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Bishops’ Teaching DayMarking Time –

how we gather in worship and in prayer

‘Starter for 10’!

• In small groups:

A visitor arrives from Mars:

• How would you define prayer?

• How would you define worship?

What does it mean to be Anglican?

“The glory of God is a human being fully alive”(St Irenaeus, early 2nd century – 202)

The whole of our life says ‘Our Father’

• Origen (died c. 254)

• Gregory of Nyssa (c. 100 years after Origen)

• John Cassian (5th century)

Prayer…

• Is God’s work in us;

• Is a deep connection with living justly in the world;

• Is about faithfulness.

• The whole of our lives say ‘Our Father’; what do we need to change or work on to make that more of a reality?

• What are the important relationships in the life of this worshipping community? How might prayer help deepen those relationships or even heal them, where necessary?

• How can praying the Jesus Prayer, or the petition ‘O God, make speed to save me’ make a difference?

It’s big!

What do we think we are doing when we worship and what do people make of it who aren’t in the church?

• "worship is the response of the people of God to the presence of God"(A New Zealand Prayer Book - He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, page xiv)

• "Worship is the highest activity of the human spirit."(A New Zealand Prayer Book - He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, page xv)

Worship, liturgy and ‘place’

Group discussion

• What do you experience to be ‘good liturgy’?

• Can you think of a time you have felt transformed by worship?

• Can you think of a time you have felt uncomfortable in worship?

• Can you think of a worship experience that has left you feeling uninspired?

• How can worship connect with everyday life?

‘Marking Time’• Christ died once and for all for our salvation, on a

particular date in human history;

• Every day is both Good Friday and Easter Day;

• Over time, an annual cycle of commemoration was laid over the rhythm of the week;

• The liturgical year thus provides a structure for the Church’s collective memory, a way of ‘consecrating our human experience of time and celebration of God’s work – a work which is both unrepeatedly in time and incomprehensibly beyond time’ (From ‘Times and Seasons’, CofE);

Acts 2:1-4

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

‘Marking Time’

• Asserts a Christian understanding of time as a context of God’s grace, against the world’s ‘functional’ reckoning of time;

• This act of Christian remembering has proved, over time, to have great depth;

• Through the marking of God’s story, the past is able to come into our present, in a process of anamnesis (‘remembrance’, but much more than simply calling to mind);

‘Marking Time’

• This powerfully creative remembering has deep roots in Jewish tradition, and especially the Passover meal;

• The shared preparation and consumption of this meal is a memorial action (zikkaron; Exodus 12:14 & 13:9), through which God’s redemptive power in the past act of the Exodus can be freshly experienced in the present.

‘Marking Time’

‘Marking Time’

• The rhythm of the Church’s times and seasons affects those who take part in them;

• It is one of the primary ways in which Christians learn, and are strengthened in their grasp of, the story of Jesus Christ…

• Just as Jesus himself was familiar with the Jewish festivals, and the way in which the annual remembrance of the Passover shaped Jewish identity;

‘Marking Time’

• One of the essential features of this educative remembering is that we imagine ourselves, in our act of worship, to experience events in the past as present reality or future hope;

• We speak naturally at Advent of looking forward to the birth of Jesus, and we experience the joy of his birth in our present, though we know that it is an event in the past.

‘Marking Time’

• We do what we do because we have always done it! Meaning what?

• A living tradition…

• Sign of the Cross:

– "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Matt 28:19; cf. John 14:13-14; Acts 2:21)

• Liturgical Greeting:

– "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all." (2 Cor 13:14)

– "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil 1:2; Eph 1:2)

– "The Lord be with you." (2 Tim 4:22; cf. Matt 1:23; 28:20)

• People's Response:

– "And with your spirit" (cf. Gal 6:18; 2 Tim 4:22)

• Israelites in Egypt celebrate the first Passover (Exod 12:1-28)• Israelites annually share Passover meals (Exod 12:43-51; Lev 23:4-14; Num 9:1-14;

28:16-25; Deut 16:1-8)• Israelites annually celebrate the feast of Unleavened Bread (Exod 12:14-20; 13:3-

10; 23:14-15; 34:18; etc.)• Prophet Elisha feeds 100 men with very little food (2 Kings 4:42-44)• Jesus feeds 5000 people in Galilee (Mark 6:30-44; Matt 14:13-21; Luke 9:10-

17; John 6:1-14)• Jesus feeds another crowd of 4000 people (Mark 8:1-10; Matt 15:32-39)• Jesus tells many parables involving meals and banquets (Matt 22:1-14; 25:1-13;

Luke 12:35-40; 14:15-24; etc.)• Jesus has many meals with disciples and others (Mark 2:15-20; 14:3-9; Luke 14:1-

14; etc.)• Jesus shares his Last Supper with his disciples (Mark 14:12-27; Matt 26:17-

30; Luke 22:7-39; cf. 1 Cor 11:23-25)• The Risen Jesus shares a meal with two disciples at Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35)• The Risen Jesus has breakfast with disciples at the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1-14)• Early Christians in Jerusalem share in the "Breaking of the Bread" (Acts 2:42-47)• Early Christians in Troas "break bread" with Paul (Acts 20:5-11)• Early Christians in Corinth celebrate the "Lord's Supper" (1 Cor 10:16-17; 11:17-

34; cf. Rev 19:9)

If only…?

