Here’s a very personal subject for discussion: How do you prepare your sermons?
The reason it’s so personal is that every one has his or her own way of doing it. Especially if you’ve been cranking them out for a number of years, and you’ve found the way that “works” for you.
Recently I’ve had three successive Sundays in the pulpit, thanks to vacation schedules of my friends. This has forced me back into a discipline of preparation. I remember Frederick Buechner expressing great admiration for the weekly preacher—he had weeks, even months between sermons and could only imagine how difficult it must be to squeeze preparation into a week. A planned agenda of sermonizing, however, does make it manageable.
So, for what it’s worth, here’s what I’ve worked out, assuming an every Sunday preaching responsibility, and I have only one week to pull it together.
On the Sunday afternoon the week before, I print out and prayerfully read the Scripture passages from the lectionary for the next Sunday. This is the beginning of time set aside each day through the week for “sermonizing”. In those days I move through working with commentaries and doing some exegesis; scribbling notes on a wide variety of pertinent ideas; jotting possible sermon titles; trying to put in a sentence or two the message of the sermon; noting connections from real-life events to the Scripture; developing an outline of the sermon with major points and subheadings and finalizing the title.
Starting the first Sunday afternoon with the reading of the texts, there is an almost constant thinking about the sermon, looking for connections, some word or event that will illustrate and enlighten. There’s a lot of meditation and contemplation that goes into a sermon. Someone once noted how hard it is to convince your spouse that you’re working when you’re standing there looking out the window. But sometimes that’s the most productive work.
Friday morning, when I’m fresh, I sit at the computer and, with a deep breath and a prayer, I have a go at it. I’m often surprised when what I come up with is not exactly what I planned—I like to think the Spirit is meddling and nudging me in better directions.
The rest of Friday and all day Saturday, I try to stay away from the sermon until Saturday evening. It gives me a chance to get some distance on what I’ve written, enabling me to see it and “listen” to it more objectively, more like someone in the pews might.
Saturday night I turn to my editor-in-chief, my wife, to give it a going over. She’s great at spotting wordy language and fancy words nobody but me would use. She’ll also tell me what’s weak or sloppy. Then I do another rewrite. Even if she has no suggestions or corrections, I’ll go through it again and rewrite.
Sunday morning, I’m up early to go through it again and rewrite if necessary before I leave for church. I will get there with time to spare for going through the manuscript a final time to hear how it sounds, and make marks in red ink accordingly.
Now, you understand that this is the plan for me. Of necessity, the agenda may be compressed. Still this kind of schedule sets a target for me to aim at. I know it’s only one way to approach the preacher’s task, and I’d be interested in seeing what works for others.
So how do you prepare to preach? What works for you? What doesn’t work? And if you’re not a preacher, why not talk to your preacher about his or her process?
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Prep Prayers
One of my favorite prayers comes from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church. I happen to like it in the Edwardian English of its time. It’s titled “For the Spirit of Prayer.”
"ALMIGHTY God, who pourest out on all who desire it, the spirit of grace and of supplication; Deliver us, when we draw nigh to thee, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind, that with stedfast thoughts and kindled affections, we may worship thee in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
It’s a worthwhile prayer to ask that we might pray passionately and minus as many distractions as we can reasonably shut out. One does not “draw nigh” to the Almighty casually. It’s an act one has to warm up to. And it takes some focus. A warm heart and concentrated mind are worth praying for before you pray.* We should pray before the service actually begins, in preparation for our fullest participation in the main event.
Entering into the worship of Almighty God usually requires a shift of gears: from our individual lives to a corporate experience; from mundane and trivial values to divine eternal truths; from our own selfishness to learning of God’s generosity; and so forth. Sometimes it is not an easy transition. So we need to pray before we pray, a prayer preparing us to worship God in prayer.
This prayer, in an up-dated revised form, is one of some 45 models provided in a section called “Prayers for Use Before Worship” in The Book of Common Worship (1993) (pp. 17-30). They call us to get ready in advance for the time of worship on the Lord’s Day, or any time for that matter. Some of them you might offer up to get yourself in the right frame of mind and heart
even before you pray privately, just as we are supposed to do before we worship corporately.
The practice of prep prayer that is urged here for everyone is especially important for those who compose liturgy. Writing prayers for church congregations is a shuddering responsibility. Not only do we approach God, but we are brazen enough to suppose we can find prayerful language for others.
So here’s another pre-prayer, a confession worship leaders might offer at their desks on Saturday night. It comes from The Worshipbook (page 202).
"Almighty God: you have no patience with solemn assemblies, or heaped-up prayers to be heard by people. Forgive those who have written prayers for congregations. Remind them that their foolish words will pass away, but that your word will last and be fulfilled, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
How do you prepare for worship? Are specific prayers suggested for worshippers? If you are a worship leader, how do you get ready for preparing worship? How do you prepare for your own daily prayers?
* Halford Luccock in Living Without Gloves (Oxford University Press, 1957—pp. 94-95), suggested that the opposite of coldness of heart and wandering of mind would be a cool mind and a wandering heart—also worth praying for if we want to think clearly and reach out with heartfelt empathy.
