There is something about being human that is open-ended; humans can project into the future, humans can transcend individual experiences and thoughts, and enter into a world of abstract and universal truths. This open-endedness of humanity is found in the power to reflect and to judge, in the freedom to trust and to hope, in the ability to love oneself, in the capacity to delude oneself, etc.
It is a matter of faith that this open-endedness of humanity has a reason, a vocation: to reflect the Creator who speaks the creative Word of Truth and who breathes the redemptive Spirit of Love. This might be put: the Triune God creates humanity to reflect the community that exists among the Persons of the Godhead; or, humanity reaches true humanity only in community, only in a body united in dialogue and fore-giving love. This is not an easy vocation to live up to, and the capacity for delusion is always open with the tools of escape. It is always easier to isolate or hide oneself than to have to deal with others in honest and loving dialogue. It is always easier to make one’s own life, one’s own rules, one’s own plans, one’s own gods, than to deal with, accept, and love the reality of others, the value of others, the right of others. For all the glory and praise that our times set upon individuality, it is of value only in so far as it becomes an object of sacrifice in the quest for dialogue and love. This truth is commonly rendered: it is only by living for others that one finds one’s own and most true self.
Religions have always sought to aid the individual in the battle against self-delusion and the quest for community. The church declares that in her the battle and the quest are at an end. The church declares this somewhat negatively: outside of the church there is no salvation, that is, no true humanity, no fore-given life. The church may speak this only because the church is the body of humanity called back to God who is the Other beyond all others. The church may speak this because the church is about sacrificing the delusions of individual righteousness and self-mastery, and accepting One Lord, One Master, One God, One Creator who is at once the centre and the life of all.
How does one teach the heart to humble itself and enter that holy communion which is the church, the body of Christ? How does one call to community, how does one strengthen the members in the commitment to the body, how does one empower the expansion of the body? The church answers: through the Word of God and the Sacraments given in the discipline of public worship, given in the prescribed mental, physical, and spiritual exercises that are the rituals of the church.
The rituals are a discipline both in the sense of an organized body of knowledge and in the sense of a training exercise that develops, molds, and perfects. They express the theology, the anthropology, the philosophy, the ethics of the church; they present a vision of God and of humanity, and of the relationship between them. They are a work which is prescribed for use at regular intervals, and which carries the subliminal messages that affect the sub-conscious where the basic attitudes toward life are rehearsed and affirmed. Whenever it is said: actions speak louder than words, the truth of these statements is being affirmed. Rituals do not discuss a topic, they present a picture, a vision. Visions do not simply appear and go away, they haunt the heart, they move the will, they take hold and root in the depths.
God alone dictates the vision the church must conjure up in the hearts of the faithful, but humanity must find the rituals to incarnate and transmit that vision. This is no easy task. The acts of worship must work together as a unified whole, must present a true, logical, comprehensive, and comprehensible statement. Smoke and bells are not enough; music and candles do not suffice. Every element, every word, every movement must be skillfully and properly plied into a voice the heart can hear, into a touch the soul can be moved by, into a reality so crystalline and pure that it creates the silence that is joyous obedience to the glory of God. Such is the true discipline of public worship, the true order of divine service, the true nature of evangelistic liturgy.
Many of the ritual acts used by the church are as ancient as humanity itself. Lifting up the arms, opening out the hands, bowing, moving in circles are ritual acts found everywhere from the earliest of times. How the church has chosen to use these and countless other acts has varied from place to place and time to time. Every church establishes a prescribed discipline of worship, but the prescribed standard is almost always being subjected to local modifications of one magnitude or another. Sometimes the modifications reflect the lack of or the excess of resources in a particular place. Sometimes the modifications are the result of popular devotions. Sometimes the modifications are merely the result of a fascination with the practices of other churches. Often these local modifications are made without due examination as to their impact on the meaning of the rites as a whole. The spiritual and theological chaos caused by many of the medieval local and unexamined modifications in the eucharistic rites gave rise to the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation. Both these movements sought to eliminate local variations and attempted to put an end to unexamined modification.
In the last century many well intentioned and goodly Anglicans developed a fascination with the rituals of the Roman Church, and many ritual acts from that church were inserted into the Prayer Book liturgies. Some saw in these modifications a change in the traditional theology of the church. Some decried the changes as heresy, others lauded them as a return to orthodoxy. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the discipline of public worship is not and cannot be open to acts of private devotion or individual inclination. The rites and rituals as established by the whole of the church in The Book of Common Prayer and in The Book of Alternative Services are orthodoxy, literally, the right form of worship. A ritual exercise that might be acceptable for an individual in private devotion may well not be acceptable for the community gathered for public worship, and the weight of this truth upon all ought to be grave.
The discipline of worship utilizes everything: movement, speech, time, space, and the objects that fill space. These things are all consecrated, that is, set aside for the use of the Sacred One, and these things are all transformed by the sacred contact. The procession around the building is a circling around and a gathering together of all the universe. The book that contains the gospel reading is the Gospel Itself. The building wherein the church gathers is the Church. The chalice that holds the wine is the Cup of salvation. The word of scripture upon the lips of the reader is the Living Word. The flame of the paschal candle is the Light of Christ. The ordinary is transformed, expanded, recreated in the hands of God.
Every officer in the liturgy must realize that body language, ritual movement, is as important as spoken language, and seriously undertake to master the sacred choreography. Bowing, turning, kneeling, making the sign of the cross, folding the hands are ritual movements, interpretive motions, elemental expressions of the rhythm of life, manifestations of the spirit’s quest for the eternal; they are the aspects of the dance at its most sacred. Observe the motions of the liturgy, consider the poses and postures of oriental temple dances, consider the rhythm and sway of tribal circle dances, and realize that the rhythms in your own heritage of worship are not limited to song and chant. Realize also that a rhythm that stimulates and arouses the senses is not enough. Know that the rhythms of the liturgy are not about dramatic performance and histrionic showmanship. The rhythm of good liturgy provides an ever deepening and ever more sublime pathway into a type of calm wherein the external and internal senses are either saturated or shut off and the spirit is allowed to be placid and open to see and hear, to know and to love, and to rejoice in the Holy One, its Lord.