ii the worship of one church

8/14/2019 II the Worship of One Church

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2 The worship of one church

In this chapter we are going to look at the Christian service of worship in onechurch. This church is my church, St Marys Stoke Newington in London. OnSunday morning I sit at the back of St Marys by the font. In this chapter I tellwhat I see and hear and, as far as I can, I explain what is going on in theservice.

1. Gathering In this PlaceOn Sunday morning the people of St Mary Stoke Newington gather together.They are surprised, sometimes embarrassed but also glad to find themselvesbrought into this company. Some have been members of this congregation foryears, others for only weeks or are even here for the first time. Some areChristians with a lifetimes discipleship, some have been hovering betweenfaith and religiosity for years.

1. ArrivalYou service starts with the first hymn, the Introit. As we sing our first aprocession comes into view at the front of the Church. It is led by a half-dozenpeople dressed in white surplices. It comes down the side aisle, turns at the

bottom of the Church, and goes up the central aisle and to the altar, whereeach of them takes their place. The rector sits on a seat behind the altar. Wedress them in white to remind ourselves that are all a people given radiantnew garments. The first person in this procession carries a large cross. Thesecond and third carry large candles, a fourth carries the bible, then comesthe priest, and we follow them. We are the column that stretches behind them,so the whole congregation is notionally part of this procession. We sing:Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!O my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation!Come ye who hear,

now to his temple draw near;praise him in glad adoration (Neander)

The Christians are people called together in order to make this journeytogether. We form a cavalcade that is on the move. Although at different timesin the service we are sitting or kneeling, we are nevertheless on this journeyright through the service. This community of a hundred people are being ledby these people led by the cross and Word of God. We are singing versionsof the psalms that the people of Israel sang as they journeyed up toJerusalem, the city of God. Our first hymn echoes these songs of the journeyand ascent to the house of God, so they are all about coming into the

presence of God.

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All people that on earth do dwellsing to the Lord with cheerful voicehim serve with fear, his praise forth tellcome ye before him and rejoice

2. WitnessesWe are a people on the way. We have made our way across the borough inorder to be here together in Church. At least a couple of times a year ourservice begins outside the church building. We are led by the same little groupthat we called the procession, dressed in these white garments, and we followthe cross and torches that they bear. In this way on Palm Sunday we followour Lord up to Jerusalem and into the city for the final week of his passion. OnPalm Sunday morning we meet in the middle of the borough, with Christiansfrom other churches, we pray and sing with them and then we walk to StMarys singing the whole way. This year we met on the Kingsland High Roadwith St Pauls West Hackney, and Hackney Baptist Church and processed

back along Church Street the mile to St Marys. We sang:All glory, laud and honourto thee Redeemer KingTo whom the lips of childrenMade sweet hosannas ring

We sang Ride on! Ride on Majesty! and There is a green Hill far away andGive me oil in my lamp, keep it burning We got through the whole lot twice,in rain, in good voice the whole way. From the shops and cafs of ChurchStreet heads popped out to see us. The Church is not stuck inside any churchbuilding, but is audible, visible and public.

3. The glory of GodThe next thing we sing in the Church service is:Glory to God in the highest,and peace to his people on earth.The Gloria has inspired the most complex musical settings, but in our Churchwe all sing it together, to quite a simple tune, and with some gusto. This is oursong, and we dont know any great joy than to sing this. We worship God. Heis Lord, we are not. This is our faith.Lord God, heavenly King,

Almighty God and Father,We worship you, we give you thanks,We praise you for your gloryThe result of giving this glory to God, and not to anyone else, is peace toGod's people on earth, and for this we praise God. We confess that the Godof Jesus Christ is the only God, and that he, and no one else, is most high inthe glory of God the Father. It is an astonishing thing to us that we arebecoming the bearers of the name of God. We bear his name to the world,and we bear the world to God. So we sing that the God of Jesus Christ is theonly God.For thou art holy, Thou only art the Lord,

Thou only O Christ, with the Holy Spirit,art most high in the glory of God the Father

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When we give glory exclusively to God, we can recognise all creatures forwhat they are, the intriguing, marvellous, creatures of God. Worship of God isthe backstop that prevents us from taking too low or too high a view of thosearound us, so that we do not idolise them or demonise them, but give them

the proper regard that they are owed.

