PCA Conversations

by Joel Garver

Think of the disciples on the road to Emmaus…When they found themselves troubled and confused, Jesus met them along the way. When they confessed their troubles and doubts to him, his words and presence began to change them. He unfolded God’s word to them, pointing to his own person and work.  He dined with them, giving thanks and breaking bread. The disciples recognized their Lord’s presence with them and hurried to tell others the good news. We may fill in the details of this pattern various ways, but in the Emmaus story we can recognize the pattern of historic Christian worship as it began to take shape. It resonates over and over again with the shape of the biblical story, with the actions of our Triune God in the events of salvation history.

The Greek word “leitourgia” means a public work, the work of the people. And that’s what liturgy is—the action of God’s gathered people, but only in response to his prior action of sending Jesus Christ for our salvation. Liturgical worship begins with God’s call upon us, his meeting with us, speaking among us, ministering to us. Like salvation, God’s prior action in liturgy comes to us from out-side of us. Through words, tangible symbols, and our fellow believers, God ministers to us. With them we respond again and again to God’s initiative. The corporate character of worship embodies the corporate character of salvation. Proper liturgy deliberately evokes our corporate response, gives voice to our common celebration, and engages us together in dialogue with our Creator and Savior. Mark Earey writes that liturgy “goes beyond the personal encounter with God (without denying it) to the corporate drama of being the people of God.” Liturgy is the church at prayer, serving as a priestly people, interceding on behalf of the whole church and world, and being sent out together on God’s mission. In all of this, liturgy draws us into the enacted story of salvation.

The emphasis throughout the liturgy is upon God’s action. Then comes our appropriate response, celebrating and participating in God’s great acts of redemption and renewal. When God meets us in worship, we respond to him as Christ’s own Body through the ministry of the Spirit. We enter into the worship that Jesus the Son has offered through the Spirit both in eternity and in his incarnate life—a worship that he continues to offer today. The Son’s own worship of the Father expresses his vocation as the one sent out by the Spirit of God. And as he was sent, so he sends us.  Therefore, in liturgy we rehearse the gospel message and are caught up into the mission of the Triune God. The order and flow of liturgy aim at drawing us further into the life of the Trinity and then impelling us outward into our world. Worship is missional because it is Trinitarian.

In addition to being missional, worship that embodies the gospel message in the order and flow of the liturgy is paramount in the cultivation of other Christian virtues.

Discipleship
In liturgy we practice what it means to be a follower of Jesus and anticipate the shape of his kingdom. Embodying the priorities we want to cultivate, liturgy presses those values and habits into our lives. We take upon our lips the language of Christian prayer, adoration, response, confession, and blessing—words crafted from scripture and historic traditions of worship. Having learned this grammar, we more readily find the words we need to intercede, to bless, to cry out in need, to confess our faults, and to give praise to our Savior. When we make the words and actions of worship central to our lives, we guard against worldliness and break the hold of secular ceremonies—rituals of consumption, power, fear, suspicion, doubt, and self-absorption that hide themselves in our lives.

Narrative
In liturgy we rehearse and celebrate the mighty acts of God for our redemption, both in the pattern of the church year as well as our weekly pattern of worship. Liturgy is, above all, the story of Jesus Christ. Jesus answered God’s call, identified with our brokenness, spoke and lived the words of God, offered himself up for our salvation, sat down in table fellowship with others, and poured out his Spirit to empower us for his mission. In broad strokes, liturgy takes the pattern of Jesus’ own life, places it upon our lips and in our actions and, in doing so, makes his life our own.

Mission, Charity, and Justice
In liturgy we bring our brokenness, our communities’ needs, and the world’s troubles before God. He takes these up, heals them by his Spirit, and empowers us to carry forward his present work. This is especially true when we pray for all our sisters and brothers in Christ, the leaders of nations, people at war, and those in danger—our cities, our neighbors, the poor, the imprisoned, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed. By offering up to God those things that weigh most heavily upon his own heart, we allow his priorities also to weigh upon us: his mission in the world, the unity of his church, the restoration of human wholeness, and the practice of justice and mercy.

Catholicity
While permitting creativity, flexibility, and contextualization, in liturgy we are caught up into something that comes to us from beyond the horizon of our present culture and time. We are connected to the worship of the church in all ages and places. By deliberately connecting us to the wider church, liturgy conveys an ethos of receptivity and gratitude towards the wider church, recognizing and accepting the gifts of the Spirit wherever they may be found.

Humility
Finally, liturgy is humbling. Our worship seeks a repeated encounter with our living Lord through word and sacrament to cultivate gospel-shaped lives for the sake of mission. Our identity and renewal is neither a private, individual possession nor a product of our own corporate efforts. Nor is grace dependent upon what we might feel at the moment or our personal worthiness or intellectual grasp of theology. In its set patterns, liturgy manifests salvation as a gift we receive from outside of us. God’s promise of salvation, held out in the gospel word and sacraments, is offered freely to us. Only in the humility of faith do we receive what God offers. As a community practice, liturgy urges us humbly to wait upon one another, to set aside our own agendas, and to coordinate our actions with those of fellow believers. The humility of faith works itself out in humility towards others. Liturgy reminds us that God never calls us out of the world simply to confer upon us some kind of privileged status, but always in humble service to his mission. We are summoned together in worship so God can prepare us to bear his saving purposes out into the world.

—

Joel Garver is professor of philosophy at La Salle University and chief liturgist for City Church in Philadelphia.