GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Instructed Eucharist Series Part 1

June 2008

Introduction

            This week and next, we will be worshiping in a slightly different way.  We will be pausing at various moments during the services to discuss various aspects of our worship together:  what we do, and why we do it.  This discussion will replace the sermon—or, perhaps better put, it will be the sermon, but instead of taking place at the usual time in the service, will be spread out to address particular words and actions as they occur.

            At the heart of the eucharist is a great mystery:  the mystery of a God who created us, who came back for us, who promises to be with us always, and who also meets us in a unique way each week as we gather around his table.  This is a mystery which can not be explained, and we will not try.  But it can be illuminated, and one way that we can do that is to more fully understand the history, the symbolism, and the purpose of what we do when we come to that holy table. 

Outline of Topics

Week 1 :  Show and tell:  vestments and vessels.  The Liturgy of the Word (everything up to the Offertory)

Week 2:  The Holy Communion:  What we do, and what it means.

Show and Tell: Vestments and Vessels; the Structure of the Service

Preparation: Vessels and Vestments

Vestments

A priest vested for the eucharist will wear an alb, a cincture, a stole, and a chasuble.  Each of these garments has its own history and its own symbolic significance (as we will see, the history and the symbolic significance do not necessarily have anything to do with each other!).  In the aggregate, a vested priest resembles a dressed-up gentleman of the late Roman Empire—the time and place where Christianity first took institutional root.

Alb:  The alb is the white robe worn by clergy and lay ministers who serve at the altar.  Its white color symbolizes purity.  It was originally an undergarment, and true albs even today are pretty sheer and made to be worn under other vestments.  At Grace Church we wear “cassock-albs”, which are heavier than true albs, and are often ornamented and made to be seen.

Cincture:  The cincture is the rope belt that goes around the waist over the alb.  Cinctures can also be cloth bands, like a wide belt, but we do not use that kind at Grace.  The cincture, like most of the vestments, has an obvious practical use, in this case as a belt.  It has also come to be invested with symbolic significance, representing (depending on whom you ask) the whip with which Jesus was flogged, or the rope Jesus said would pull his followers where they were needed, or the virtues of chastity and self-restraint.

Stole:  The stole is a mark of office used by clergy on sacramental occasions.  Deacons wear the stole diagonally, over the left shoulder; Bishops wear them hanging straight down in front, and priests wear them either hanging straight, or crossed at the waist.  Stoles come in the various liturgical colors—white, red, green, and purple.  Stoles symbolize the yoke of Christ which is put on by the priest or other clergy person who is preparing to preside at a sacrament, and are a reminder that the true minister of every sacrament is the One we all serve.  Like other vestments, the history of the stole is practical as well as symbolic:  it traces its roots to scarves worn by clergy in cold northern climates.  It has a counterpart called a tippet, which is a black stole-like garment worn on some non-sacramental occasions; the tippet is still sometimes called a scarf.

Chasuble:  The liturgical poncho.  Chasubles are worn only by priests and bishops, and are exclusively a sacramental vestment.  The chasuble descends to us from ancient Rome; it was the overgarment, richly ornamented and worn for warmth as well as elegance.  If we were to travel back in time to an upscale Roman dinner party, our first thought might well be to wonder why there were so many priests around.  As the early church struggled to find its place, as it learned to follow Saint Paul’s admonition to be in but not of the world, it doubtless seemed wise to adopt the appearance of those who made the rules.  Over time, the chasuble has come to have symbolic significance; it is often said to recall the seamless robe worn by Jesus at the time of his arrest and passion.  Like stoles, chasubles generally follow the liturgical color scheme.

Liturgical Colors

Stoles, chasubles, and altar hangings all follow a color pattern that reflects what is going on in the liturgical calendar.  The colors are:

Green:  Used throughout most of the year, green is the “default” color, and recalls nature and God’s creation and providence.

Red:  Used at Pentecost, to commemorate the Holy Spirit’s coming with fire to the apostles; also used at the commemoration of martyrs.

Purple:  The royal color, used (along with blue variants) in Lent and Advent.