4. Rivals for our worshipThe confession that only God is God takes place in the face of all the manyclaimants to divine status. There may be rival gods, alternative authorities anddivinities, but we declare that none of them are what they claim to be, andnone can give us what we want. Other people give themselves away to allsorts of powers and forces, but the Christians just give themselves to the onefrom whom they have received themselves, in order to receive their lives backfrom him, renewed.

In its worship the Christian community says that the Father of Jesus Christ isthe only God. This sounds abrupt, of course. There are other gods (ininverted commas) vying for us. Our contemporaries do not claim that thereare other gods, but the things that they say and do represent claims to power.A claim to power that is never challenged eventually becomes beyondchallenge, and takes on an unlimited authority, which is a claim to divinity.

The world is made up of all the people in it and all the institutions, good andbad, accumulated through our history. Our social structures that are goodwhen they help us to come together, but when they get out of kilter, they canalso push us in the wrong direction. Then they have make it difficult to act welltowards one another, and easy to take more credit and power than belongs tous. When we return all glory to God, it does not linger in the wrong places andcauses harm. When it is not returned to him, it becomes identified with variousnebulous and ambiguous imperatives and authorities that withhold it. Weinherit them from previous generations, and we inflict them on one another,and leave them like bad debts that the generations that come after us willhave to deal with. There are many more-than-human powers and subhumanpowers, and their effect is always to us make less-than-human. The ancientworld called them gods and the Church calls them idols, The Church pointsthat all power and authority come from God, and so it is all limited and must

be referred back to him so that it does not grow out of control.

5. Why worship God?God makes a community that acknowledges him and nothing and no one elseas God. This community identifies him as the provider of all things, and creditshim with this and gives him thanks. It receives all things from him as good forus and so does not seem them as threats that we need to fear. We worshipGod so that we are not become corrupted by worshipping anything else. Godis not dependent on our worship. He is the God who really does not wantanything from us, so in this sense he does not have any agenda. We canrelax and take that it he wants the best for us, because he does not have any

reason of his own for this relationship. For this reason God cannot be warped

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or corrupted by our worship, so we remain safe when we refer all solely tohim.

This service is the Churchs public confession that there is only one God. Heis the one true thing, and the ultimate and only anchor. He cannot be drawn

into our conspiracies, and he refuses our attempts to attach our variousprojects and partisanship to him. We cannot manipulate him. He is his ownmaster, and so utterly and impartial, and he is utterly for us. He is good for usbecause he is able to resist us.

When we worship the Lord only, we cease to defer to these other uncontrolledauthorities. The community that worships Christ is taken out of the orbit ofother lords and gods. We are the highest creatures in God's creation, webear the image of God. We may not give what we have been given away. It isonly confession of God that prevents us from making our own claim to divinityover other people. The Church itself is made a public witness to the world that

this is so. This community is put here by God to stand in the way of all othersclaims and form of partisanship, and to stand against all half-truths that arepromoted into all totalitarian claims. He alone is God and he is God for us,and happy for us to know this. So we sing:Let all the world in ev'ry corner sing,My God and KingThe Church with psalms must shout,No door can keep them out (Herbert)

6. FellowshipThe collection of people that is St Marys church turns up and sings thisworship together. These people are not secondary, but central. They areGod's public act for the world because they are the product and evidence ofGod's love. We confess that We are the body of Christ. In the one Spirit wewere baptised

God has created a distinction between the people of God and the rest of theworld. We have been called out of the world, and gathered together to make anew, distinct and holy people. God selects some from us to be hisworshipping community. This unilateral act of God creates this distinctgathering, which displays the character of God to the world, and to show the

world what Gods hopes for it are. So we sing:Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore him!All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before him.Let the amensound from his people again,gladly for all we adore him (Neander)

The love of God is this specific entity, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, thefellowship of those being made holy by God. We are brought into this entity oflove that is this gathering. The service is not only an event of worship. It isalso Christian ministry and service to the world. This is also a service in the

sense of a work being done and of a public service being provided. Theservice of worship which brings us together is not just the surface or the

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prelude to a more real private process. We are being built into a holy people.We are being assembled and built together, like living stones, into one temple.We are baptised into one body, and this body is for this particular part of thiscity of London, and for anyone else who is ready to hear us.

2 Hearing Witnesses of God

By listening to the word of the Lord in Scripture the people of St Marys maybecome his witnesses and a holy people.