"ALMIGHTY God, who pourest out on all who desire it, the spirit of grace and of supplication; Deliver us, when we draw nigh to thee, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind, that with stedfast thoughts and kindled affections, we may worship thee in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
It’s a worthwhile prayer to ask that we might pray passionately and minus as many distractions as we can reasonably shut out. One does not “draw nigh” to the Almighty casually. It’s an act one has to warm up to. And it takes some focus. A warm heart and concentrated mind are worth praying for before you pray.* We should pray before the service actually begins, in preparation for our fullest participation in the main event.
Entering into the worship of Almighty God usually requires a shift of gears: from our individual lives to a corporate experience; from mundane and trivial values to divine eternal truths; from our own selfishness to learning of God’s generosity; and so forth. Sometimes it is not an easy transition. So we need to pray before we pray, a prayer preparing us to worship God in prayer.
This prayer, in an up-dated revised form, is one of some 45 models provided in a section called “Prayers for Use Before Worship” in The Book of Common Worship (1993) (pp. 17-30). They call us to get ready in advance for the time of worship on the Lord’s Day, or any time for that matter. Some of them you might offer up to get yourself in the right frame of mind and heart
even before you pray privately, just as we are supposed to do before we worship corporately.
The practice of prep prayer that is urged here for everyone is especially important for those who compose liturgy. Writing prayers for church congregations is a shuddering responsibility. Not only do we approach God, but we are brazen enough to suppose we can find prayerful language for others.
So here’s another pre-prayer, a confession worship leaders might offer at their desks on Saturday night. It comes from The Worshipbook (page 202).
"Almighty God: you have no patience with solemn assemblies, or heaped-up prayers to be heard by people. Forgive those who have written prayers for congregations. Remind them that their foolish words will pass away, but that your word will last and be fulfilled, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
How do you prepare for worship? Are specific prayers suggested for worshippers? If you are a worship leader, how do you get ready for preparing worship? How do you prepare for your own daily prayers?
* Halford Luccock in Living Without Gloves (Oxford University Press, 1957—pp. 94-95), suggested that the opposite of coldness of heart and wandering of mind would be a cool mind and a wandering heart—also worth praying for if we want to think clearly and reach out with heartfelt empathy.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Flags
This is a true story.
It was the early 1960s, and the American flag stood off in the corner of the sanctuary of the church I served. One morning the custodian reported that the flag, because of its severe age, had become tattered and worn beyond repair. The senior pastor (I was the assistant at the time) told the custodian to dispose of it according to the flag code, and so it was burned.
“I never liked having the American flag there,” the senior pastor said. “It really doesn’t belong in the church.” And so it came to pass that the American flag was not replaced. This elicited not one comment, positive or negative.
Shift the scene to the height of the Viet Nam War six or more years later, when I am senior pastor. Along with my associate, I’ve been outspoken against the war. Now someone notices there is no American flag in the sanctuary, which must mean that the pastors had it removed in protest of American policy.
Lengthy conversations ensue among elders and pastors and parishioners about the flag. The session says no flag, some vocal members say yes, the American flag. And after a while, the session relents and orders two flags, one American and one Christian, directing that they be placed in the sanctuary with the Christian flag in the place of honor over the American flag. That elicited even more strident comments with implications that church leaders were communist or at the very best “pink.” The flags nevertheless remained in that arrangement.
Now, I tell this story to illustrate the problem with the national flag in the sanctuary and why I agree heartily with the senior pastor’s wisdom almost half a century ago. The American flag does not belong in a church’s place of worship.
There are, however, people of strong conscience and good will who would support the display of the American flag in American churches. They remind us how grateful we should be to live in a country which provides and protects freedom of worship. The Stars and Stripes in our sanctuary is but a friendly reminder of that fact. Without the freedom guaranteed in this country, our ability to worship freely could and probably would be severely curtailed. So it is only a proper show of appreciation.
The argument is, I think, a feeble one. Christians have found themselves time and again in countries with uncaring and even hostile rulers, subject to discrimination and vicious persecution. Yet they still managed to worship God in spite of no support from government.
The other point is that it is difficult to see Old Glory displayed in a sanctuary without thinking politically (in the worst sense of the word). Just as the church members during the Viet Nam War read the absence of the American flag as something nefarious, and wanted it put back to show support for a governmental foreign policy, the symbolism of the flag speaks of national virtues, not Christian ones.
Balancing the American flag with the Christian flag (a red cross on the blue corner of a white flag) does not help. The Christian flag was invented by a Sunday school teacher, using the red-white-blue of the Stars and Stripes in his design of a banner to provide symmetry in the sanctuary. It may do that, but it perpetuates, and in a way blesses, the use of the American flag, and adds little more.
The real problem with the display of the American flag in a Christian place of worship is that it becomes a symbol competing with other liturgical symbols. It speaks of another loyalty that sometimes conflicts with the Christian’s highest loyalty to God. Liturgically, nothing should be in the worship space that competes with or distracts from the whole hearted worship of Almighty God.
