Liturgy

 Last Tuesday before Advent

Today I want to deal with some of your comments from last week. Glenn and Frances had questions about the meaning of liturgy. As many of you know, I am a bibliophile. At the moment I'm in my study surrounded by about 550 books. I have somewhere between 1500 and 2000 in a state of disarray in the shed. In my working years, I always had an office, which always had bookcases. At First, N. Wilkesboro, in addition to an office with bookcases, I had a vacant third floor classroom with bookcases, and a parsonage with a study and more book cases. When you retire, you don't have an office anymore. I gave away several hundred books right before I retired. When retirement limited me to 500 or so within immediate reach, I put almost all of my books on worship in the shed, thinking I wouldn't need them much anymore, since I would no longer be leading worship services. Well, today I need them! I did check one that I have in my study, The Westminster Dictionary of Worship. It didn't have the word liturgy in the singular, just the plural liturgies. There followed an article of several pages on various liturgies in various denominations over various centuries. The assumption seems to be that anyone who would own a Westminster Dictionary of Worship would already know what the word liturgy meant. 

 

The word liturgy comes from the Greek word leitourgia which literally means "the service of the people."

There is no single hard and fast definition of liturgy. Here is the way I understand it. Liturgy is the previously written and during the worship service spoken parts of the service. By previously written I mean written in the past by people other than the worship leaders. Most of music in worship is not liturgical. Generally, congregational hymns, choir anthems, organ preludes and postludes do not count as liturgy. When a congregation sings the Gloria Patri or the Doxology in a worship service, that is a part of the liturgy. Part of the communion liturgy can be either said or sung, e.g. "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." The more "high church" the denomination is; the more liturgy, and the more the liturgy is sung or chanted (perhaps one of you Anglican types could explain to me the difference between "plainsong" and "chant").   

 

Liturgy can be divided into two categories, "propers" and "ordinaries." Ordinaries are the things that you say or sing every week, like the Lord's Prayer, the Gloria, the Doxology, the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed,  or the Communion liturgy. Propers are things, generally said by the worship leader or lay reader/lector, for that particular Sunday. Lectionary scripture readings are propers. Opening prayers or Collects are propers. In a part of The Great Thanksgiving in the Communion Liturgy, the pastor will usually insert a proper that he will read that is appropriate for that Sunday or that Church Season (See the footnote on p. 13 of the UM Hymnal). 

When I use the terms "high church" and "low church," I'm referring to how much of the worship is liturgy and how central liturgy is to the worship. Episcopalians are high church; Baptists are low church. Methodists can be just about anywhere on the spectrum. 

 

The most "low church" Methodist church I've ever been was one of the churches I had in the mountains of NC when I was on Duke Endowment in 1969. The church was Brown's Summit. The service began with the choir director saying, "Anyone who wants to be in the choir, come on up." About 60% of the people, all ages, came up and sang for 25 minutes. The the choir director look at me and said, "Preacher, it's time for preachin'." All the choir went back to their pews. I preached. When I said the Amen of a prayer I said at the close of the sermon, everybody left.

The most "high church' services I have been in were all Eastern Orthodox: much incense, all male hidden choirs chanting almost all the liturgy, congregants frequently making the sign of the cross, bowing, kneeling, elaborate ritual bringing the eucharist elements, etc.

I'm high church, but not that high.

Faithfully,

Christian