Just as sacramental preaching involves more than mentioning the sacraments by name or saying "Word and Sacraments" often in a sermon, so being liturgical is more than simply following a certain liturgy or 'doing the liturgy' in a certain way.

Liturgy consists of three things: rite, rubric and ceremony. The rite is the text of the particular liturgical form, the rubric are its directions, and the ceremony are any actions or accoutrements necessary for that liturgy. So, for example, a Baptism includes the rite of Holy Baptism (the exorcisms, blessings, prayers, readings, renunciations, confessions, etc.); the rubrics which direct where the baptismal party gathers, when they should speak, how they should proceed to the font; and the ceremonies of making the sign of the cross, anointing, walking from the doors to the font, wearing a cope, giving a candle, pouring water, etc.

Being liturgical begins with paying attention to these three items--rite, rubric and ceremony--but also carrying them out in a reverential and pastoral way so as not to detract from what God says and does in the liturgy. In our example on baptism, the Pastor not only practices the rite (text) and is familiar with the rubrics (directions), but also thinks through the ceremony to adapt it to the space or context in which he administers the Sacrament. But more than that, he also then conducts himself in such a way so that everyone is drawn away from his person to the baptism itself. Like the rite, rubric and ceremony, the liturgical Pastor wishes to do nothing but be the setting in which the jewel of Holy Baptism is exalted.

So being liturgical concerns liturgical decorum. It submerses self in favor of God and His saving activity. The liturgical pastor wishes to emulate Saint John the Baptizer—a voice, not the Word; one who in his preaching and liturgical action decreases so that Christ and His Gospel might increase.

There is a danger, however, in 'being liturgical'. If the focus is off, it can quickly degenerate into a study of textiles, dress-making, ecclesiastical aesthetics or what I call "pretty pretty church." 'Being liturgical' can become nothing more than a 'style of worship'--showmanship not unlike that of Robert Schuler or Jimmy Swaggert in different hands.

That is why I have more and more eschew the term 'liturgical' in favor of 'sacramental'. Often times I say, "Zion is not 'high church' or a 'liturgical church',but a sacramental church--a church where the Gospel in preaching and the sacraments both is and shapes our piety."

When the Pastor realizes that the saving activity that he has been divinely mandated to carry out takes place in the liturgy, when he sees and confesses that his churchly duty is not performance or act or role but vocation within the heavenly liturgy on earth, and when he understands that the 'liturgy' is ultimately God in man ministering to man in misery (hence, 'miserable'), then this will shape not only the rite, rubric and ceremony but also the man and those to whom he has been given to administer those sacramental gifts. And then he is truly liturgical--not because of his attitude or pious acting, but because he now understands where it is that he truly "represents not his own person but the person of Christ through the call of the church."

© Copyright Rev. Fr. John W. Fenton 1999

Zion Evangelical-Lutheran Church

4305 N Military

Detroit MI 48210-2451

1/30/99

Voice: (313) 894.7450

FAX: (313) 894.7871

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