way out west

Seder/Passover

Our Passover liturgy from a couple of years ago - http://markjberry.blogs.com/.m/passover_meal.pdf

And a picture showing the Kataluma - the upper or guest room. Incidentally according to Paula Gooder (who I'm listening to as I post) this "Kataluma" is the word which has been mis-translated into "inn" in the Nativity story, note it is the pace of hospitality, where guests would stay and which was full at the time of Jesus birth so he was born underneath it in the animals space. Yet when the time came for the Pesach, his last Passover feast there was room. It was not a room as such but an open roof top with a cover made from palm leaves. I can imagine therefore the lights, noise and prayers from Katluma all over the city merging into one... Perhaps the "last supper" was a far more public event than we imagine... Maybe when Jesus strayed from the Seder ritual suddenly this one party was out of sink with those around?

Climbing the Glyders in the Snow

Glyders7
Originally uploaded by Mark Berry

Liturgy after the Liturgy... some words for tonights "table"

This is part of our worship tonight - along with using our labyrinth and St Patrick's Breastplate.

Liturgy (The Eucharist) is always the entrance into the presence of the triune God and always ends with the community being sent forth in God's name to transform the world in God's image... Mission is concieved, in other words, as the "the liturgy after the liturgy," the natural consequence of entering into the divine presence in worship. - Bevans and Schoeder “Constants in Context”

The liturgy after the liturgy.
There is no breathing out without breathing in,
There is no flow without ebb,
There is no outpouring without drinking deep of life.

We cannot be love for the community without being drawn deeper ourselves into God,
We cannot bring change to the world without our lives being realigned,
We cannot forgive each other without knowing the freedom of forgiveness ourselves.

We ache for the loneliness of the world and are known by a God who is family,
We cry for a world trapped in greed and are loved by a God who gave up everything,
We fight against a world with little justice and are embraced by a God of mercy.

Forgive us Lord for not taking the time to know you more,
Forgive us Lord for not taking the time to know each other more,
Forgive us Lord for not taking the time to know your world more.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
O Lord, hear my voice.  Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are worshiped.
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

You welcome us back with simple open arms, forgiven, restored ready to begin work again
You stand naked, mocked and bleeding with the love of a proud parent on your face,
You move in and amongst us with un-ignorable force, yet tenderly,

This moment is a not the end of the road, it is the beginning of a new stage of the journey,
A party is being prepared to send us back into the world in joy, let’s eat and drink!

Sharing the Bread and the Wine

For God so loved the world - may we naturally follow suit,
That he gave his only son - may we learn the wonder of sacrifice,
That all who believe - may our love for one another be the crucial evidence,
May not perish - may we work to halt the collapse of lives, of communities and of creation,
But have eternal life - may we point to the hope you bring now and for the future.

It is time to walk on, this time we walk together, with each other and with God.
We are one body because we share in one bread and drink from one cup.

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Who is your Priest?

That man who called the community together and held it together; he would not be the one who knew the most theology, the theologian.  He would not be the preacher or the evangelist of the community.  He would not be the prophet.  He would not be the most important member in the community, in the sense of being the one who was to make the most important contributions, of which the community might someday be capable.
But he would be the focal point of the whole community, the one who would enable the community to act, whether in worship or in service.  He would be the animator of the individual members of the community, enabling them to make their various contributions, enabling the preacher to preach and the teacher to teach and the prayer to pray and the prophet to prophesy.  He would be the necessary sign of the power that is in all of them.  He would be the sign of unity that exists among them.  He would be their link with the outside, the sign of their union with the outside, the universal church.  He would be their priest.

Vincent Donovan - Christianity Rediscovered

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The Liturgy after the Liturgy

For a while we've been talking about the two-fold vitality of the communion meal for us (when we use the word vital, we mean both senses i.e. essential  and life-giving)  - vital in drawing and binding us a communion/community before and with God/each other (a process in which we are adopted into a God who is community) and vital in drawing and binding us into mission (a process in which we are adopted into a God who is incarnate and dynamic).  This is something which has arisen for us from our experience as a community rather than some applied theos-knowledge... it is not a strategy we have adopted but a reality we have experienced.  These experiences have moved me to fall in love with the Trinity in a new way, a way which now shapes my glimpses of God and my instinct for Church... the mutuality and the mystery, the love and the living, the forgiveness and the fruitfulness, the compassion and the connections... (this is one of the things I loved about "the Shack", the way God is most glimpse-able in relationship, the way the focus of each person of God wants to direct the eye to the wonder of the other persons etc. and what makes me uncomfortable when we sing things like "It's all about you Jesus")  The communion draws our eye to God incarnate and sacramental, to a sent God and a sacrificial God (was it any harder for the Son to be separated from the Parent than it was for the Parent to be separated from the Son?) A God who creates in community, who redeems in community and who sustains in community - source, word and breath...  I guess then that it is no surprise that I find myself deepest in God when I am in community, when I find myself loving others, forgiving others, seeing God in others, giving myself in surrender to others and significantly (and I guess mystically) breaking bread with others [we are one body because we all share in one bread].  Recently reading Bevans and Schroeder's "Constants in Context" I encountered the Orthodox idea of "The Liturgy after the Liturgy".  Most of us no doubt are familiar with the definition of "Liturgy" as "the works of the people", Bevans and Schroeder reference Orthodox Theologians Stamoolis and Ion Bria when they say,

