What is liturgy?
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| "Liturgy (Greek: λειτουργία) is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions." (Wikipedia) |
What is the function of liturgy? Why do people in Church play music, sing songs? Why sometimes dress in certain ways, put up pictures, use certain symbols and so on? What is the right way of doing worship? Such questions are eagerly discussed nowadays.
The Church, we hear, need to renew itself. Churches are trying to be 'seeker friendly', describe themselves as 'post-modern' or 'emergent'. Some argue that there is no such thing as a particular Christian culture, that we should take in whatever is popular. Church services are becoming rock concerts (old news!). Others try to hold on to the traditions of the Church, and argue that the liturgy of old has a meaning, depth and beauty that cannot be reinvented. Some protestants that were formerly insisting on 'the sermon' as the place where the Word of God is heard, are now saying that liturgy at large, rituals, performance is the locus of God's revelation.
Discussions like these rarely go so deep as to ask the fundamental questions. Whatever position one holds, it seems that there is in principle two ways of understanding the function of liturgy in Church. According to the first option liturgy, including music, rituals, and so on, is a way of reaching the divine. By applying certain aesthetic methods, the human mind is made capable of reaching beyond itself. This is religion, and the belief that its goal can be accomplished on its own term is basically Pagan. The reason for this is that it presupposes a continuity from creation to Creator, from us to God.
The second option realizes that such continuity does not exist. There is a radical distinction between Creator and creation. In philosophical terms Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, was maybe the first to see this clearly. We know that God exists, but we do not know anything about God as such. God is completely ineffable. Only when God reveals himself, only when He acts, can he be comprehended. This belief was developed in early Christian theology. But with this distinction between Creator and creation in mind, liturgy can never have the function of bridging the gap between us and God. Only God can do that. There are not many ways to God, not even one. But there is a way from God to us: God's Word, Christ himself.
The Cappadocian Church father Gregory of Nyssa wrote that,
"The whole created order is unable to get out of itself through a comprehensive vision, but remains continually enclosed within itself, and whatever it beholds, it is looking at itself." (Gregory of Nyssa, Commentaries on Ecclesiastes)Hence liturgy cannot be a positive, directly comprehensive vision into the divine mysteries. At another occasion Gregory takes the consequences of this thought:
“Knowing, then, how widely the Divine nature differs from our own, let us quietly remain within our proper limits.” (Gregory NPNF p. 260, GNO, 95)So let us remain, quietly. Ignatius said that:
"He who possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to hear even His very silence, that he may be perfect, and may both act as he speaks, and be recognised by his silence." (Ignatius)That is true liturgy. Or maybe, true liturgy is that which helps us become quiet, that which helps us listen.
Another example: When is the right time to discuss theology? Gregory of Nazianzus (the other Gregory's close friend) asked in his twenty-seventh oration on theology.
"When is the right time? Whenever we are free from the mire and noise without, and our commanding faculty is not confused by illusory, wandering images, leading us, as it were, to mix fine script with ugly scrawling, or sweet-smelling scent with slime. We need actually "to be still" in order to know God, and when we receive the opportunity, "to judge uprightly" in theology." (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 27.3)We need to be still in order to know God. We live in a society where we are constantly bombarded with impressions. Information, a constant flow of news. We want to comprehend, to know and to put everything, the whole world, in order with our concepts. And in our religiosity we want to possess God. But as Karl Barth tells us,
"Faith means motionlessness, silence, worship - it means not-knowing. Faith renders inevitable a qualitative distinction between God and man;" (Barth, Epistle to the Romans, p. 202)In Quakerism silent worship plays a central role: The Quakers realized that the only thing we are able to do is to wait upon God to reveal himself and act in and through us. But silence is not its own purpose. Robert Barclay wrote that,
"I do not so much commend and speak of silence as if we had a law in it to shut out praying or preaching, or tied ourselves thereunto; not at all: for as our worship consisteth not in words, so neither in silence, as silence; but in an holy dependence of the mind upon God, from which dependence silence necessarily follows in the first place, until words can be brought forth which are from God's Spirit;" (Barclay, Apology 11.9)This is not queitism, to be sure. Quetism, in its extreme form, ends up in a worship of silence as such, with no meaning ascribed to that which is outside the silence. Such queitism is nihilism. But silence does not have any value on its own, neither is it a way of melting up with the divine by removing the words that separate us. In Christianity God reaches us exactly by his Word. As such silence means to give priority to the Word before our words.
However, the silence of devotion is not superior to the words of the preacher, Barth also notes. Sometimes we need to break the silence to really keep still. In practice this means that we should not be afraid of using liturgy. True liturgy stills the soul and prepares it for God. A kind of aesthetic 'preperatio evangelica'.
So what do we learn in our stillness? It is exactly when we in our stillness realize that we cannot comprehend God, that we know that we cannot keep silent. We need to break the silence.
"For in what concerns God to confess our ignorance is the best knowledge. Therefore magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His Name together[...]” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. Lec., 6.2)This is the positive side of liturgy. When God speaks, we must act. God's Word does not return emptyhanded. God will achieve his aim. The new Adam will arise, and when we hear God's voice summoning us we will die and be resurrected with Christ whether or not we will. We can choose to form our lives around this new reality, or we can choose not to. We can choose to celebrate or not. In other words, liturgy also has a positive function, but only as a response to God when he reaches us. Never as a way to reach God.
Still, the primary and first function of true liturgy is negative. It makes us quiet, and creates a stillness. But when God speaks in it, it will inevitably result in positive action. Not aesthetic self-indulgence, but peace, love, charity. This also reminds us that it is only when we pursue peace that we get to see God working amongst us. Strife, hatred, anger, creates an atmosphere of noise. Blessed are the peacemakers. Whatever views we hold on liturgy, it also have a broader ethical, and ultimately political, significance.
And by the way: We cannot conjure up the Son of Man as to fit our calendars. Liturgy is not a way of putting God's Word into a time schedule. Be ready, for you know not what time he comes. We cannot narrow down worship to Sunday mornings or afternoons. This is why our whole life must become liturgy. But a negative one, not positive, unless of course we prefer to hear ourselves speak, rather than God.
