it's one of the key things about baptism is you don't baptize yourself. 22:17-22:21 It's not something you do, which is one of the reasons I hate the focus on baptisms 22:21-22:23 all about giving a testimony. 22:23-22:26 Baptism is what happens to you. 22:26-22:28 It's all about God's initiative and grace. 22:28-22:31 You don't do anything, you just stand there and it's done to you. 22:31-22:35 But anyway, what it says is that this person's, 22:35-22:37 the cruciform pattern of Jesus' life, 22:37-22:40 suffering, self-giving, followed by glory, 22:40-22:43 will be what characterizes this person's life. 22:43-22:44 In Christ. 22:44-22:47 Eucharist 2 is fundamentally tied to the story of Jesus, 22:47-22:50 of his blood shed for us, his body broken for us, 22:50-22:55 and when we partake of the Lord's Supper, we proclaim his death until he comes. 22:55-23:01 And to consume the bread and wine is to ritually take the eternal life of Christ into our own lives. 23:01-23:08 And these two central rites reinforce the point that entry into the church, 23:08-23:12 which is baptism, and ongoing life within the church, 23:12-23:16 Eucharist, are grounded upon the gospel itself. 23:16-23:20 The esteem for these sacraments in the tradition 23:20-23:22 serves to keep the church centered on the good news. 23:22-23:26 And one of the dangers of their marginalization 23:26-23:29 in certain significant sections of evangelicalism, 23:29-23:34 baptism is often, because it's something that divides different denominations, 23:34-23:36 evangelicals, particularly on interchurch things, 23:36-23:39 tend to preach the gospel in a way that has no connection to baptism. 23:39-23:41 You don't mention baptism because we don't agree on that. 23:41-23:44 And suddenly it's very hard to connect to conversion. 23:44-23:48 And then Eucharist, well, I'll talk about it tomorrow, 23:48-23:50 but this is sidelined as well. 23:50-23:53 And one of the dangers of this marginalization 23:53-23:55 in certain significant sections of evangelicalism, 23:55-23:59 which, based largely on the cultural model of a pop concert, 23:59-24:03 increasingly makes singing choruses the paradigmatic center of Christian worship, 24:03-24:07 is that we can lose sight of the story that makes us who we are. 24:07-24:16 Oh, right. Yes, gospel and time. 24:16-24:21 The tradition also brings time into submission to Jesus. 24:21-24:24 And this comes across in various ways. 24:24-24:29 It's not simply that the birth of Jesus becomes the fulcrum around which 24:29-24:32 the ears are dated, B.C. and A.D. 24:32-24:35 And even if you call them C.E. and B.C.E., 24:35-24:37 that's only a sheep in wolf's clothing. 24:37-24:41 Every week begins with worship on a Sunday, 24:41-24:43 the day of Jesus' resurrection. 24:43-24:47 According to Genesis 1, Sunday was the first day of creation. 24:47-24:50 But in the New Testament, it's the first day of new creation. 24:50-24:56 Here's a quote from Justin Martyr about early Christian gatherings. 24:56-25:01 "We assemble together on Sunday because it's the first day 25:01-25:05 on which God transformed darkness and matter and made the world." 25:05-25:07 So it's the first day of creation day. 25:07-25:12 "And Jesus Christ, our Savior, rose from the dead on that day." 25:12-25:13 It's new creation day. 25:13-25:16 "For they crucified him the day before Saturday. 25:16-25:19 And the day after Saturday, which is Sunday, 25:19-25:23 he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught them these things, 25:23-25:27 which we have presented you also for your consideration." 25:27-25:32 So while Christians, of course, can meet any day to worship God, 25:32-25:37 this day, Sunday, has always held a special significance for Christians. 25:37-25:41 It's a weekly celebration of resurrection breaking into our age. 25:41-25:46 Some in the emerging church movement have advocated avoiding Sunday meetings 25:46-25:48 in order to be less religious. 25:48-25:51 And while such a move can have a place as a prophetic statement 25:51-25:54 in certain situations and circumstances, 25:54-25:58 there is a danger that we might lose more than we gain by doing this. 25:58-26:01 It's not simply dates and weeks, 26:01-26:05 but the worshiping rhythms of each year are determined by the narrative of the Messiah, 26:05-26:10 Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost. 26:10-26:17 On top of that, the temporary progression through an act of liturgy and worship, 26:17-26:19 particularly Eucharistic liturgies, 26:19-26:25 move the congregation gradually towards this climactic encounter with Christ in the feast. 