Liturgy (The Eucharist) is always the entrance into the presence of the triune God and always ends with the community being sent forth in God's name to transform the world in God's image... Mission is concieved, in other words, as the "the liturgy after the liturgy," the natural consequence of entering into the divine presence in worship.

Bria (http://www.rondtb.msk.ru/info/en/Bria_en.htm) writes of "the Liturgy after the liturgy" as having four aspects,

1. An ongoing re-affirming of the true Christian identity, fulness and integrity which have to be constantly renewed by the eucharistic communion.

2. To enlarge the space for witness by creating a new Christian milieu, each in his own environment: family, society, office, factory, etc., is not a simple matter of converting the non-Christians in the vicinity of the parishes, but also a concern for finding room where the Christians live and work and where they can publicly exercise their witness and worship.

3. The liturgical life has to nourish the Christian life not only in its private sphere, but also in its public and political realm.  Therefore, the installation in history of a visible Christian fellowship which overcomes human barriers against justice, freedom and unity is a part of that liturgy after the Liturgy.

4. Liturgy means public and collective action and therefore there is a sense in which the Christian is a creator of community; this particular charisma has crucial importance today with the increasing lack of human fellowship in the society. The Christian has to be a continual builder of a true koinonia of love and peace even if he is politically marginal and lives in a hostile surrounding.

I am beginning to think that what these Orthodox Theologians are saying is what we have and are experiencing when we have found ourselves shaping our ecclesiology around the hospitality of the Trinity made manifest in the Communion/Eucharist.  Ian Mobsby introduced me to the phrase "Missio Trinitatis" yesterday.  We have been talking for some years about "Missio Dei" - the idea that Mission is an "attribute of God not an activity of the Church" i.e. God has a/is mission in which we are privileged to participate - but if we then say that if the nature of God is Mission and Community *AND* as Andrew Kirk says that that identity of Church is itself defined by it's participation in God's Mission ("If the Church ceases to be missionary it has not just failed one of it's tasks; it has ceased to being church"!) then how can we not see both our ecclesiology and our missiology as being rooted in community?  We can therefore say that Missio Dei *IS* Missio Trinitatis... God's mission is born and lives in community.  Or as Bevans and Schroeder say of Kirk,

[He] explains that God's mission is based on the very nature of God as such - a community of love and mutuality that overflows into the world in a presence that calls humanity to equality, mercy, mutuality, compassion and justice.

They continue,

The image of the church that resonates most closely with its trinitarian foundation would most likely be that of the people of God.  The church community, participating in God's life, is God's special people, a people living God's life of communion in a covenant of relation and love, a people convinced of it's fundamental equality through it's common baptism in the name of the triune God.  But as communion-in-mission, this image takes on a dynamic meaning as God's people on pilgrimage, God's people chosen not for themselves but for God's purposes, God;s people respectful of the Spirit's workings outside their own boundaries but committed to sharing the full implications of God's covenant with all humanity.

... the sacrament/liturgy of communion, we have found, draws us deeper in to community with each other, in to the God community, and in to community with/for all creation.  I can't help but smile when someone puts into words what we have found through our imperfect practise!

..............................

[update] I found this document from the Reformed Eccumenical Council which says...

A significant shift in theology is the new emphasis on a consistent “trinitarianism” – some even call it a “trinitarian renaissance”: All theological reflection should flow from this basic doctrine on the very being of God. As three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – from all eternity, in his own being, God is relational. This has very important practical implications for our life before God, with one another and in the world. It has implications for the understanding of our participation in the mission of the triune God. To specifically and consistently understand Missio Dei as Missio Trinitatis Dei is to point to the nature of the very life of the triune God, life that is characterized by ecstasies, self-communication, mutuality, relationship, unity and love. The God whose mission is at stake is a God of love and of communion. Mission is the invitation to churches to enter into koinonia with the triune God, constantly inviting others to join and to share in this communion (koinonia). Paramount in the understanding of church and mission is thus the notion of relationality, mutuality, ever sharing in the koinonia with the triune God who once promised “I will be with you always,” and thus sharing a continued koinonia with one another (Venter 2004:5).

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