This does not mean that Christians should not express loyalty to our country and show patriotism. Of course we should. At the same time loyalty and patriotism do not require universal and eternal consent—dissent built on Christian foundations can be truly patriotic.
So let’s get the flags out of the sanctuary—both of them. Use the space for symbols that speak of God’s grace and love shown in Jesus Christ.
Do you have an American flag in your place of worship? A Christian flag? What do you think, should they be there?
It was the early 1960s, and the American flag stood off in the corner of the sanctuary of the church I served. One morning the custodian reported that the flag, because of its severe age, had become tattered and worn beyond repair. The senior pastor (I was the assistant at the time) told the custodian to dispose of it according to the flag code, and so it was burned.
“I never liked having the American flag there,” the senior pastor said. “It really doesn’t belong in the church.” And so it came to pass that the American flag was not replaced. This elicited not one comment, positive or negative.
Shift the scene to the height of the Viet Nam War six or more years later, when I am senior pastor. Along with my associate, I’ve been outspoken against the war. Now someone notices there is no American flag in the sanctuary, which must mean that the pastors had it removed in protest of American policy.
Lengthy conversations ensue among elders and pastors and parishioners about the flag. The session says no flag, some vocal members say yes, the American flag. And after a while, the session relents and orders two flags, one American and one Christian, directing that they be placed in the sanctuary with the Christian flag in the place of honor over the American flag. That elicited even more strident comments with implications that church leaders were communist or at the very best “pink.” The flags nevertheless remained in that arrangement.
Now, I tell this story to illustrate the problem with the national flag in the sanctuary and why I agree heartily with the senior pastor’s wisdom almost half a century ago. The American flag does not belong in a church’s place of worship.
There are, however, people of strong conscience and good will who would support the display of the American flag in American churches. They remind us how grateful we should be to live in a country which provides and protects freedom of worship. The Stars and Stripes in our sanctuary is but a friendly reminder of that fact. Without the freedom guaranteed in this country, our ability to worship freely could and probably would be severely curtailed. So it is only a proper show of appreciation.
The argument is, I think, a feeble one. Christians have found themselves time and again in countries with uncaring and even hostile rulers, subject to discrimination and vicious persecution. Yet they still managed to worship God in spite of no support from government.
The other point is that it is difficult to see Old Glory displayed in a sanctuary without thinking politically (in the worst sense of the word). Just as the church members during the Viet Nam War read the absence of the American flag as something nefarious, and wanted it put back to show support for a governmental foreign policy, the symbolism of the flag speaks of national virtues, not Christian ones.
Balancing the American flag with the Christian flag (a red cross on the blue corner of a white flag) does not help. The Christian flag was invented by a Sunday school teacher, using the red-white-blue of the Stars and Stripes in his design of a banner to provide symmetry in the sanctuary. It may do that, but it perpetuates, and in a way blesses, the use of the American flag, and adds little more.
The real problem with the display of the American flag in a Christian place of worship is that it becomes a symbol competing with other liturgical symbols. It speaks of another loyalty that sometimes conflicts with the Christian’s highest loyalty to God. Liturgically, nothing should be in the worship space that competes with or distracts from the whole hearted worship of Almighty God.
This does not mean that Christians should not express loyalty to our country and show patriotism. Of course we should. At the same time loyalty and patriotism do not require universal and eternal consent—dissent built on Christian foundations can be truly patriotic.
So let’s get the flags out of the sanctuary—both of them. Use the space for symbols that speak of God’s grace and love shown in Jesus Christ.
Do you have an American flag in your place of worship? A Christian flag? What do you think, should they be there?
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Sermon As Sacrament(al)
When I was a preacher-in-training, the strong urging of one of my homiletics professors was for me and my colleagues to “get out of the way so Christ can be seen.” Another suggested that we should think of ourselves when preaching as “stepping aside to introduce Christ to the people.” So it came to pass that we all went out and ordered black pulpit robes so as to efface ourselves, put ourselves in the background, and I suppose, cover up any loud ties we might be brazen enough to wear. I don’t know that those urgings or suggestions were overwhelming influences, but through the years I’ve seen the truth in them.
Early in my ministry when it was the custom to observe the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper infrequently, I saw preaching as primarily “interpretation of the Word of God in Scripture.” In time, the celebration of Communion gradually moved from quarterly to twenty-six or more times a year, as it was when I retired, and my perspective about preaching changed.
What happened was that I increasingly appreciated the balance between Word and Sacrament. They were not different things, but different ways of presenting the same person, the risen Christ. As Christ is believed to be “really present” in the Lord’s Supper (and, for that matter, in Baptism too), so Christ preached becomes present in the sermon as well.
I’m convinced that preaching is at least “sacramental,” if not a sacrament in its own right. It all has to do with the Incarnation, that God chose to come to us in a real person, a human being. Now, after the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, we have these ways of continuing our relationship with him: the Sacraments, and the proclamation of the Word, the living Christ.
Both the Sacraments and the Word are very physical (read “incarnational”) experiences. Baptism is a bath, washing, cleansing, done with water, an act and element essential for living. The Lord’s Supper is a meal, food and drink, nourishment, again acts and things necessary for life. The sacraments reveal to us the presence of the living Christ, incarnate again in physical things in order to be incarnate in his people, the Body of Christ.
