Lesson 37: How Do We Determine God – Ceremony

We often overlook how ceremony determines what we regard as God’s Word. We learn a great deal of our Christianity by using the liturgy every week and reliving the Church Year annually. This ritual establishes the habits of the heart by which Christians live, sometimes unconsciously; and comes to serve as one of the standards we use in discerning what is the God’s Word.

The weekly liturgy passes on proven tradition, but also provides a means for modifying these customs. It’s probably a good thing that people respond very cautiously and sometimes angrily to the changes. By questioning new translations of the Lord’s Prayer, a new three- year cycle of assigned readings, or the use of modern music, they are attempting to separate good and bad tradition.

And well they should. The quality of the responses to recent posts makes clear our readers understand both the light and the dark sides of tradition. Check out this article in the National Catholic Report that Rita sent me for an example of how a misuse of tradition can distort our mission. I came to understand that in relationship to liturgy early in my ministry. Out of curiosity I marked in a Bible all the Gospel readings in the old one year-lectionary used by the liturgical churches. It immediately became clear that the passages omitted were overwhelmingly Jesus’ many, many words about money. Obviously there was some questionable judgment in establishing that hallowed tradition. It made sense to develop a new three-year cycle of readings that corrected this.

Remember I am trying to offer insight into how we “discern God’s voice. Are we hearing God, demons, or our own selfish ambitions?” (To use Juan’s words) I am observing, “The duty to thoughtfully pursue one’s course in life according to what is best (and often difficult), seems to get lost in a barrage of catchwords, slogans, peer-pressure inductions and politically motivated agendas. That, coupled with a frantic consumerism that equates wealth with happiness and sees possessions as assertion of self-worth, would seem to be antithetical to the principles of Christianity, born in austerity, grown in adversity and, with Luther, “Reformed” against such things as the ungodly accumulation of wealth by those sworn to holy poverty.”(To use Lupe’s words) I’m suggesting we sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, use the interplay between canon, creed, custom, ceremony, clergy, and community to gain clarity. None of these alone are enough. Each operates as check and balance on the others.

You see these in our ritual. The liturgical churches give the clergy control of the Word and Sacraments, but also recognize it is the “work of the people” (community). It should always enable the laity to express themselves, reflecting their tastes rather than that of the clergy. Heavens, even today a number of the clergy prefer to do it all in Latin. Talk about the nonsense of tongue speaking. The ceremony also uses assigned lessons and the church year (canon) to prevent clergy from focusing only on their own opinion and tastes. It would be much more difficult for televangelists to use the same few texts all the time and to twist Christian truth if they used the classic worship patterns.

The critical question should be whether the liturgy proclaims the Gospel in word and action. For instance, it is far more important to share Paul’s concern that a Eucharist teaches participants to share their food (I Corinthians 11: 17-22) than to insist on a certain kind of music. The current argument about whether contemporary music is acceptable too often is about people’s tastes and fashions rather than Christian proclamation.
Next week I’ll go in another direction by looking at the role of the clergy.

Tags: ceremony, cult, liturgy, ritual