Graham Hughes’ narrative model of liturgy is a helpful backdrop to this discussion. In his book Worship as Meaning he describes the liturgy as the telling of a story that takes
participants into the presence of God, keeps them there, and then leads them safely out and
62 Senn in his book Christian Liturgy - Catholic & Evangelical (1997) never references the building in
which the liturgy occurs as such – but he nevertheless never treats the issues which liturgy would encounter on disputed territory. Keifert, in his section on “sources for worship planning” (1992, p. 143), assumes that the liturgant is in place to make all the executive decisions about what will happen.
63 In 2001 the national census put the number of Methodists in Cape Town at 303,785, of which
161,165 were black – which means that 16 years ago 53% of the members/affiliates belonged to the lowest earning sector of Cape Town society (Stats SA, 2017). It should be remembered that the statistics kept by the church are in disarray, as noted earlier, but if the trends reported earlier have been holding true then that percentage will by now be much higher, despite the 77% apparent decline in numbers overall.
64 As so poignantly illustrated by Vincent Donovan in his description of mission to the Masai, where he
convened conversation groups under different trees in different regions of his parish in Loliondo in Tanzania (Donovan, 1978).
65 Random experiences have been: a passing bus literally rocking on its springs as people sang a
hymn; a full-blown service of worship on another bus, complete with hymns, prayers and sermon; un- self-conscious singing of a hymn at full volume by a teenager whilst walking alone between buildings with a pleasant acoustic; fervent prayer being offered to God at the slightest invitation…
66 On 2017-02-26 the entire 11.00 a.m. Shona-language service at Church Street Methodist, relocated
to Mfuleni to do an outdoor service, along with drums and Methodist regalia; this despite the unstable xenophobic situation obtaining at the time in the informal settlements of Cape Town. Their plan is to do outdoor worship services wherever there are significant populations of Shona people living in Cape Town.
back into our everyday world. (2003, pp. 148-183). This “boundary crossing” narrative is enacted in four rites – a convocationary rite, the service of the Word, the rite of the Eucharist, and a dismissal rite (2003, pp. 168-169).
Senn articulates a more standard definition of Liturgy: “Liturgy (leitourgia) is the public work performed by a particular community under the leadership of its liturgists (leitourgoi) to enact its view of reality and its commitments.” (1997, p. xiv). I find it particularly important that he focuses on this idea of “enacting its view of reality and commitments”. He expresses this equally forcibly a few pages later: “The liturgy is the activity in which the life and mission of the church are paradigmatically and centrally expressed” (1997, p. 4). He asserts that this liturgy plays itself out between God and the Christian community.
“Liturgy is what Christians have performed in their public
assemblies…. liturgy is not only prayer but ritual. Ritual has to do not only with what a community does before God but also with what the members of a community do in interaction with one another. It is a pattern of behaviour that expresses and forms a way of life consistent with the community’s beliefs and values.” (1997, p. 3)
The root meaning of liturgy (λειτουργια) is “the work of the people” (Jonker, 1962, p. 25). Mostly it seems to have come to mean “the sacred work in which the laity are permitted to participate under the guidance and control of the liturgant”, with strict control of who says what, when; and a strict demarcation of roles for liturgant and laity in a sort of dance of
responsibilities, a usage which apparently developed very early in the life of the early church. Jonker traces this back to the Didache 15:1 and The Letter to Clement 44:2 (1962, p. 27; cf. van der Watt & Tolmie, 2005, pp. 772,713)67.
For the sake of this study I want to revisit the “work of the people” idea. If Bosch is correct when he envisages a postmodern shift to mission becoming a shared work of the “whole people of God” (1991, pp. 467-473), and if Senn is correct when he defines liturgy as enacting the core values and processes of the church (1997, pp. xiv,3), then it seems reasonable to assume that every duty or activity expected of the laity could legitimately be read as liturgical, and any activity (such evangelism) that notionally involved both Christians and God in terms of expressing some “core value and process” of the Church, would
constitute “liturgy”. Claver, in his activist’s introduction to Karl Rahner’s concept of the
“Liturgy of the World” argues that “What God is doing in the world – that is the liturgy Rahner speaks of and we his people must respond to it in a similar liturgy. Christian liturgy must
67 Bria, writing from an Orthodox standpoint, has an even narrower definition of liturgy: “In the ancient
vocabulary of Christian worship it refers specifically to the celebration of the Eucharist, under the ministry of a consecrated priest, on Sunday, the day of the Lord” (1996, p. 1).