The Word we preach, of course, is the Word of the first chapter of John’s Gospel. We’re not to proclaim mere words, not even the words of the Bible, since we all know that words can be cloudy and smoggy and obscure rather than reveal. The Word, however, is proclaimed in a most physical way, through the body and voice of a person. If the Word which is Christ is to be recognized, in this instance it must happen through a human being.
Physical elements or actions in the sacraments do not in themselves “make” Christ present. The celebration of the sacraments includes the epiclesis, the invocation of the Holy Spirit; in baptism (BCW, p. 411):
"Send your Spirit to move over this water
that it may be a fountain of deliverance and rebirth."
and Eucharist (BCW p. 72):
"Gracious God,
pour out your Holy Spirit upon us
and upon these your gifts of bread and wine…
By your Spirit make us one with Christ…."
Neither does the physical person preaching cause Christ to be present. There is something liturgically akin to the epiclesis here too, calling on the Spirit to reveal him. When the Word is proclaimed in the liturgy, it is preceded by the “Prayer for Illumination,” and the admonition: “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.” (BCW p. 61) This ritual, introductory to the scripture-sermon proclamation, indicates the role of the Spirit in preaching, strongly reminiscent of the Spirit’s role in the sacraments. It is not the preacher who “introduces Christ’ to the congregation, any more than Christ is found present in the water of baptism or the bread and wine on the table. It is, in all three, the Spirit.
At the risk of sounding mystical, I witness to this role of the Spirit in my experience of preaching. I find that I really do hear the Word proclaimed to me in the preparation of sermons—it’s as though I must be the recipient of the Word before I can be the Word’s conveyer. What’s more, in delivering sermons, I find a dynamic working in and through me that is not of my contriving. I recognize that to be God’s Spirit, revealing the risen Christ in our midst.
It is clear to me that proclamation of the Gospel is inseparably linked to the administration of the sacraments. All are instituted by Christ; preaching in Mark 16:15: “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.’” All are designed to show Christ present to his followers, and all include calls to renewed discipleship and service. While preaching may not be a sacrament as theologically defined, it certainly has sacramental qualities.
“Ministers of Word and Sacrament,” in fulfilling both sets of responsibilities, become the vehicles for the Word to come again, to be incarnate once more in the lives of preacher, presider, and the people in the pews.
If you are a preacher, does it make any difference whether preaching is “sacramental” or “interpretation of Scripture”? What kind of difference does it make for you if you’re a pew-sitter?
Early in my ministry when it was the custom to observe the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper infrequently, I saw preaching as primarily “interpretation of the Word of God in Scripture.” In time, the celebration of Communion gradually moved from quarterly to twenty-six or more times a year, as it was when I retired, and my perspective about preaching changed.
What happened was that I increasingly appreciated the balance between Word and Sacrament. They were not different things, but different ways of presenting the same person, the risen Christ. As Christ is believed to be “really present” in the Lord’s Supper (and, for that matter, in Baptism too), so Christ preached becomes present in the sermon as well.
I’m convinced that preaching is at least “sacramental,” if not a sacrament in its own right. It all has to do with the Incarnation, that God chose to come to us in a real person, a human being. Now, after the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, we have these ways of continuing our relationship with him: the Sacraments, and the proclamation of the Word, the living Christ.
Both the Sacraments and the Word are very physical (read “incarnational”) experiences. Baptism is a bath, washing, cleansing, done with water, an act and element essential for living. The Lord’s Supper is a meal, food and drink, nourishment, again acts and things necessary for life. The sacraments reveal to us the presence of the living Christ, incarnate again in physical things in order to be incarnate in his people, the Body of Christ.
The Word we preach, of course, is the Word of the first chapter of John’s Gospel. We’re not to proclaim mere words, not even the words of the Bible, since we all know that words can be cloudy and smoggy and obscure rather than reveal. The Word, however, is proclaimed in a most physical way, through the body and voice of a person. If the Word which is Christ is to be recognized, in this instance it must happen through a human being.
Physical elements or actions in the sacraments do not in themselves “make” Christ present. The celebration of the sacraments includes the epiclesis, the invocation of the Holy Spirit; in baptism (BCW, p. 411):
"Send your Spirit to move over this water
that it may be a fountain of deliverance and rebirth."
and Eucharist (BCW p. 72):
"Gracious God,
pour out your Holy Spirit upon us
and upon these your gifts of bread and wine…
By your Spirit make us one with Christ…."
Neither does the physical person preaching cause Christ to be present. There is something liturgically akin to the epiclesis here too, calling on the Spirit to reveal him. When the Word is proclaimed in the liturgy, it is preceded by the “Prayer for Illumination,” and the admonition: “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.” (BCW p. 61) This ritual, introductory to the scripture-sermon proclamation, indicates the role of the Spirit in preaching, strongly reminiscent of the Spirit’s role in the sacraments. It is not the preacher who “introduces Christ’ to the congregation, any more than Christ is found present in the water of baptism or the bread and wine on the table. It is, in all three, the Spirit.