26:25-26:29 And in these ways worship is redefined, 26:29-26:36 and the Gospel itself is redefining our encounter with time in evangelical ways. 26:36-26:39 See, modernity homogenizes time. 26:39-26:43 All time becomes clock time, marching relentlessly forward. 26:43-26:47 You could swap any day for any other and nobody would notice the difference. 26:47-26:51 It's just one damn thing after another, as somebody said about history. 26:51-26:58 But what the Gospel does is it reshapes the whole way that we experience and live time as Christians. 26:58-27:04 So the tradition offers us a radically alternative way of being in time. 27:04-27:10 The Gospel also... 27:10-27:14 I haven't been watching my clock, by the way, so I will go for it late. 27:14-27:19 I'll do the slightly shorter version of the paper and I can do a little bit more if you really want. 27:19-27:22 Yeah, whatever, I'll shut up and get on with it. 27:22-27:24 Gospel in space. 27:24-27:31 By that I'm talking about the way the tradition found ways of utilizing space in Jesus-determined ways. 27:31-27:37 One might think, for instance, of the architecture of traditional church buildings. 27:37-27:44 Now this varies from one tradition to another, and from one country to another, and from one time period to another. 27:44-27:52 But whatever the variations, traditional church buildings, unlike the soulless warehouses of modern megachurches... 27:52-27:56 I do sound like a gratching old person today. 27:56-27:59 I didn't mean to. Oh well. 27:59-28:05 But the point is these buildings are not merely functional boxes in which people can gather. 28:05-28:12 They are theology, written in stone and wood and glass and metal and brick. 28:12-28:14 And there's volumes that you could say here. 28:14-28:17 Consider the most blindingly obvious one. 28:17-28:21 The classic shape of a western cathedral is that of a cross. 28:21-28:24 So when Christians are gathering to worship, they're meeting inside a giant cross. 28:24-28:28 You can't get more blatant than that. 28:28-28:35 But I was thinking, I was in the parish church in the center of our town the other day, 28:35-28:40 and I thought, "Look at all this space. It's a complete waste of space. All this stuff going up here. 28:40-28:45 You can't use it. You can't put any chairs in it. It's just there. What's it doing?" 28:45-28:49 Totally gratuitous and pointless. That's the point. 28:49-28:51 That is the point. 28:51-28:55 It's extravagant. It speaks of the grandeur of God. It lifts your eyes up. 28:55-29:02 It's not just about being functional. It's about the gratuity of God, giving space in which to be. 29:02-29:08 I just love the pointlessness of that because the point is that. 29:08-29:15 Eastern Orthodox churches are often modeled on Noah's Ark and so on with the dome symbolizing heaven. 29:15-29:18 And within the Orthodox service, of course, everybody and everything that happens 29:18-29:22 is reenacting the drama of the Gospel. 29:22-29:29 I'm not suggesting that it's the case that public worship has to include this liturgy 29:29-29:35 and that kind of architecture and those annual festivals and this particular style of preaching 29:35-29:39 in order to be Gospel-shaped because there's loads of scope for innovation 29:39-29:42 and living traditions have to be open to change across time and culture. 29:42-29:49 But the historic worship of the church at very least presents us with some rich models of how it can be done, 29:49-29:52 models that can serve as resources for us. 29:52-29:57 Maybe this is what's coming out of my wing of the church which is all about new things, new things, 29:57-30:02 constantly new things and forget the old stuff because that's boring and nobody connects to that. 30:02-30:06 And so maybe you're hearing some of my own reaction against that to say 30:06-30:14 we need to draw on this stuff as a resource if we're to be in continuity with this Gospel-shaped church. 30:17-30:21 Orthodoxia is also holistic. 30:21-30:28 Holistic worship should enable us to engage God as the embodied creatures that we are. 30:28-30:34 As such, it should be multisensory, appealing not merely to the ears and rational minds 30:34-30:41 through songs and sermons but to the eyes, to touch and taste and smell. 30:41-30:48 Sarah Coakley has suggested that Christian liturgical practices are a socially mediated, 30:48-30:54 bodily enacted, sensually attuned means of knowing Christ. 30:54-31:01 She says, "What sort of epistemological apparatus is involved in this process of 31:01-31:05 liturgical response and growth in intimacy with Christ? 31:05-31:10 Clearly the traditional mental faculties, intellect, will, memory, are involved in liturgical performance 31:10-31:16 and the intellect's significance in relation to propositional theological truths is self-evident. 