Liturgy is shared prayer, common worship. The question immediately arrises: “Why?” Why have common worship?
Obviously, if you are praying alone – you can do whatever you want. When you start praying together with another person, or as a group – well, that’s quite a different ball game.
Suddenly you meet innumerable decisions:
- When shall we pray?
- How long shall we pray?
- How shall we pray?
- Shall we read from the Bible? What shall we read? Who shall read it?
- Shall we sit, or stand, or hold hands, or change posture,…?
- Shall we sing? What shall we sing?
- Do we have a leader? How do we choose the leader?
- Can we pray about whatever we like? Are there limits, edges to the beliefs of this group?
- Can I pray for rain if you want fine weather? Can I pray that the Greens win the election?
- Can I read from the Book of Wisdom? The Didache?
- Do we read prayers together? The Lord’s Prayer (which version)? The Psalms (which version)?
Fair enough to those individuals and communities who advocate that more or less each meeting for prayer be freshly negotiated, that prayer together always be prepared de novo. Fair enough to those individuals and communities who advocate that the agreements in one group meeting for prayer have no impact on a different group meeting for prayer.
But an other approach is a reality for those of us who pray together daily, or pretty regularly, where a pattern evolves that works well. And this pattern – an agreement, as it were, written and/or developing tradition – isn’t set in stone, can be varied and adapted, and provides a framework for prayerful flexibility.
Followers of Jesus have been doing this from the beginning of the movement. [Just like other religious movements do]. In fact, they didn’t start de novo – Jesus and his first followers were already part of the tradition going back to Abraham and earlier. They adapted that tradition of common prayer.
Followers of Jesus (as time went by) decided
- which events to celebrate and when (Easter, Pentecost, Christmas…)
- which texts to read (the Bible is the collection of texts we agree we will read in common worship)
- what beliefs we will all hold (eg the Nicene Creed) and which beliefs are open to personal opinion
- etc…
So common worship isn’t merely each separate praying group starting from scratch. However we got to this, all Christians are preparing to celebrate Christmas, and it would raise eyebrows if a praying group suddenly insisted that they would celebrate the birth of Jesus on March 15 instead.
The question arises – how far do we extend this common prayer? Anglicanism has generally been defined as agreeing to quite a detailed practice and tradition of common worship, so that the readings in one community are the same as the readings in another, the responses are shared and known, the most important prayers (ordination, eucharistic,…) are agreed together… This includes to when one prays alone, one does so as part of the larger Christian community – inserting oneself into the stream of other Christians praying everywhere and throughout time (eg in the Daily Office).
In a small praying group, there is obviously an issue if we have all agreed together to do something when we worship in common, and then find that regularly the leader flouts those agreements. In NZ Anglicanism there is often very little that we have agreed to together. That is a discussion I think we need to have – why do we have such weak, confused, and confusing agreements? What do we gain? What do we lose? And what is gained and what is lost when the agreements that are clear are flouted by leaders (having vowed to them, and signed that this is what they will do)?
This post is in the spirit of Throwback Thursday.
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One of the beauties of worship with others is sharing with those from different cultures or countries.
We are blessed with a multi-cultural congregation and when members join together in prayer, it can become a witness to how different cultures pray in different ways. I have found inspiration from this, some cultures are completely uninhibited about the way of prayer in their culture and sharing it makes for a much wider expression of prayer.
I have found that praying their way can be liberating for my probably inhibited western way of praying. I tend towards the concise and short and relevant, while others spread their prayer much wider with colourfull expressions, allowing a freedom which is refreshing.
I have grown in confidence in prayer because of this and I can feel myself relaxing and using words and terms that I would perhaps been slightly worried about before.
Sharing prayer and worship is something to be recommended, particularly with people from different cultures.
The Bible itself is “common worship”. There were different sources (proto-Mark, the Q etc.). Those who fed on them could have said: «Garbage! I’ve got a better idea!» But they used those sources. When the canonical gospels were complete, the people of the second century could have said: «Garbage! I’ve got better skills to tell about Jesus and stuff!» But rather they used those bible texts. And so on. This is how the texts got to our books. So, the Bible is a collection of texts of common prayer, because they were canonised by their use in the congregational prayer, in liturgy. And in fact, this is what differentiates canonical and apocryphal scriptures.
Amen! George. Blessings.