At the risk of sounding mystical, I witness to this role of the Spirit in my experience of preaching. I find that I really do hear the Word proclaimed to me in the preparation of sermons—it’s as though I must be the recipient of the Word before I can be the Word’s conveyer. What’s more, in delivering sermons, I find a dynamic working in and through me that is not of my contriving. I recognize that to be God’s Spirit, revealing the risen Christ in our midst.
It is clear to me that proclamation of the Gospel is inseparably linked to the administration of the sacraments. All are instituted by Christ; preaching in Mark 16:15: “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.’” All are designed to show Christ present to his followers, and all include calls to renewed discipleship and service. While preaching may not be a sacrament as theologically defined, it certainly has sacramental qualities.
“Ministers of Word and Sacrament,” in fulfilling both sets of responsibilities, become the vehicles for the Word to come again, to be incarnate once more in the lives of preacher, presider, and the people in the pews.
If you are a preacher, does it make any difference whether preaching is “sacramental” or “interpretation of Scripture”? What kind of difference does it make for you if you’re a pew-sitter?
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Anticipatory Delight
In the previous post we considered “remembrance” in the Lord’s Supper, how the story of God’s love is rehearsed from Creation forward through the life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. In the process this Salvation History is brought again into the present, and Christ is recognized as being in the midst of those who break the bread and lift the cup.
Now we turn to the opposite direction and look toward the horizon, to the future.
When I was a little person, the mere thought of an approaching birthday or Christmas had its own measure of fun and excitement. That time was filled with promise and hope—possibilities of desired gifts and the chance to see grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Lots to look forward to. And the looking forward was in itself an important experience of anticipatory delight.
Celebration of the Lord’s Supper has something of the same kind of anticipatory delight, looking forward with great expectation to the fulfillment of God’s promises and the return of the ascendant Christ to rule.
The Words of Institution set the tone with the final sentence in the voice of the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 11:26 – italics mine):
"Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord,
until he comes. "
Using the first Great Thanksgiving (Book of Common Worship (1993), pp. 69 ff.) as a model, we can see how strong this expectant mood is in the Lord’s Supper. In the middle of the prayer, the bread and wine are set apart for this holy use with these words, concluding with an expectant phrase (italics mine):
"Remembering your gracious acts in Jesus Christ,
we take from your creation this bread and this wine
and joyfully celebrate his dying and rising,
as we await the day of his coming. "
Four alternative acclamations are given, any one of which shifts from past to present and then to anticipation of the future (italics mine):
1
Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again.
2
Dying you destroyed our death,
rising you restored our life.
Lord Jesus, come in glory.
3
We remember his death,
we proclaim his resurrection,
we await his coming in glory.
4
When we eat this bread and drink this cup,
we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus,
until you come in glory.
At the end of the prayer we see how important our anticipation of God’s future is to our living in the present. There is longing for what God has promised, yet that yearning becomes the motivation for faithful discipleship in following Jesus (italics mine):
"In union with your church in heaven and on earth,
we pray, O God, that you will fulfill your eternal purpose
in us and in all the world.
Keep us faithful in your service
until Christ comes in final victory,
and we shall feast with all your saints
in the joy of your eternal realm."
This boomerang effect, yearning for the future fulfillment of promise and hope and living life in faith and expectation that it is on the way, is a figure of speech called “prolepsis,” referring to something future as though it’s already done or existing. Just as anamnesis re-calls the past into the present, prolepsis anticipates the future as a present reality.
This is radically different from living in the future. Some folks focus their theology on the certainty of going to heaven, seeing life as it is in the here and now as merely marking time. This is commonly ridiculed as “pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye.” The upshot of this approach is that we don’t have to do anything, because God will work everything out in the future the way it’s supposed to be. On the contrary, the followers of Jesus are to live lives toward the fulfillment God promises, lives that are consistent with the teaching and ministry of Jesus who will come again.
Now it becomes clear that both the anamnesis, re-calling God’s mighty acts of the past into the present, and prolepsis, present anticipation of God’s promises all fulfilled, conspire to make the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper an essential and central rite of the Christian church. The Great Thanksgiving, the Eucharistic prayer, pulls together past and future to the present enrichment of Christian discipleship in the world.
In your church, does the Eucharistic prayer contain both anamnesis and prolepsis? What other parts of the liturgy suggest re-calling the past and anticipating the future with joy?
Now we turn to the opposite direction and look toward the horizon, to the future.
When I was a little person, the mere thought of an approaching birthday or Christmas had its own measure of fun and excitement. That time was filled with promise and hope—possibilities of desired gifts and the chance to see grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Lots to look forward to. And the looking forward was in itself an important experience of anticipatory delight.
Celebration of the Lord’s Supper has something of the same kind of anticipatory delight, looking forward with great expectation to the fulfillment of God’s promises and the return of the ascendant Christ to rule.