1. The Word of the LordGod is present to the Church as his Word. God is heard by us in the words ofScripture read out in the Church service. The Lord speaks to us, now, live.These words of this particular reading is his Word to us now, in our uniquepresent circumstances.

In the Sunday morning service the bible is carried down from the altar into themiddle of the church. It is held up high so everyone can see it, and as theGospel is read out, we greet it as Christ himself, here with us. We all get toour feet and the deacon says:This is the Word of the Lord We reply: Thanks be to GodThen the Gospel is read and the Lord is heard.

But even before that, we have received the word, for the bible is part of theprocession that enters the Church as the service begins. In that procession,the bible follows the cross, and is accompanied by the two candles (torches),

which are the lights of the Old and the New Testaments. These twotestaments are two witnesses who agree. We visualise them as the twocherubim who wait on the Lord and his people, day and night singing Holy,Holy, Holy. Behind the deacon who carries the book of Scripture comes theminister who is going to open it for us.

When it is time for the gospel to be read, the bible is brought down from thealtar into the middle of the Church, so everyone can see and hear. Thedeacon turns about so that the open bible faces the minister. The ministerswings the censor over it making puffs of incense rise over the pages of thebible. In our idiom, incense is holiness made visible. It tells us that all theholiness of God is concealed in this testimony, and that the glory of God isabout to become audible to us. What will the Lord God say? What glory will berevealed? The Gospel sentence is spoken:Speak, Lord. You have the words of eternal life

2. The words of ChristHear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark.Glory to you, O Lord.When the Scripture is read, we hear the words of Christ, and we are inChrists presence. Because we read from three parts of the bible we hear

from three groups of witnesses. We are reminded of them by the two light-bearers, one for the Old Testament and one for the New. Christ speaks to us.

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We hear the Old Testament, and we reply with a psalm. Then we hear from anepistle, and we reply with a hymn. Then the gospel is carried down from thealtar while we sing Alleluia, and we hear the Gospel. I am the first and thelast, the Alpha and Omega (Revelation 1.17). From the Lord we receiveinstruction, encouragement and warning. Whatever you did for the least of

these brothers of mine, you did for me (Matthew 25.40). At the end of thereading we say:This is the Gospel of the Lord.Praise to you, O Christ.

The bible leads the procession back up to the altar, while the priest makes hisway to the pulpit. Perhaps nothing as deliberate and formal as this is done inyour church. The preacher simply goes to the lectern or to the microphone.But the same elements are there, whether we are aware of them or not. In thedeep memory of the Church all the movements of the gathered congregation,led by the Word and the cross, trace out the path of Christ into the world, and

the path that we take as we follow him.

3. The sermonWhen the Gospel has been read, our priest clambers up into pulpit. Perhapshe says something like May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of ourheart be now and always acceptable. He knows the awesome responsibilityof speaking at this time. The reading of Scripture and the sermon are one andthe same act. The Word of the Lord is opened for us. The scroll is rolled openand what is written there is explained to us. Isaiah says: One of the seraphsflew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair oftongs, the seraph touched my mouth. Ezekiel heard the instruction Mortalman, eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. He gave me thescroll and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.

The purpose of the sermon is to tell us what we have heard in these threereadings. But the reading and hearing of the Word of scripture takes place inthe service of worship, and the purpose of the sermon is to show us this sothat we can more fully participate in this worship. The sermon draws ourattention to the whole action of God for us as it is laid out not only in Scripturebut in all the psalms hymns songs and prayers that make up this service. Thesermon shows us how all these relate to each other and so how the whole

service of Christ and people forms a unity. The sermon is not an interlude inthe worship, but gathers together the Scripture, the worship and service of theChurch to show their unity.

The sermon opens Scripture. The sermon is expansion on the lessons. It linksthe readings together, and links them to previous and future lessons. Thesermon spells out the relationships between the readings, and so indicateswhere the Church presently is and what it must now seek in its prayers.

We not only hear the bible but respond to it by singing and praying. Ourworship, hymns and prayers have accumulated as the response of the Church

to Scripture. So second to the bible, and in support of it, we follow CommonWorship, which is the whole collection of worship services set out by the

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Church of England, along with and our hymn book or worship song collection.These books give us the minimum; they do not stop us doing anything, butthey allow us to amplify and extend our worship.