Black:  Used on Good Friday to reflect the bleakness of the death of Jesus.

White:  The color of celebration, used at Christmas and Easter, baptisms and ordinations, weddings and funerals (the latter because funerals are themselves celebrations of the resurrection).

Vessels

In addition to vesting the liturgical leaders, we also prepare the altar for the eucharist.  This preparation is the work of the Altar Guild, who ensure that the silverware, bread, wine, and other items we need are ready.  The following items are set out in readiness for the eucharist.

Chalice:  The Chalice is the wine-cup.  It is usually shaped like what we think of as a wine glass, with a stem and a round “foot”, but it need not be—Colonial chalices, for example, were sometimes shaped like tankards.  While the chalice may be intricately worked and elaborately ornamented, as a sign of reverence for its contents at communion, its only essential function is to be a cup from which the consecrated wine may be drunk.

Paten:  The paten is a plate, used to hold consecrated bread when it is being distributed at communion.

Hosts or bread:  At the early service, we generally use communion wafers, or “hosts”.  These are made of wheat and water, and so are very small loaves of unleavened bread.  They are convenient to use and do not leave crumbs (consecrated crumbs are a problem); their drawback is that they do not seem like real bread.  At the later service, we usually have baked bread, prepared by members of the Kneaders’ Guild.

Wine:  Any kind of wine may be used; we generally use port.

Linens:  Various linens are set out ready for communion; the one people are most likely to notice is the purificator, with which the chalice bearer wipes the lip of the chalice between communicants.  The significance of the purificator is hygienic, not particularly liturgical.

The Structure of the Service

The service has two main components, almost like acts in a play.  The first is the Liturgy of the Word:  The lessons, the sermon, the prayers of the people.  The second is the Holy Communion, with the eucharistic prayer, and the distribution of the sacrament throughout the gathered church community.  There is a sense of movement to the liturgy:  in the first part, we hear God’s Word in scripture, we listen to a sermon seek to bring that Word to bear on our present-day lives, we respond by praying for our own needs and those of others in the Prayers of the People, and we enact our turning from sin toward God in the confession and absolution.  Through the Word we are made new.

In the second part of the service, we as new people bring our gifts, we greet each other in the peace of God, and we gather around God’s holy table for a foretaste of the heavenly banquet God has promised to his faithful people.  Finally, nourished and transformed, we go out into the world, seeking to make real in our lives the conversion and salvation that has just been enacted in our ritual.

This overall shape is no invention of the Episcopal Church.  Rather, it traces its roots back to the very early church; we have written accounts of it as far back as the middle of the second century, and the liturgical shape certainly predated the written descriptions.  Both word and sacrament reflect the dialogue between humanity and God, and the church has always understood that there can be no eucharist without the Word of God being proclaimed—at the least, a Gospel reading.

In the same way that the overall shape of our eucharistic liturgy comes to us from the early church, so does our practice of using set liturgical words.  Saint Paul himself knew of and used liturgical hymns.  And the practice of using prepared, rather than extemporaneous, eucharistic prayers is evident from about the end of the first century.  Some of the particular prayers that we use come from no later than the third century—but we’ll get to that next week.

The Liturgy of the Word: Readings, Hymns and Sermon

Preparations

In preparation for the service, the liturgical leaders are vested; the altar is prepared with the items we will need for communion and with the large-print version of the parts of the Prayer Book (known as the Altar Book or Missal) that the priest uses; and the candles are lit. 

Candles have a functional history:  they provided light to see.  They also have a symbolic value.  When the candles are lit on the altar, it is a signal that a service is about to begin, that we are entering into holy time (holy, of course, means “set aside for God”).  That signal can call us into a time of quiet preparation.  Candles also remind us of Christ as the Light of the World.

The Entrance Procession

The entrance procession is primarily a way for the liturgical leaders to get into the church.  As is the case with most aspects of our worship, form follows and elaborates on function.  Since it is necessary to get into the church, there is an opportunity to do so in a way that both is decorous and symbolically rich.  At Grace, we form a procession from the back of the church, up to the altar.  In the procession, you will see:

·         First, the crucifer, carrying the cross.  All the other participants follow the cross.  Many members of the congregation bow their heads as a sign of reverence when the cross passes.