The Words of Institution set the tone with the final sentence in the voice of the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 11:26 – italics mine):
"Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord,
until he comes. "
Using the first Great Thanksgiving (Book of Common Worship (1993), pp. 69 ff.) as a model, we can see how strong this expectant mood is in the Lord’s Supper. In the middle of the prayer, the bread and wine are set apart for this holy use with these words, concluding with an expectant phrase (italics mine):
"Remembering your gracious acts in Jesus Christ,
we take from your creation this bread and this wine
and joyfully celebrate his dying and rising,
as we await the day of his coming. "
Four alternative acclamations are given, any one of which shifts from past to present and then to anticipation of the future (italics mine):
1
Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again.
2
Dying you destroyed our death,
rising you restored our life.
Lord Jesus, come in glory.
3
We remember his death,
we proclaim his resurrection,
we await his coming in glory.
4
When we eat this bread and drink this cup,
we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus,
until you come in glory.
At the end of the prayer we see how important our anticipation of God’s future is to our living in the present. There is longing for what God has promised, yet that yearning becomes the motivation for faithful discipleship in following Jesus (italics mine):
"In union with your church in heaven and on earth,
we pray, O God, that you will fulfill your eternal purpose
in us and in all the world.
Keep us faithful in your service
until Christ comes in final victory,
and we shall feast with all your saints
in the joy of your eternal realm."
This boomerang effect, yearning for the future fulfillment of promise and hope and living life in faith and expectation that it is on the way, is a figure of speech called “prolepsis,” referring to something future as though it’s already done or existing. Just as anamnesis re-calls the past into the present, prolepsis anticipates the future as a present reality.
This is radically different from living in the future. Some folks focus their theology on the certainty of going to heaven, seeing life as it is in the here and now as merely marking time. This is commonly ridiculed as “pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye.” The upshot of this approach is that we don’t have to do anything, because God will work everything out in the future the way it’s supposed to be. On the contrary, the followers of Jesus are to live lives toward the fulfillment God promises, lives that are consistent with the teaching and ministry of Jesus who will come again.
Now it becomes clear that both the anamnesis, re-calling God’s mighty acts of the past into the present, and prolepsis, present anticipation of God’s promises all fulfilled, conspire to make the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper an essential and central rite of the Christian church. The Great Thanksgiving, the Eucharistic prayer, pulls together past and future to the present enrichment of Christian discipleship in the world.
In your church, does the Eucharistic prayer contain both anamnesis and prolepsis? What other parts of the liturgy suggest re-calling the past and anticipating the future with joy?
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Don't Forget
The Words of Institution of the Lord’s Supper come to us from the Apostle Paul as the instructions he received from the Lord about the meal to be shared “in remembrance” of Jesus. (I Cor. 11:23-26) Sometimes the Greek word Paul used is also translated as “in remembering,” occasionally “in memory of,” yet the English words all fall short of conveying what is meant in the context of the Lord’s Supper.
Therefore, scholars fall back on the original Greek word employed by Paul, which is “anamnesis”. Our word “amnesia,” loss of memory, is derived from this word. So an-amnesis means literally not-loss-of-memory, the opposite of amnesia. Anamnesis is all about having memory, being mindful, not forgetting, being reminded, remembering, recalling.
Yet even this most literal translation is insufficient. Anamnesis means recalling in the sense of re-calling. Rather than thinking backward into the past to remember Jesus, anamnesis re-calls the past into our present. In sharing the bread and passing the cup at the Lord’s Table we remember Jesus. Yet more than acknowledging that there was a man by that name a long, long time ago in a far-off land, we here and now re-call his life and teaching, his tragic death and triumphant resurrection and ascension. We call Jesus anew and meet him in the here and now. In the breaking of bread, our eyes are open and we recognize him, just as it was for those first followers of his. (Luke 24:30-31)
We speak of “the real presence” of Christ in the sacrament, which is supported by anamnesis. Memorializing Jesus, however, remembering him as a figure of past history, undermines this central theme. We do this sometimes with the best of intentions. On Maundy Thursday worship leaders might have a table set in the front of the sanctuary with twelve plates and trays of cups to mimic the original Last Supper. Or, using the Words of Institution along as the text for the breaking of bread and lifting the cup can send the whole experience into a rehearsal of a past event. As someone impiously put it, “Too often the Lord’s Supper becomes little more than a memorial to a dead Jew.” Rather, every celebration of the Lord’s Supper is an encounter with the living Christ.
Anamnesis finds full expression in the Eucharistic prayer, the Great Thanksgiving. With thanks, the story of God’s way with God’s own people is re-called in a summary of Salvation History from Creation through covenants made and the voices of the prophets, to the coming of Jesus, the Christ. The life and ministry of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and his ascension, are re-called in considerable detail. God’s actions of the past become present realities, re-called now in the worship experience.
As we approach the Lord’s Table and hear the instructive Words of the Institution of the Lord’s Supper, we are told by Jesus to perform acts of non-forgetfulness. Bread and wine are the elements, but the acts of not-forgetting are eating and drinking. In the sacramental actions performed in obedience to our Lord’s command, we meet him face-to-face. These actions, then, become the down payments on all our obedient actions as we follow him into the world. The Lord’s Supper is food for our journey as disciples of Jesus, nourishing us as we pick up his ministry where we are.