4. The Word of God leads the Church

The Word of God we hear week by week gives us the Gospel through theyear. St Marys follows the Revised Common Lectionary, which is thelectionary of the Church of England, along with many other churches. It setsout which passages of Scripture are read each week.

The bible is not only one book, but it is also many books, made up of manystatements from many witnesses, a great cloud of witnesses, as the Book ofHebrews (12.1) puts it. The Lord has gathered this company of witnesses sothat they can speak to us, each of them in his or her own voice. It is for oursake that they went through their trials and their experience was written andpassed down to us. That these many voices give us this single testimony is

demonstration of its truth. The bible is a single canon and indivisibletestament of God. So we sing:I bind unto myself the powerthe service of the seraphim;confessors' faith, apostles' word,the patriarchs' prayers, the prophets' scrolls (St Patrick Alexander)

Scripture gives us the testimony of these witnesses of the action of God, so itis the foundational document of the Church. The Lectionary establishes thepassages from Scripture that we are going to read over the course of the year,and indeed of three years. The lectionary ensures that we read the wholebible: it establishes the minimum that we are going to read, but it does notprevent us from reading more or in other ways. This weeks readings followfrom last weeks, so that week by week we are following a trail throughScripture, that takes us through every book of the bible. In this way we are notonly able to celebrate Christmas and Easter at the same time as every otherChristian church, but also Advent, and Epiphany and the Ascension. Thesignificance of each of these festivals becomes clear through their relationshipwith each other. For much of the year Roman Catholic and Protestantchurches are following the same sets of readings. We have very similarlectionaries so we are often the same page, and this is another witness to the

unity of the Church. The Church together is on pilgrimage, his word is alantern to our feet and a light on our path as we follow the course describedfor us by the readings set out through the Church year. Our Lord is at ourhead. God may teach us his ways, and we may walk in his paths. Our greatredeemer leads and we follow, pilgrims in this barren land. So we sing:Lord thy Word abidethAnd our footsteps guidethWho its truth believethLight and joy receiveth (515)

5. Unworthiness and reconciliation

The Lord God knows us. He has spoken to us and has given us his name, sothat we may speak to him. As we call him and come into his presence we

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become aware of our deficiency and need and so come to know who we are.We ask God to have mercy on us. It is always right to confess our need of himand to identify the sin that our neediness has forced us to. We confess thatwe have taken praise that we should have passed on to God and by defaultwe attempted to establish ourselves without God, without care for his

creatures, and so have held out against him. We have to make this statementpublicly, to him and to his creatures. As we come into the assembly of theLord we ask God for his mercy and pray for purity.Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known,and from whom no secrets are hidden:cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy SpiritWe ask whether we may enter his presence and hear his voice. We confessour sins to God and to one another publicly, ask God for his forgiveness, andwe ask one another for forgiveness too. Then we can hope that we mayworthily magnify your holy name.

6. Judgment and self-judgmentWe are released from our burdens. We come in with this huge sense of relief.We can stop and put down our load. We can set down that vast bundle ofobligations that we are unable to fulfil. But strangely, the load has to be takenaway from us. We who are so used to this load of expectations we threatenedby the prospect of its removal and we resist. The masters are taken off thebacks of the poor and so the poor are released. The masters are judged, andwe are identified as amongst these masters.

The Church service is a public place in which all questions are heard andanyone may bring an accusation against anyone else. No one is too powerfulto be challenged, no one too lowly or inexperienced to speak. All that is secretelsewhere is revealed here, so our past will be visible to all. But our past is notthe whole truth of who we are, for we are formed by hearing the voice thatcomes to us out of the future, the voice of God.

The Church service is a public court in session. In it all accusations are heard.In it anyone may speak and bring an accusation against anyone else. No oneis too powerful to be challenged and no one is too lowly or inexperience tomake a charge. All that is secret is revealed. Our past catches up with us. We

have to admit what we have taken, do so in this public act, in which we arehumbled.

Everything here is said to the Christian people: all this Scripture is for theChurch, and only through the Church is it for the world. The Church hears andfails to hear his voice and to pass on the Word of God, will suffer. The Churchis given to the world so that the world can watch the Church hearing thisvoice, or and failing to hear it, and suffering the consequences of hearing ornot hearing it.