31:16-31:20 But what of the distinctly sensual dimensions of liturgy? 31:20-31:29 Do these not play some vital part in the growth in responsiveness to Christ's relational presence in intimacy? 31:29-31:36 And do they not in some sense in turn inform our intellectual and affective responses?" 31:36-31:39 I'll explain what that is now. 31:39-31:46 Coakley argues that the physical sense of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell 31:46-31:53 are related to spiritual senses such that material sensations can, if appropriately shaped over time, 31:53-31:57 increasingly mediate spiritual perception. 31:57-32:04 She does this through appropriating some of the thought of Gregory of Nyssa, one of the Cappadocians. 32:04-32:14 Gregory of Nyssa in On the Soul and Resurrection actually makes explicit 32:14-32:19 the possibility of training our gross physical senses 32:19-32:25 so that they come to anticipate something of the capacities of the resurrection body. 32:25-32:33 And so not only sense Christ himself but actually sense as he senses. 32:33-32:40 "By the very operation of our senses," says Macrina, Gregory's sister and the mentor in the dialogue, 32:40-32:48 "by the very operation of our senses we are led to conceive of that reality and intelligence which surpasses the senses." 32:48-32:56 In other words, one perceives God, the truth of God, not merely through the cognitive content of words and sermons 32:56-33:05 but also through the sight of stained glass windows and carved stonework and candles and colourful banners and icons 33:05-33:15 and ritual movements of clergy around sacred space in a building and the smell of incense and the sounds of music and bells 33:15-33:20 and divine words and the touch and taste of bread and wine. 33:20-33:30 As John Chrysostom put it in the Patristic Era, "It is all a matter of making the unseen visible from the seen." 33:30-33:36 It is a matter of training the bodily senses in attunement with Christ's presence. 33:36-33:46 And I'll say more about this when I talk about Eucharist and the way that materiality mediates the unseen and invisible realm. 33:46-33:53 In the words of Cyril of Jerusalem, on the physical reception of the Eucharist, Cyril says, 33:53-34:00 "Do not have your wrists extended or your fingers spread out, but make your left hand the throne for your right, 34:00-34:06 for it is about to receive a king, and cupping your palm receive the body of Christ." 34:06-34:12 I find this very intriguing, the idea that we can, in anticipation of the resurrection body, 34:12-34:20 train our physical senses such that they can, even in the very physical things we touch and taste and see and smell, 34:20-34:27 look beyond themselves to Christ and his presence. 34:27-34:31 Orthodoxia is accompanied by orthopraxia. 34:31-34:38 Old Testament prophets were not averse to offering blistering critiques of the official cult in the name of Jehovah. 34:38-34:45 And the point is not that there was a problem with the cult per se, Jehovah himself had instituted it, so he's hardly going to condemn it. 34:45-34:50 The problem arose when priests and people offered the prescribed sacrifices and said the set prayers, 34:50-34:55 and yet at the same time lived lives inconsistent with the goodness of the God they professed. 34:55-35:03 Sometimes they would be worshipping Jehovah and idols at the same time, hedging their bets, just in case. 35:03-35:08 God did not accept such worship, and at other times they would give praise to God with their lips, 35:08-35:13 but act in ways incompatible with holiness, treating other people like dirt. 35:13-35:17 And God said that he hated and rejected such shallow worship. 35:17-35:19 Here is Amos. 35:19-35:25 "I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 35:25-35:30 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. 35:30-35:34 And the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. 35:34-35:37 Take away from me the noise of your songs. 35:37-35:46 To the melody of your harps I will not listen, but let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." 35:46-35:48 This... 35:48-35:51 Oh, well... 35:51-35:54 Yeah. 35:54-36:00 This is a very challenging strand in the biblical literature, and it applies to Christian worship too, I suggest. 36:00-36:06 Do we imagine that God will accept our worship if we're blatantly living in ways that run counter to Gospel? 