·         Following the crucifer, we sometimes have torchbearers.  A “torch” is simply a candle on a long stick, carried in procession.  Like the altar candles, the torches have a functional history, and today remind us symbolically of Christ as our illumination.

·         Then come the chalice bearers, who will assist with the ministration of communion. 

·         Following the chalice bearers come any assisting clergy.

·         Finally comes the priest (or the Bishop, when he or she is present) who will preside.  The presider is often referred to as the “celebrant.”  We will do our best to avoid this term, because while it is true that only a priest or bishop presides, it is equally true that the entire congregation is gathered to celebrate.  The presider comes last as a way of enacting the theological understanding that the presider is the servant, not the ruler, of the community.

·         At the eight o’clock service, the procession enters from the side for simplicity.  At the ten-fifteen service, the procession comes in from the back, to the accompaniment of the opening hymn.   The entrance hymn may be thought of as “traveling music,” in both a literal and symbolic sense:  it both covers the movement of people as they travel in procession to the altar; and it is a song of praise, the praise we all seek to offer to God as we travel the ways and days of our lives.  The words and music of hymns, more than almost anything else we do in church, have a tendency to stick in our minds, and can form a graceful soundtrack to our everyday lives as children of God.

The Opening Acclamation, Collect for Purity, and Song of Praise.

Once the members of the procession have reached their places, and the hymn is concluded if there has been one, the presider begins the service with the opening acclamation:  “Blessed be God:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”  The congregation replies, “And blessed be his[1] kingdom, now and forever.  Amen.”  This acclamation and response (which has variations for use in the seasons of Lent and Easter) serves to name at the outset the God for whose praise we gather.

The Collect for Purity (“…cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit…”) was long ago one of the prayers said privately by the priest.  But it is appropriately used by the whole congregation as a way of asking God’s grace in preparation for worship, and so since 1549 it has been said aloud as a collect.  A “collect” is simply a prayer said by the presider to “collect” the thoughts and prayers of all; at the end of a collect, all present join in the “Amen” to make the prayer their own.

Following the Collect for Purity, we usually sing or say a song of praise, such as the Gloria (“Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth….”), to express our need not only to name God, but to worship him.

The Collect of the Day, the Lessons and the Psalm

The Collect of the Day is a prayer specific to the day.  Sometimes the collect picks up on a theme from the appointed readings; other times it is geared to events being commemorated in the liturgical calendar.  For example, the collect for the Christmas Eve service begins, “O God, who hast caused this holy night to shine with the illumination of the true Light….”  There are other times when the collect raises a theme for the day that is not picked up elsewhere in the service, unless perhaps in the sermon.

“Lessons” are readings from the Bible.  In the Episcopal Church, as in many other churches, we follow a “lectionary,” a list of readings (in a three-year cycle) that ensures that over time, we read broadly in the scriptures.  Using a lectionary helps keep us honest:  God’s Word does not come to us only in our favorite parts!  It also helps keep the priest or other liturgical planner from succumbing to the temptation to choose readings only from the passages that he or she happens to like.

At a celebration of the eucharist, there is always a reading from one of the Gospels:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, who tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  Prior to that, we usually have a reading from the Old Testament, which tells the story of God’s relationship with his chosen people Israel, our spiritual ancestors, and another reading from part of the New Testament other than the Gospels.  This other New Testament reading is usually from one of the letters attributed to Paul, the apostle who more than any other helped to found the early church, or it may be from a non-Pauline letter, the Book of Acts, or the Book of Revelation.

A member of the congregation, called the “lector,” reads the lessons aloud, starting with the Old Testament lesson.  Between the Old Testament and the New Testament lessons, we say or sing a Psalm.  The psalms were written over a long period of Israel’s history, and were in a way an early prayer book:  they were composed to be used by congregations gathered for worship.  By saying or singing psalms, we put ourselves in continuity with worship going back thousands of years.