Now as we remember Jesus, we re-call what his ministry means for us, for example: giving food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting prisoners (Matthew 25:31-46); bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19); and the many other instructions and challenges of his teaching, parables, and actions throughout his life and ministry.
In short, the anamnesis in the Lord’s Supper brings home to us the reality of our calling as Christians. This is not a ritual act isolated unto itself without consequences. Eating the bread and drinking the wine are acts of obedience to the risen Christ who said “…eat…drink….” It is by these acts that we commit ourselves to be obedient disciples in following his lead. So we pray in the Great Thanksgiving, “As this bread is Christ's body for us, send us out to be the body of Christ in the world.”
In what ways have you experienced the Lord’s Supper where Christ is a real presence? What in the liturgy has contributed to that experience? What has detracted?
Therefore, scholars fall back on the original Greek word employed by Paul, which is “anamnesis”. Our word “amnesia,” loss of memory, is derived from this word. So an-amnesis means literally not-loss-of-memory, the opposite of amnesia. Anamnesis is all about having memory, being mindful, not forgetting, being reminded, remembering, recalling.
Yet even this most literal translation is insufficient. Anamnesis means recalling in the sense of re-calling. Rather than thinking backward into the past to remember Jesus, anamnesis re-calls the past into our present. In sharing the bread and passing the cup at the Lord’s Table we remember Jesus. Yet more than acknowledging that there was a man by that name a long, long time ago in a far-off land, we here and now re-call his life and teaching, his tragic death and triumphant resurrection and ascension. We call Jesus anew and meet him in the here and now. In the breaking of bread, our eyes are open and we recognize him, just as it was for those first followers of his. (Luke 24:30-31)
We speak of “the real presence” of Christ in the sacrament, which is supported by anamnesis. Memorializing Jesus, however, remembering him as a figure of past history, undermines this central theme. We do this sometimes with the best of intentions. On Maundy Thursday worship leaders might have a table set in the front of the sanctuary with twelve plates and trays of cups to mimic the original Last Supper. Or, using the Words of Institution along as the text for the breaking of bread and lifting the cup can send the whole experience into a rehearsal of a past event. As someone impiously put it, “Too often the Lord’s Supper becomes little more than a memorial to a dead Jew.” Rather, every celebration of the Lord’s Supper is an encounter with the living Christ.
Anamnesis finds full expression in the Eucharistic prayer, the Great Thanksgiving. With thanks, the story of God’s way with God’s own people is re-called in a summary of Salvation History from Creation through covenants made and the voices of the prophets, to the coming of Jesus, the Christ. The life and ministry of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and his ascension, are re-called in considerable detail. God’s actions of the past become present realities, re-called now in the worship experience.
As we approach the Lord’s Table and hear the instructive Words of the Institution of the Lord’s Supper, we are told by Jesus to perform acts of non-forgetfulness. Bread and wine are the elements, but the acts of not-forgetting are eating and drinking. In the sacramental actions performed in obedience to our Lord’s command, we meet him face-to-face. These actions, then, become the down payments on all our obedient actions as we follow him into the world. The Lord’s Supper is food for our journey as disciples of Jesus, nourishing us as we pick up his ministry where we are.
Now as we remember Jesus, we re-call what his ministry means for us, for example: giving food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting prisoners (Matthew 25:31-46); bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19); and the many other instructions and challenges of his teaching, parables, and actions throughout his life and ministry.
In short, the anamnesis in the Lord’s Supper brings home to us the reality of our calling as Christians. This is not a ritual act isolated unto itself without consequences. Eating the bread and drinking the wine are acts of obedience to the risen Christ who said “…eat…drink….” It is by these acts that we commit ourselves to be obedient disciples in following his lead. So we pray in the Great Thanksgiving, “As this bread is Christ's body for us, send us out to be the body of Christ in the world.”
In what ways have you experienced the Lord’s Supper where Christ is a real presence? What in the liturgy has contributed to that experience? What has detracted?
Sunday, July 11, 2010
The Presider
I was invited to be the “guest presider” at one of the churches in our presbytery a while back. Which means that all they wanted me to do was preside at the Lord’s Supper.
The Presbyterian congregation was joining for the Sunday service with a neighbor Episcopal church. A visiting priest from New York City would preach, and the local Episcopal pastor would lead in other parts of the service.
The Presbyterian session was anxious to have a Presbyterian minister administer Communion, since their pastor would be away. Taking seriously the provisions of the Directory for Worship, they recruited me. “For reasons of order the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper shall be administered by a minister of the Word and Sacrament….”(W-2.4012c)
Of course there are other possibilities, commissioned lay pastors, for example, and even elders under certain circumstances. But “for reasons of order,” it should be a minister.
The Roman Catholic Church requires that the Eucharist be administered by a priest, especially one ordained in “apostolic succession.” They are very concerned with “order,” in this as in other ways.
The Roman polity, a top-down hierarchy, prescribes a fairly rigid order as a means of control. During the exhilarating years following Vatican II, we took advantage of some laxity and some looking the other way, and even had experiences of “con-celebrating” the Sacrament with our Roman brothers, as well as presiding at tables where Catholics and Protestants came together. But those days are gone. Order has been restored in the Roman Church.