36:06-36:09 The answer must surely be no. 36:09-36:13 Though, we need to be careful not to cast the first stone, 36:13-36:19 for all the historic traditions of the Church have at times had the form of orthodoxy, 36:19-36:22 but in reality served a master of a different kind. 36:22-36:27 In the 1930s, for example, Lutheran bishops declared that Jesus was not a Jew, 36:27-36:33 and by taking away his cultural particularity, they ipso facto denied his humanity. 36:33-36:39 The distancing of Jesus from Judaism was arguably the extension of Luther's own anti-Semitism, 36:39-36:43 which lamentably had its roots in the wider Christian tradition, 36:43-36:48 and it made it easier for many German Lutherans to turn a blind eye to the Nazi's treatment of the Jews. 36:48-36:52 And in this regard, the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany was no better. 36:52-36:58 We could also think, for instance, of the support offered by some of the leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church 36:58-37:03 for ethnic cleansing of Croatians and Bosnians in the 1990s. 37:03-37:08 And all such anti-Gospel behaviour makes the worship of those who engage in it, 37:08-37:11 while formally orthodox, utterly unorthodox, 37:11-37:13 nay, heterodox. 37:13-37:18 But the godly response to such perversion is modelled on the prophets too. 37:18-37:21 It is a position of anguished commitment. 37:21-37:27 Thus, Jeremiah simultaneously denounces Israel's iniquity for what it is, 37:27-37:32 and yet remains committed to the covenant between God and his people, even in their sins. 37:32-37:38 He is furious with Judah, but he does not turn his back on her, but weeps over her infidelity. 37:38-37:44 Jeremiah condemns and laments not because he hates Judah, but because he still loves her. 37:44-37:53 And finally, orthodoxia is communal. 37:53-37:57 Is there a point there? 37:57-38:04 While it's perfectly possible, and indeed normal to worship God on one's own, 38:04-38:08 Christians have always met together for communal worship. 38:08-38:13 And this is because it's important for us that God is not simply redeeming lots of individuals, 38:13-38:16 but a society of saints. 38:16-38:21 And contra-Margaret Thatcher, there is such a thing as society. 38:21-38:24 The church is not like a jar of sweets, 38:24-38:29 a collection of individual units that can exist just as well alone, 38:29-38:32 as in the jar with others. 38:32-38:38 In scripture, church is a family, brothers and sisters, siblings with Christ, 38:38-38:44 children of the Father. It is a single body. It is a single temple. 38:44-38:47 And in all these images, the parts are nothing without the whole, 38:47-38:51 and they only find their identity in relation with others. 38:51-38:58 And so it is that the Christian tradition has always made communal worship the paradigm case. 38:58-39:02 And here we return to where we started. 39:02-39:05 Christ's own worship of God. 39:05-39:09 Christ's perfect human worship as the second Adam 39:09-39:13 is not the worship offered by a human individual. 39:13-39:18 Well, it's not merely the worship of a human individual isolated from the rest of humanity. 39:18-39:22 It is the worship of the head of the community of God 39:22-39:26 who sings the praise of God in the midst of the congregation. 39:26-39:31 And on behalf of the congregation, as the representative of the congregation, 39:31-39:37 Jesus' worship is the worship of the community of the redeemed. 39:37-39:44 And the worship of the church in Christ is not the worship of an association of individuals, 39:44-39:50 but the worship offered by the single body of Christ. 39:50-39:53 And your worship as an individual and my worship as an individual 39:53-39:59 is grounded ontologically on the prior worship of the community in Christ. 39:59-40:04 In his union with us, Christ's worship is the church's worship, 40:04-40:10 and in our union with him, the church's worship is Christ's worship. 40:10-40:14 Which means that to give up meeting together, worshipping together, 40:14-40:18 is not giving up something peripheral or incidental to the faith, 40:18-40:21 but something that is right at the heart of it. 40:21-40:29 Orthodox Christology is ecclesial, and Orthodox ecclesiology is Christological. 40:29-40:33 That actually sounds like the closest thing I've said to theology the whole time. 40:33-40:37 So we've covered quite a lot of ground here. 40:37-40:43 We've explored how Christian worship aspires to be God-focused, Trinitarian, gospel-shaped, 40:43-40:47 holistic, accompanied by right living, and practiced in community. 40:47-40:51 And that's really all I wanted to say for this session. 40:51-40:55 And in the next session, like I said, I want to focus in on the Eucharist 40:55-41:00 and its role in the renewal of worship in the contemporary church. 41:00-41:01 Thanks. 41:02-41:06 [Applause]