‘And Jesus went up onto a hill and taught them saying, ‘When you go to church make sure that the service starts between 10 and 11 o’clock in the morning and ends after no more than an hour (preferably with coffee or other refreshments). And when you worship, always start with a formal greeting before the first hymn. After the hymn, kneel down and confess your sins to God, using these or other authorised forms of words…’

We do have…

• The Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11.2; Matthew 6.9) but note the two versions are not identical, and each version is a translation into Greek from the Aramaic (a form of Hebrew) in which Jesus presumably taught the prayer.

‘Do this to remember me’

The Eucharist is Scripture performed –we see, touch, taste, experience the joy and drama of Christ’s last meal with his friends…So…(a word about the use of PowerPoint!)

Jesus’ direct teaching about worship…

‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain [Gerazim] nor in Jerusalem…the hour is coming, and now is here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:21-24)

In this passage:

• Jesus seems to want to lift the woman’s sights beyond the arguments of where and how is the correct way to worship, to something bigger;

• ‘You can’t put God in a box’!• Note that in John’s Gospel, the Spirit is often

unpredictable;• It speaks also of doing what we do with integrity.

The ways in which we worship (from denomination to denomination, for example) may differ, but the God who is worshipped will remain the same;

Our worship

• Should engage with things that matter in our daily lives;

• Hospitality;• Listening to God;• Sharing the good news;• Serving our neighbour;• It is engagement with the living God and has the

power to be formative and transformative, encountering the depth of the mystery of God which is at the very heart of our Eucharistic life.

Group discussion

• What does liturgy look like in your context?

• How do you shape the liturgy to fit, and how do you enable the structure of the liturgy (shared by all) to shape and transform the places where you minister?

• Is there anything distinctive about how you ‘mark time’ in your context?

Prayerfully waiting on God

• To be concerned about…

• To look after…

• To do something about…

‘Morning Prayer’

Bless, O God, my little cow,Bless, O God, my desire;

Bless Thou my partnershipAnd the milking of my

hands, O God.

How do we find our place in time?

• We’ve been here before;

• Key stages in our lives, such as birth, coming of age, changing jobs or finding work, setting up home, forming relationships, giving birth, moving home, retirement, and so on;

• Anniversaries important too;

• What happens ‘in-between’?

The year

AdventChristmasLentEasterPentecostTrinity…

For group discussion

• At what part of the day do you find it easiest (and hardest) to pray?

• What are your favourite and least favourite days or seasons of the liturgical year, and why?

• What are your personal or family anniversaries? Do you have ways of making them part of your prayer and thanksgiving?

• Reflect on your current observation of the liturgical year in your contexts. What works? What doesn’t work, and why?

Other liturgical observations?

The home blessing can be done as follows: Use the blessed chalk to write: 20+C+M+B+XX above the doorways: 20XX for the year; C, M, B for the 3 Magi – Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar – and for Christus Mansionem Benedicat, Latin for “May Christ Bless this House.” As you are writing, pray the following prayer: Lord God of heaven and earth, you revealed your only-begotten Sonto every nation by the guidance of a star. Bless this house and all who inhabit it.Fill us with the light of Christ, that our concern for others may reflect your love. We ask this through Christ our Lord.Amen.

Liturgy and the ordering of the imagination

Actions and words

Language and speech The Creed

• As a statement of belief;

• As an act of praise;

• As a personal testimony;

• As a response to the preaching;

• As an expression of belonging.

Language and the mystery beyond

The annals say: when the monks of ClonmacnoiseWere all at prayers inside the oratoryA ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deepIt hooked itself into the altar railsAnd then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the ropeAnd struggled to release it. But in vain.'This man can't bear our life here and will drown,'

The abbot said, 'unless we help him.' SoThey did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed backOut of the marvellous as he had known it.

Seamus Heaney

‘The Bright Field’

Fostering unity

We break this bread to share in the body of Christ

Though we are many, we are one body.

Because we all share in one bread.

The Liturgy of morning tea

What can we do now?

• Morning tea idea…