At the ten-fifteen service there is a hymn after the New Testament lesson; at the eight o’clock service we move immediately from the New Testament lesson to the Gospel.  The Gospel is always read by a priest or, if there is one, a deacon; such proclamation in the midst of the gathered church is part of what clergy are ordained to do.  At Grace, the Gospel book is carried from the altar into the middle of the congregation, where it is read aloud.  This reflects the conviction that the Gospel is not proclaimed at people, but rather with them, in the midst of them.  We are a community centered on the Gospel.  When there are torches, they will generally accompany the Gospel procession down the aisle, adding their light to the symbolism of the Gospel in the midst of us all (and, historically, providing light for the reader to see).  The congregation stands during the reading of the Gospel, as a sign of honor for the reality of God inherent in the Gospel message.

The Sermon

The sermon immediately follows the Gospel.  Sermons take different forms and have many specific purposes.  The sermon always, though, is a part of the liturgy, and should seek somehow to bring the worshipping community and the Gospel message into one another’s presence.

The Nicene Creed

The Creed is an ancient statement of the corporate faith of the Christian Church, and has been in use in a form much like the one we know since the year 381.  It has been and is used by the whole church—Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant (other than some newer, fundamentalist churches).  The Creed affirms God as Trinity:  Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit, and also affirms the creative and redemptive work of God.  Other specific portions of the creed reflect issues that were of profound importance to the church in the fourth century, but that may seem remote today:  such as, whether the Son is or is not of the same “substance” as the Father.  We begin our recitation of the Creed by saying “we believe”, rather than “I believe”, because what we are doing in the Creed is joining our common faith with the faith of the church across the world today, and over the centuries.  The Creed reflects what we as the whole church believe God to be; and struggles or reservations that any of us individually may have about particular aspects of the Creed can coexist with that long and broad common witness.

The Prayers of the People

The Prayers of the People enact the response of faith to what has come before:  in light of what we believe, we ask God’s blessing and help for the church, the world, ourselves and each other.  The Prayer Book provides various forms for the prayers, but encourages individual congregations to modify those forms, or replace them, to suit their own needs.

Confession and Absolution

Before we come to be fed at God’s table, and in faithful response to all we have done so far, we acknowledge our need for God’s grace and forgiveness by confessing our sins.  After the confession, the presider declares God’s forgiveness to penitent sinners.

The generality of confession and absolution is appropriate for common worship.  We as individuals and the church as a community stand in constant need of repentance and forgiveness.  The confession, though, becomes a trap if we see it in transactional terms:  if, without any real self-inquiry or intention to change, we mouth the words and pocket our absolution like a bus ticket.  The confession is a prayer, and must be approached prayerfully.

Moreover, there may be times when a general, corporate confession is not what our souls need, and a general assurance of pardon does not bring healing.  Individual confession with a priest as representative of God is available in the Episcopal Church.  Such sacramental confessions are utterly and inviolably confidential.  While many Episcopalians never make a spoken, or “auricular” confession, many others do, and such confession is a venerable part of our tradition.  It was Queen Elizabeth I who said of individual confession, “All may; none must; some should.”  If after the general confession and absolution your soul is still troubled, consider a no-obligation preliminary conversation with any of the clergy.

The Peace

The presider exchanges the peace with the congregation, and the members of the congregation then exchange the peace among themselves. 

In the early Church, people greeted each other with the Kiss of Peace—which actually had a lot to do with accusations that the Church was immoral, and with getting thrown to the lions, but that’s another story.  Today in the Episcopal Church, we greet each other with a hug or a handshake, and exchange words of peace.  We are to approach God’s table in love and charity with one another.  The exchange of the peace is a ritual reflection of that state.  As with all of our rituals, of course, this exchange of peace has just as much integrity as we allow it.  As the first act of the drama closes, and we prepare for Holy Communion, the exchange of the peace is a good time to ask ourselves:  Am I in the peace of God?  Am I spiritually ready for the risky business of receiving the living God into myself at communion? 

MNAJr.+

© The Rev. Michael N. Ambler, Jr.