Table Manners

Simon Reynolds

Description

There is a growing (if not urgent) need for those being trained for ordained (and lay) ministry to be provided with a more solid grounding in liturgical principles, and Simon Reynolds seeks to address this by demonstrating how good liturgical leadership can be the foundation from which all other theological, historical, pastoral and missiological issues arise.

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 10 février 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9780334052050
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table Manners
For
Meurig Llwyd Williams
Table Manners
Liturgical Leadership for the Mission of the Church
Simon Reynolds
© Simon Reynolds 2014

Published in 2014 by SCM Press
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The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this Work.

Prayers from Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England (2000), Common Worship Daily Prayer (2005) and Common Worship: Times and Seasons (2006) are copyright © The Archbishops’ Council and are reproduced by permission.

Extracts from The Alternative Service Book 1980 are copyright the Archbishops’ Council and are reproduced by permission.

Extracts from The Book of Common Prayer, the rights in which are vested in the Crown, are reproduced by permission of the Crown’s Patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Illustrations by Gary Collins, absence-Presence.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

978 0 334 04528 1

Typeset by Manila Typesetting Company
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Enchantment or Entertainment? The Challenge and Potential of the Contemporary Liturgical Culture
2 Temple or Home, Table or Altar, Supper or Sacrifice? Tradition in Transition
3 Speech and Silence: The Possibilities and Limits of ­Language
4 Hearts and Hands and Voices: When Words are Never Enough
5 Poetic Space: Inhabiting the Liturgical Environment
6 Practising the Scales of Rejoicing: Shaping a ­Liturgical and Presidential Instinct
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
Without the critical encouragement of many people, this book would never have seen the light of day. Natalie Watson of SCM Press first invited me to put some initial ideas down on paper and has not only been untiring in her support throughout the subsequent writing, but infinitely patient when agreed deadlines slipped as I moved to a new parish. Bridget Nichols has long been a source of good sense and sound judgement on all things liturgical (and much more besides). I am grateful for her perceptive and sympathetic insights along the way. I only felt able to begin writing in the first place because of the generous support and encouragement of my former bishop, Stephen Platten, who exemplifies all that is best in the Anglican scholar–pastor. This is no less true of two other bishops, Stephen Oliver and Geoffrey Rowell, who generously gave their time to read the first draft of the typescript and make crucial observations.
My own formation as a priest (and liturgical president) would have been much less than it is without the companionship of Alex Hughes, Matthew Jones, Peter Waddell and Justin White, who have been delightful fellow pilgrims on the journey we began together at Westcott House, Cambridge. I am grateful, too, for the pattern and example of Alan White as I prepared for my ordination to the priesthood – and in the years beyond. Several friends, colleagues and former teachers have generously offered their insights and observations at different stages of the writing, in particular Matthew Bullimore, Julie Gittoes, Janet Henderson, Geraint Lewis, Claire Robson and Angela Tilby. Colleagues from the ­Diocese of Wakefield offered invaluable feedback at our triennial clergy conference in 2012; as did the clergy of the Diocese of Leicester at their 2013 clergy conference.
Malcolm Archer, Stephen Cleobury, Simon Lindley, John Scott, Huw Williams, Mark Williams and Tom Winpenny deserve much more than passing mention for the many ways in which their musical vision and creativity has enriched the ­liturgy – for me and for countless others – in places where I have been privileged to lead worship.
Much of the writing of this book had to be fitted around the demands and delights of parish life. I am grateful to Jean Daykin for shouldering additional burdens in the parishes of Cawthorne and Darton, which enabled me to create space for writing in the early stages. Stella Butler and her colleagues in the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds provided me with access to sources, as well as the space to think, read and write away from the usual distractions of a priest’s study.
It will be obvious that the ideas of many others have significantly influenced the shape and argument of this book. I am only too glad to acknowledge them in the text, the biblio­ graphy and footnotes. Any consequent deficiencies are entirely my responsibility.

Simon Reynolds
Farnham
Feast of Gregory the Great
3 September 2013
Introduction
Week after week I was moved by the pitiableness of the bare linoleum-floored sacristy which no flowers could cheer or soften, by the terrible singing I so loved, by the fatigued Bible readings, the lagging emptiness and dilution of the liturgy, the horrifying vacuity of the sermon, and by the fog of dreary senselessness pervading the whole, which existed alongside, and probably caused, the wonder of the fact that we came; we returned; we showed up; week after week, we went through it. (Dillard, 1982, p. 29)
Is there a liturgical crisis in the Church of England? (Williams, in Papadopulos, 2011, p. 1)
In Great Britain, less than 10 per cent of the population attends a Christian place of worship once a week; and just under two per cent of the population attend worship in an Anglican Church. What is it that attracts people to Christian worship in a predominantly secular, multi-cultural society? What do they experience in church – and what expect­ations do they bring with them? What is it about their worshipping experience which encourages them to return? Is there an encounter with the holy, and is the worshipping environment having a transformative impact? Do worshippers emerge from liturgical celebration into the market place of competing values feeling delighted and inspired or bored and despairing? Did the person who presided at worship convey a sense of the immediacy and reality of God through the use of voice and gestures and by appropriate use of language, space, music and symbols?
I believe these are timely questions for many Christian churches and for the Church of England in particular. The past decade has witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of new liturgical texts, which is the culmination of over 50 years of continuous liturgical revision in our Church. The scope of our author­ized liturgy is now richer than in any previous period since the publication of the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Yet, there is a growing anxiety about the quality of worship being offered in the Church of England, particularly in what might be characterized as ‘ordinary’ parish churches. Much of this (disquietingly) seems to have become focused on the competence of those who preside at worship – especially in relation to their formation and training before and after ordination.
This anxiety has been expressed with characteristic clarity by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams:
Part of my concern about the situation with liturgy in our Church is not so much with the disappearance of this or that text from education and practice or with the shift in style, but with a fairly pervasive failure to realize that people do need to be educated in liturgical behaviour. By which of course I do not mean what angle to hold your thumbs . . . I mean liturgical behaviour: using your body significantly. A great many people emerge from our training institutions with very little sense of what that might mean, or of how the use of the celebrant’s body enables or disables the whole community’s worship. But no theological student is going to grasp that without some theology to underpin it.
(Williams, in Papadopulos, 2011, p. 12)
Does it Matter?
Traditionally, Anglican identity has been shaped by the way we worship. It has been shaped by the theology which underpins our liturgical rites and by the language and gestures used to articulate this theology. It has also been shaped by the history and culture in which these rites have developed and by the way they are ‘presented’ today. Of course, there have been developments and influences over recent decades which have eroded this traditional understanding of the Anglican character, not least from those whose faith and ecclesial identity is being formed in isolation from our liturgical rites (whether catholic or reformed). Nonetheless, I hope that, by restating this foundational trait, as well as emphasizing the interdependence of our dogmatic stance and the words and actions of our worship, it will become clear that the quality of worship, and the quality of liturgical presidency in particular, matters precisely because liturgy forms the bedrock of Anglican mission.
My own repeated experience is that presiding at the liturgy is the most demanding, privileged and exhausting thing I do. It is the overarching action which enables me to embody the vocation I have embraced as a priest. It reinforces everything else I am called to do as p