Ed Phillips: Worship with the saints; not as an individual experience
In the ancient church a young monk would approach an elder and ask, 'Abba may I have a word.' Tom Arthur, in his first year out of seminary, seeks advice from elders in these letters. The letter to which Ed Phillips replies is here.
Dear Tom Arthur:
The dilemma you describe is not unusual. Many of my students from Protestant traditions face similar difficulties. The problem is a fundamental clash of ecclesiology – that is, how we think about the church. Your education in divinity school brought you to (I might say, led to your conversion to!) a catholic ecclesiology. This is at odds with the entrepreneurial ecclesiology of a congregation organized according to the business-model of the “Purpose Driven Church.”
Let me propose the analogy of a game. Different ecclesiologies are different games with different internally coherent sets of rules and strategies. Your congregation has been taught a set of rules taken from methods that go back to 19th century revivalist Charles Finney, channeled through Rick Warren. This is its fundamental purpose for worship: “Our goal is for individuals to be led into a deeper personal relationship with Jesus.” A strategy accompanies this rule: “We will use a variety of creative methods to enhance worshipers’ relationship to Jesus.” A related strategy: “Adherence to tradition tends to get in the way of a fresh, contemporary relationship with Jesus.”
A catholic ecclesiology, on the other hand, would have a different fundamental purpose for the assembly: “Our goal is to be the local manifestation of the universal Body of Christ, for the glorification of God.” A strategy would be: “We intend to worship in union with all the saints throughout all human history.” A related strategy: “Tradition has been handed down to us by the saints, and keeps us in union with the universal (catholic) church.”
What happens when you go through the historic catholic pattern of Word and Table with its Eucharistic Prayer in your context is something like this: You say, “It’s time to kick a field goal,” and your congregation asks, “How will that help us get to home plate?” You are acting on a rule that is out of place in your congregation’s game of worship. What probably won’t work well is trying to make that field goal fit better into a game of baseball by calling the fence the goal post, and using a bat to hit a pitched football. What you will need to do is teach your congregation a different game.
Naturally you will also have to be convinced yourself that the catholic game is truer and more faithful than the business-model game, whatever virtues the latter may have. Therefore, preach sermons on the meaning of the sacraments. Teach about the Eucharist in small group ministry and business meetings and educational meetings and retreats. You will have to open the imagination of your congregation to the inexhaustible mystery of the Eucharist. You will have to show them what is at stake, and that means celebrating the Eucharist with them in the patterns that connect us with our Great Tradition.
This will take time -- much longer than a year or two. As a new pastor, you will have to learn much of this along with your congregation. Listen to them. Some of them will have a strong personal relationship with Jesus because they are part of a congregation that has formed them to hope for that (a virtue of the Revival Model). That is a good place to start. Lead them from there on the deeper way of discipleship. Listen to their frustrations (and recall your own struggles) as they learn the liturgy. What you may find together is that worshipping with all the saints in our Great Tradition makes a personal relationship with Jesus more profoundly life-changing and vastly more expansive that anyone alone could imagine.
Be patient, friend. What is true will prevail.
Sincerely,
Ed Phillips
Ed Phillips teaches Worship and Liturgical Theology at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University.
Worship With the Saints
Tom Arthur's dilemma in helping his congregation move toward a fuller understanding of catholic ecclesiology, and Ed Phillips' response, evidence the difficulties some pastors face when they encounter American Protestantism's tradition of rugged individualism. Ed Phillips wisely notes that this heritage is traceable at least to Charles Grandison Finney; what he doesn't mention is the distortion this heritage imparted to understandings of both sacraments. Baptism's being reduced to a rite of passage (occasionally requested in a "private ceremony") and the Eucharist's devolution to an occasion of solitary penance (with no comprehension of the Communion of Saints) are regrettable products of the American sawdust trail's emphasis upon one's personal relationship to Jesus. Ed's suggestion that Tom teach the sacraments in their depth is an excellent one. How, though, does a pastor compassionately deconstruct a
congregation's received traditions of Baptism and Eucharist so that a richer ecclesiology may emerge?
Ed's (Phillips) comments on
Ed's (Phillips) comments on opening up the congregation's imagination seem especially important. The purpose-driven model doesn't just draw individualists. It draws ex-Catholics and lots of people who thought the focus on the Sacraments in their old (perhaps childhood) churches was empty and distracting from the call to have a personal relationship with Christ. It's not just teaching them a new game. It's re-teaching them to love a game they learned a long time ago--and walked away from.
Giving others an imagination for how the Eucharist draws them into a richer understanding of the gospel probably will require those who hold such an understanding to speak from personal experience--how is your relationship with Christ deeper because of this?