One might say, for discussion’s sake, “What’s the difference between them and us? Presbyterians require order also.” The difference is that our hierarchical polity is bottom-up rather than top-down, and those who preside are elected from and by the people. Our polity assures that Communion is celebrated by the whole church, of which the presider is the representative. It’s a very different kind of orderliness.
A better reason than “order” for ministers to preside at the Lord’s Table is found in the latter part of the line from the Directory for Worship: “…the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper shall be administered by a minister of Word and Sacrament.” The Sacrament is linked to the Word. The proclamation of the Word in Scripture and sermon and the sharing of God’s gifts in the Sacrament both present the risen Christ.
Therefore, the presider at the Sacrament should be one who is also authorized to proclaim the Word, namely a “minister of Word and Sacrament.” This is not a new idea. The Scots Confession (3.22) has it this way:
“Two things are necessary for the right administration of the sacraments. The first is that they should be ministered by lawful ministers, and we declare that these are men appointed to preach the Word, unto whom God has given the power to preach the gospel, and who are lawfully called by some Kirk.” (The other necessary thing is that the Sacrament should be “ministered in the elements and manner which God has appointed.”)
In a previous post I wrote about the problem with the Lord’s Supper celebrated detached from the liturgy of the Word. Word and Sacrament are a matched set. It is the Minister of Word and Sacrament who should keep them together. Ordination is the way we assign necessary responsibilities in the church. Ordination helps keep things in order. If we are to do our worship “decently and in order,” the presider at the Table should be one ordained to proclaim the Word.
Now I confess that I wondered how this “guest presider” thing would work for me. After all, I would not be the preacher. So would it be proper for me only to preside at the Lord’s Table? Reflecting on the experience, I had no misgivings whatsoever. I presided, but the other clergy joined me in serving the people, and we served one another. It was truly the Sacrament of the whole church, and an ecumenical blessing besides.
Does it make any difference to you whether or not it is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament presiding at the Lord’s Supper? Have you experienced Communion in other denominations?
The Presbyterian congregation was joining for the Sunday service with a neighbor Episcopal church. A visiting priest from New York City would preach, and the local Episcopal pastor would lead in other parts of the service.
The Presbyterian session was anxious to have a Presbyterian minister administer Communion, since their pastor would be away. Taking seriously the provisions of the Directory for Worship, they recruited me. “For reasons of order the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper shall be administered by a minister of the Word and Sacrament….”(W-2.4012c)
Of course there are other possibilities, commissioned lay pastors, for example, and even elders under certain circumstances. But “for reasons of order,” it should be a minister.
The Roman Catholic Church requires that the Eucharist be administered by a priest, especially one ordained in “apostolic succession.” They are very concerned with “order,” in this as in other ways.
The Roman polity, a top-down hierarchy, prescribes a fairly rigid order as a means of control. During the exhilarating years following Vatican II, we took advantage of some laxity and some looking the other way, and even had experiences of “con-celebrating” the Sacrament with our Roman brothers, as well as presiding at tables where Catholics and Protestants came together. But those days are gone. Order has been restored in the Roman Church.
One might say, for discussion’s sake, “What’s the difference between them and us? Presbyterians require order also.” The difference is that our hierarchical polity is bottom-up rather than top-down, and those who preside are elected from and by the people. Our polity assures that Communion is celebrated by the whole church, of which the presider is the representative. It’s a very different kind of orderliness.
A better reason than “order” for ministers to preside at the Lord’s Table is found in the latter part of the line from the Directory for Worship: “…the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper shall be administered by a minister of Word and Sacrament.” The Sacrament is linked to the Word. The proclamation of the Word in Scripture and sermon and the sharing of God’s gifts in the Sacrament both present the risen Christ.
Therefore, the presider at the Sacrament should be one who is also authorized to proclaim the Word, namely a “minister of Word and Sacrament.” This is not a new idea. The Scots Confession (3.22) has it this way:
“Two things are necessary for the right administration of the sacraments. The first is that they should be ministered by lawful ministers, and we declare that these are men appointed to preach the Word, unto whom God has given the power to preach the gospel, and who are lawfully called by some Kirk.” (The other necessary thing is that the Sacrament should be “ministered in the elements and manner which God has appointed.”)
In a previous post I wrote about the problem with the Lord’s Supper celebrated detached from the liturgy of the Word. Word and Sacrament are a matched set. It is the Minister of Word and Sacrament who should keep them together. Ordination is the way we assign necessary responsibilities in the church. Ordination helps keep things in order. If we are to do our worship “decently and in order,” the presider at the Table should be one ordained to proclaim the Word.
Now I confess that I wondered how this “guest presider” thing would work for me. After all, I would not be the preacher. So would it be proper for me only to preside at the Lord’s Table? Reflecting on the experience, I had no misgivings whatsoever. I presided, but the other clergy joined me in serving the people, and we served one another. It was truly the Sacrament of the whole church, and an ecumenical blessing besides.
Does it make any difference to you whether or not it is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament presiding at the Lord’s Supper? Have you experienced Communion in other denominations?
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