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Servanthood—planning liturgy is about serving the assembly, which in gathering to worship serves Christ, and, in dispersing from worship, goes out to serve the world. On my best days perhaps my planning and preparation for liturgy will have more to do with what best serves the community than with my ego, my own preferences, my good or bad mood. Self-offering—planning liturgy is about freely offering the gifts one has, not so those gifts may be manifest, but so that through them God's love and saving action in Christ will be manifest. This asks for a genuine self-emptying. As does preparing a liturgy and then freely giving it over to God and to those whose ministry is to bring it into being—the assembly and its leaders for the day. My hope is that the liturgy I plan will be so naturally lived and effortlessly done that there is no thought at all as to who may have planned it. Those three qualities guide my planning; the plans themselves are shaped by the shape of the eucharistic liturgy itself; the symbols that reveal the meanings of our actions; and the tradition within which I work (the Anglican tradition and the Episcopal Church's practice within that). The Shape—the Eucharist has a given shape, a pattern of practice handed down: the taking of bread, blessing, breaking, and giving of it; the proclamation of the Word illuminating the action of the bread and wine; the sharing of the bread and wine enacting the Word proclaimed. This basic structure doesn't need to be re-invented, although it can be authentically celebrated in many ways and many styles. The Symbols—the bread, the wine, the baptismal font, the water, the oil, the Gospel book, the cross, the ambo, the table. These need to be strong, visible signs of God's action and presence, chosen to be worthy of and genuinely consonant with what they represent. They should have the dignity and sturdiness of "primary things," separated out from the secondary and less necessary aspects of doing liturgy. Clarification, I think, is really important. Through the clarity of the primary symbols, the mystery is made manifest. The Tradition—the liturgy doesn't spring anew from the side of the liturgist, but has its origin in communal tradition. The liturgies I plan have their origin in the tradition of the Episcopal Church, as it is practiced in "this place and time." This place: the diocese of Olympia, the community of Saint Mark's, the city of Seattle, the Pacific Northwest (which is its own kind of culture). This time: where we are in the liturgical year, what aspect of the Paschal mystery is being called to our attention now, what is being opened and its meaning teased out, how we will move into the next season, what's going on at this time in our lives locally and in the world. The tradition in conversation with contemporary concerns, cultures and practices. Planning a liturgy means considering many other aspects as well. What is this worship space, its size and style, its gifts and drawbacks? What is this occasion? Is it a Sunday? When, and what Sunday? Is it a special one-time occasion? Who is this assembly? Is it the ordinary Sunday assembly or a one-time-only assembly? Are the members of this assembly used to worshipping together or are they strangers to one another? Are they a fairly homogeneous group or will there be great diversity? Will the space in which we gather be familiar to the assembly or new? |
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