Opposable Ecclesiologies?
Ed,
I like your analogy and it helps make sense of what's going on both theoretically and practically. At the same time, I wonder if your analogy doesn't put this conversation in a box. I'm reminded of LE@DD's attempt to talk about traditioned innovation (http://faithandleadership.com/content/traditioned-innovation) and/or opposable thinking (http://faithandleadership.com/content/rabbits-rapscallions-and-transform...). Both of these ideas compel the pastor not to get stuck by thinking that what appears contradictory must always be contradictory. To make the point more clearly: are the revivalist tradition and the catholic tradition so contradictory that there can be no creative synthesis? I wonder if Vatican II's attempt to remain both Catholic in their ecclesiology and recognize true Christians in other churches isn't a model for such opposable thinking in terms of ecclesiology and the Eucharist. To use your own goal language: are the goals "to be the local manifestation of the universal Body of Christ, for the glorification of God" and “for individuals to be led into a deeper personal relationship with Jesus” always mutually exclusive? If they are, it seems that something has gone horribly wrong. It reminds me of the debate between growth (quantity) and growth (maturity). I don't want one over the other. I want both. Are not both about glorifying God in union with the saints throughout all history and about the human being fully alive living together in that kind of a community and bringing God glory? And in the mean time, how do I lead communion/preside over the Eucharist this Sunday?
Sacraments are Embodied
I agree with Tom's last post. Sacraments are embodied and experiential, but there is often a gap between what we say about the sacraments "in theory" and what we experience in our local churches. The perfunctory celebration of the sacraments in many congregations are neither an expression of "the local manifestation of the universal Body of Christ" nor something that leads individuals "into a deeper relationship with Jesus." As Ed Moore points out, more "liturgical" congregations often practice the sacraments in ways that are just as individualistic (communion is the time for a quiet moment between me and Jesus; the other people in the pew beside me hardly matter). Teaching and preaching on the sacraments is important, but only if the actual experience resonates. The meaning inherent in the actions need to be acted out in ways that are clear and compelling. In my congregation, when we celebrate a baptism, the entire congregation gathers around the font, with words and actions that are both ancient and contemporary. It is no mere initiation rite, and no needs to explain afterwords why what we did matters. Even first time worshipers are able to grasp its meaning.
Ed Phillips mention of small
Ed Phillips mention of small group conversation is a great way to convey the meaning of the Eucharist. Being in a group or at a meeting is a great way for people to openly express how they feel. Everyone learns from experience and learning more about the Eucharist in small group is worth trying. Ed Phillips advice on this matter is very substantial and useful.
Lauren White
http://www.allthingsconverge.com/small-group-resources/
What if Jesus still lives?
This is a curious thing. A layperson might wonder if the Sacraments are designed to serve the needs of an orderly Church rather than serve the needs of the people who come to a church.
Paul declared the purpose of the Communion Sacrament in his first letter to the Corinthians. As recorded in 11:26, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Given that Paul wrote this letter before the Gospels were written, his comment would be the earliest of the written records that appear in the New Testament concerning the Communion ritual.
I do not bear witness to a Jesus who is dead. That would be a false witness. I would much rather proclaim Jesus' Resurrection than proclaim Jesus' death. Is it really necessary to force people to focus on obedience to a ritual when they have already found Jesus in their own way?
The Way of God's Grace was taught by Jesus through the words in the Lord's Prayer. Grace is received as Grace is shared. Why should a person be required to believe that God's Grace is confined within the elements of a ritual unless such a belief is designed to promote the authority of the Church?
In the time of the saints it was traditional to believe that the world was flat and people could own other human beings as slaves. These times are not those times. Jesus taught people to expand their thinking about God. Perhaps the day will come when thinking people will leave the dead to bury their dead and search for the true Living Spirit of Christ.
Comment
" . . . a set of rules taken from methods that go back to 19th century revivalist Charles Finney." True enough, although Finney himself modified his stress on individualism during his long pastorate of the church at Oberlin where he was also professor. During the 1840s there was a powerful counter to revivalism's excessive focus on the individual -- the Mercersburg Theology of John Williamson Nevin and Philip Schaff. See Nevin's "The Anxious Bench" and other writings. In other words, the necessary corrective already exists in American Protestant history. Not that Mercersburg has all the answers for today, but it is extremely wise, faithful, and helpful.
Ecclesiology and worship
Christians seem to mean many completely different things when they talk about worship, and a lot seems to depend on their ecclesiology. I found this article helpful in undetrstanding it, and blogged about it at http://su.pr/2HMP1j
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