Understanding the Nature of Ritual

This past Sunday I went through the ritual of putting on my white alb (the word alb means white), with a white stole (an ancient sign of office). The color for the current season of the church year of worship is white. The acolytes also wore white garments that may be called albs as well. They used special candle lighters to perform a ritual of lighting four candles on either side of a brass cross standing on a table often called an altar—even though no animals are ever sacrificed upon it.

After the opening hymn I led the congregation in another ritual at the opening of the Divine Service, that of confessing sins and receiving forgiveness or absolution. Part of that ritual involves a kind of conversation between the pastor and the gathered congregation. I referred to that in another blog only a couple postings back. As part of the confession and absolution ritual the congregation members are invited to make upon themselves the sign of the cross as the pastor pronounces God's merciful forgiveness upon them. That sign was first put upon them when they were baptized in the most sacred Name of the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Properly understood the ritual of singing the opening hymn and receiving the Lord's absolution is not the opening of the Divine Service itself. It is but the gracious invitation of the merciful God to enter into the His presence to be served by Him with His Word and Sacrament. Once His absolution or forgiveness are received by the gathered worshippers, they move joyfully into His presence to be thus served. That movement was symbolized this past Sunday as I spoke forgiveness as our LORD's public servant and with His authority from in front of the railing separating the congregation from the space in which the altar stands. The altar is a symbol, reminding the worshippers that the LORD Christ offered Himself as the final sacrifice for sins upon the altar of the cross. It is from that same altar that the bread and wine of the LORD's Supper are served. As I made my way from in front of that altar up the stairs to the altar itself the congregation sang a psalm of entrance—known in Latin as the Introit. As the pastor approached the altar, so did the entire congregation—ritually. All were then gathered before the LORD.

You have noticed by now that I frequently use the word ritual. I do so for a reason. A ritual is a sequence of activities. These involve gestures, clothing, words and objects performed in a space specially set aside for certain activities. All the gestures and movements, together with the words spoken and songs sung are performed according to a set sequence, one thing after another. Ritual is inevitable in worship—all kinds of worship, both traditional and contemporary—just as it is whenever people get together for whatever reason. Certain things are expected, done and shared.

Let me briefly relate a ritual I experienced at a football game at College Station, Texas. My sons and I had seats down in front and close to the sidelines at about the 45 yard line. We all dressed in shirts of maroon and white with symbols of Texas A&M University on them. Immediately behind us was a man who supported the opposing team dressed in the colors of that university. During the game a yell leader (they do not have cheer leaders), dressed in a white shirt with his sleeves rolled up and white pants led us and other fans in a variety of special yells—some of which I didn't know, because I was not trained at A&M as a student. Then at a certain point we all locked arms and feet and swayed back and forth as we sang together the school song. I learned that ritual when my children attended A&M. It is a very moving one, binding the over 90,000 football fans gathered together in song and motion. When you attend these games you expect to participate in these many rituals.

So it is in the church's liturgy. Liturgy is close to drama. It is the manner by which Christians act out dramatically the public announcement of the Gospel, the good news of God's love in Christ. There is a center of attention just as there is in an acted drama on stage or in a movie. There are carefully thought out actions, costumes and props (altars, candles, banners, instruments, etc.). There is a special language that, like the language of drama, is natural, yet not every-day language. It is a condensed language and so becomes more power-filled than our usual way of speaking. The liturgy uses every-day language, but lifts it up so that more can be said in a brief space and period of time. The ritual doesn't completely reproduce the language of every day. That language has too many repeated phrases, pauses and clumsiness.

The closest thing to ordinary speech in the liturgy is the sermon, but even there the preacher must be careful to be precise. His words are condensed so that many things can be said in but a few minutes.

Whether you write or talk about worship as traditional or contemporary there is always ritual ! All human societies, past or present, feature rituals of one kind or another. These include not only worship rites, but also rites of passage, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals, graduations and on and on.

I say again, as before, we need to know why the rituals are performed and what they mean. Such meanings must be taught and re-taught. Only then can we fully appreciate, carefully adjust or wisely avoid them.

Why Would Anyone Ever Want To Study Leviticus?

Except in the summer, I meet with a group of Lutheran pastors to study God's Word and discuss life in the churches we serve. In August this year Pr. Carl Roth of Livingston, Texas began to lead us in a discussion of Leviticus by John Kleinig.It is part of the Concordia Commentary series. Does that strike you as strange? It should, because nobody studies Leviticus any longer, even though it lies at the heart of the Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch), is full of the Good News of God's love, and is central to the understanding of Christ's death.

To quote Kleinig: "The letter to the Hebrews, with its profound liturgical theology of Christ as both the great High Priest and the once-for-all sacrifice, would be inscrutable without Leviticus" (p.26).

Let me translate Kleinig's "inscrutable" sentence and comment upon the way we who sit in the pews and classrooms must often suffer through sermons and lectures that simply do not relate to us. That's what the word inscrutable points to. You hear or read words and you believe they have some meaning, but you can't figure out what in the world that meaning is.

Take a look at several words in his sentence: profound, liturgical and theology. Can these words be translated so they make better sense for us all?

Start with profound. The word refers to something really deep, like the Atlantic ocean. Kleinig is telling us is that the letter to the Hebrews has some deep insights and great knowledge hidden within it. We have only to dive in, dig down and explore. When doing so with the help of Leviticus we will better understand . . .what? Liturgical theology.

Liturgical theology? What's that? Let's press on.

The word Liturgical may cause you to think about liturgy. For some of us the word liturgy stirs up disgust in our hearts. The very word pulls up memories of the dull, boring, tired and useless rituals of public worship services we attended as children, together with long-winded, meaningless sermons. I recall many times in my teen years when I felt that way--even as I believed myself to be on the path toward become a pastor and leader of public worship. Not everyone feels that way, of course, but a significant number of Christians do. That's why they choose to attend churches that go out of their way -- way out of their way -- to avoid any semblance to those churches that are liturgical.

So right off the get-go Kleing is assuming that we, his readers, want to gain some deeper insights into things liturgical AND that there is a liturgical theology of Christ in the book of Hebrews we should get excited about. For those Christians among us who have never gotten excited about the rote, routine, weary, worn-out rituals of some liturgical worship services, there would be no reason at all to plow on through such a study. We don't mind learning more about what God has to tell us about Jesus Christ. We love our Bibles and we love God-talk (theology), but, please, don't get me involved with things liturgical--please!

But what if there were things liturgical that really got to you? Originally the word referred to public acts of service among the Greeks. So if I led a project to build a temple or served as a senator or passed out food to the poor I was doing my liturgy, my public service. Such acts always involved certain repeated steps, certain routines.

Let me tell you a story.

Back in 1968 I was attending graduate school at the University of Chicago. It was the week before Palm Sunday, the week in which Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered. All of Chicago was stirred up. Many predominantly black communities went up in flames as residents rioted in anger and fear. That Sunday our family attended a liturgical worship service. During the service the pastor arranged for two children to walk down the aisle hand in hand, one black and the other white. As they walked we sang "We Shall Overcome." Believe me, there was not a dry eye in the church. Memory of that occasion still chokes me up. That was liturgy with meaning, profound meaning!

What if our study of Leviticus helps us pastors to capture such an understanding of public worship, of liturgy? What if we are able to become the kind of ministers of God through whom God and God's Son, Jesus, ministers to our deep needs, our pains, fears, hopes and longings through the renewed and renewing rites of liturgical worship? Would you be interested? Think about it. Meanwhile, this group of pastors intends to carry on with their study. Pray for us.