partake of that Liturgy of the World, must in fact be acting out of that same Liturgy68” (2003,
p. 148). Bria, from a Greek Orthodox viewpoint, sees evangelism as part of its “liturgy after the liturgy”, although by that he seems to indicate something that is not quite “proper” liturgy – a second tier liturgy, perhaps (Bria, 1996). It seems that on the face of things there is no
prima facie case for limiting liturgy to the confines of the church building or space under the
control of Christians. And yet liturgical theorists seem to live with a de facto disjuncture between what happens in church and what happens in the world. Marva Dawn is typical of this: “…our worship”, she says, “must be such that it nurtures the kind of welcoming
character that will reach out to the unsaved with the gospel” (1995, p. 126) – the liturgy reaches out, apparently, whilst staying at home. This begs the question as to exactly what in the liturgy (as it stands) encapsulates and promotes this welcoming character towards the “unsaved”? And further, in what ways does it encapsulate and promote the intentional persuasion of people outside the circle of Christian firelight to consider converting to the Christian faith?
Neither does there appear to be any case for limiting the role of the clergy-liturgant to a role limited to space controlled by Christians. A theorist like Ian Stackhouse, in an exposition of the gifts of the Spirit in Ephesians 4, apparently sees no irony in somebody gifted as an evangelist being completely absorbed in preaching to Christians, equipping them in the content and implications of the Gospel message (2004, p. 261).69 – the question arises as to
what this continuously equipped laity is supposed to do with the emerging capacity for evangelism? As modelled by the evangelist, would they not tend to expend their energy on Christians? Or is the teacher somehow absolved from the usual expectation of having to practice what s/he preaches in this instance? For the purposes of this study I am going to assume that the leaders of the Christian community do indeed have a direct personal responsibility for direct personal contact with those who are of an alternative faith in order to persuade them to consider the person and claims of Christ. Otherwise they would be
avoiding Christian duty that they enjoin on others, which most people would legitimately struggle to accept. I will also assume that the capacity for liturgical action is not mystically shorn from liturgants as they leave the sanctuary of the church building.
For my purposes Outler expands the concept of liturgy in a helpful direction when he refers to “…our spirit’s hidden hunger for the sacramental hallowing of all levels and orders of
68 Rahner’s definition of liturgy seems to be a reduction – liturgy is what God does, and he can do it
either in the church or in the world. On this view Christians (and presumably also the alternatively faithed) are reduced to passive spectators. I would argue that if God is acting completely
independently of human participants (which he may), then it is not helpful to talk of liturgy. Liturgy happens when people are swept up in a relational interaction with God through symbol and ritual – until that happens no liturgy can be said to have occurred.
Christian living” (1971, p. 51)70. Does he mean that Christianity by its very nature turns
converts into makers of liturgy? Or does he imply that what we do on Sundays is insufficient meet our craving for a life that is liturgically meaningful? Or does he mean that all humanity secretly craves meaningfulness ritually woven into the fabric of life? Whatever the case, what seems clear is that liturgy-making is a satisfying human activity that ordinary people want to be part of, because of an innate need for ritual. “All rituals promote psychological and social integration”, maintained Benjamin Ray, arguing from a “Durkheimian” point of view (1976, p. 78). The flip side of that is that all “psychological and social integration” requires some form of ritual, an approach taken by Stromberg where he interprets
conversion stories as integrative ritual (1993, pp. xi-xiii). And that in turn would mean that liturgical performance is not repugnant to contemporary humanity per se71. Contemporary
people might reject ancient rituals, but they might also then require contemporary ones72. Or
perhaps the recovery of ancient rituals might make more sense in a post-modern than in a modern milieu. This pleads for further research.