Liturgy and Mission
I was away last week attending the annual conference of the Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission in St. Paul, Minnesota. APLM was founded in 1946, and for the first thirty years of its existence, it was an instrumental force in advocating for and preparing the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. In the years since the approval of the “new” Prayer Book, APLM has continued to be on the forefront of liturgical revision and experimentation. But perhaps more importantly, its goal has always been to relate the liturgy (that is, the corporate worship in which we engage) to mission (that is, the way we as Christians live out our lives).
Liturgy and mission are inseparable: it is the experience of the living God that we have in worship that transforms our lives and sends us out to transform our communities. This means that our worship, particularly on Sunday mornings, is central to what we do, but that it also can’t be the only thing we do. Likewise, our ministry throughout the week, within the church walls as well as out in the community and in our daily lives, is essential to our Christian vocation, but it must be supported and tied into our acts of worship. One of the primary ways APLM aims to live out its mission in the 2020s is providing resources for liturgical formation to parishes—both clergy and lay people. By helping Christians develop our collective understanding of what we’re experiencing in worship, we open ourselves up to the transformative power of God’s presence in our lives.
I am grateful that St. Paul’s is a parish that seems to understand this connection. Our worship offerings are vibrant, and our ministries in the community are myriad. Our liturgy and music programs are well supported, and all of our clergy care about preaching and presiding well. At the same time, we put a great deal of energy and money into mission: supporting our ministry in the community, all of our programming for formation and teaching, and supporting Christian vocation at all levels. That’s because we believe we can have our cake and eat it too: a rich, traditional liturgy and a parish that is committed to service and proclaiming God’s love to the world. At the same time, there are always opportunities for us to draw these two aspects of our parish identity even closer together.
We already have some of these opportunities available here at St. Paul’s. We frequently explore liturgical texts or actions in sermons. We’ve also explored parts of the liturgy in the adult forum, and worship is often part of our discussions in other adult formation offerings. Our recent offering called “Worship 101” drew over 30 people—both newer and more long-term parishioners—who asked questions about why we do different things in worship. I hope that in future offerings we will be able to continue diving deeper into these questions. And of course, any of your priests are open to conversation if you have a specific question. I hope that as we continue to offer these opportunities, you will avail yourself of them.
One of the ideals of liturgical theology and practice since the mid-twentieth century is “active participation.” This principle is articulated in the 1963 document Sacrosanctum Concilium from the Second Vatican Council. (Although we are not Roman Catholic, many of the reforms of Vatican II originated from and made their way back to churches outside of Rome, including the Episcopal Church.)
The medieval model which persisted into the twentieth century was that the priest (“celebrant”) was the actor in the liturgy and everyone else, perhaps except for a few assistants, was essentially a spectator. The liturgy was performed on behalf of the wider congregation, but their presence was almost peripheral. No wonder people thought church was boring.
The renewed understanding, active participation of the faithful, means that the entire assembly is engaged in the liturgical act. This model is much more engaging: while the priest or bishop who presides at the liturgy is the chief celebrant, the leader of the liturgical act, and occasionally voices prayers on behalf of the whole, it is the entire assembly who celebrates the liturgy. All our presence and all our prayers are necessary. Our whole bodies are involved, hence why we sit, stand, and kneel together. All our voices are raised: though we are led by a choir, we all participate in singing the hymns and even chanting the psalm. We use all our senses: seeing vestments and flowers, tasting real bread and red wine, smelling incense. The congregation is not an audience, but an assembly that offers itself along with the bread and wine in the “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” for what Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection. Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in Communion is the culmination, but not the only touchpoint, of our active participation in the liturgy. Communion of all the baptized, regardless of age or denomination, also helps us express our membership in the one Body of Christ that exists across time and space.
The effect of this understanding is that your presence and participation in our common worship life matters. We are incarnated people, and what we do with our bodies matters, and that includes where we show up. Of course, we hope that you feel God’s transformative love in your life as a result of your participation at church, but your presence also makes the worshipping assembly what it is. You make us a fuller manifestation of the Body of Christ. This summer, as in most churches, our attendance has been a bit lighter, and while I don’t begrudge anyone their vacation, it does mean that our ability to represent the Body of Christ is slightly diminished. Our capacity to worship God together, to be transformed by the liturgy, and to live out God’s mission in the world, is dependent on each of our presence and participation, to the best of our ability.
I’m grateful to be part of our local manifestation of the Body of Christ here at St. Paul’s, and I look forward to seeing many of you on Sunday as we gather once again to celebrate the Holy Mysteries together.
Faithfully,
Charles
The Rev. Charles Martin is associate rector for formation and chaplain to St. Martin’s University Center, and is a Council member of Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission.