7. The name of God

God has spoken to us. He has given his name to mankind. If this is all thathappened in a church service, it would still mean that everything has already

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happened. For God has spoken to man and in Christ, man has heard. Now, inChrist all men may speak and be heard by all men. The grace of God is thepossibility that we may be human together. This is the effect of this name.That is why we sing:I bind unto myself today

the strong Name of the Trinity,by invocation of the same,the Three in One, and One in Three (St Patrick Alexander)

We are heard. We are known. We are judged and forgiven and reconciled.We are recognised and affirmed, and the forgiveness of Christ is announcedto us, here by this little gathering of people. With this forgiveness he hasbrought man to peace, and brought us to peace with one another. This is whywe say:The peace of the Lord be always with youPeace be with you

3 Singing With One AccordChristians sing. They sing simply because they may, in gladness for what theyhave received. As they sing they come out of isolation and into fellowship withGod and with all his creation. In each worship service we are brought intocommunion with the whole worldwide church; in the Spirit we are present tothem and they to us.

1. SingingSeven whole days, not one in seven, I will praise thee.

We sing. We become of one voice and one mind. Without ceasing to beourselves, we are transported out of ourselves.O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us heartily rejoice in the rock of oursalvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving and be glad in himwith psalms (Psalm 95)God speaks to us in Scripture and we reply with songs and hymns. Theservice is conversational The Lord sings, and we sing back. The hymns areour own songs sung in response. Gathered together in worship we are in theSpirit, and so in the presence of the Lord.

The whole company of heaven speaks and sings. Their service started longbefore we arrived. They sing the praises of God, that is, they say simply andunfeignedly how things are and they look forward to how things will be. Thiscrowd in heaven already worships God and celebrates the communion of allthings. Their celebration spills over to us and make up the service of worshipin which we participate each time we meet. We singLord have mercyChrist have mercyThis call is the pulse of every church service. You would like it in Greek? Kyrie eleison. In Latin? Domine, misere. In English, Lord, help us! The

Christian worship service always consists of saying in bewildered delight thatwe have received mercy, and then of asking for more kindness and more

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help. In all our worship we sing Lord, have mercy and so we ask God to giveus what is good, and show us how it is good, and how we may receive it withthanks, until we can receive everything as good.

The Lord is here for us. We sing out of a sense of relief. We acknowledge

that, though there are many forces and pressures on us, none of themdeserves our worship. By worshipping God, only, we are freed of all otherforms of worship. Our release has been announced, and our worship is ourresponse to this news of our release. The Lord is here to arbitrate betweenus. He promotes the neglected, and demotes the arrogant and uncaring. Sowe sing:My soul magnifies the Lord,and my spirit rejoices in God my SaviourHe has brought down the powerful from their thrones,and lifted up the lowly;he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away emptyThis is the song Mary sang as she declared herself willing to receive theSaviour for us. At St Marys, we sing it as the Magnificat at Morning Prayerand sing the hymn version of it at the eucharist.Tell out my soul the greatness of the Lord,Unnumbered blessings give my spirit voice

2. We singEither we love and adore God and give ourselves to him, which is to say giveourselves back to him, or we direct all that love and adoration to other objects.If we do this, we give them more adoration than they can manage, andthereby we make idols of them. I give myself to the darlings and delights ofthe media, but so grudgingly give myself to the people of the church. All ourwhole consumer culture is a vast displacement activity that tries to take theplace of this true love.

Every Christian worship service is the worship and service of Christ. It is notprimarily our work, but his. What we take to be the words of the Church, andso our words, are first the speech of Christ. This worship is made by Christsworship of God: these psalms are his songs, and these songs and hymns arethe ways we are able to join him in those psalms. We sing:

Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest

Christ directs his worship to God and to no other master. Christ prays andspeaks on our behalf. He is in conversation with God and he opens his side ofthis relationship to us. Christ is doing the worshipping and we are simplytravelling behind him, even piggy-backing on him, so as he worships in hisperson we are also able to say Our Father, and what he says is received bythe Father. Christ is man in conversation with God and the Christian service ofworship is Christs service to God.

The crowd in heaven already looks forward to our coming. This singing

precedes the church, and their acclamations are what we hear in the liturgy

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every Sunday. If we did not sing the very stones would cry out and indeedwe are dumb things now made able to cry out and praise him.

Christ prays and speaks on our behalf. He is in conversation with God and heopens his side of this relationship to us. Christ is doing the worshipping and

we are simply travelling behind him. He worships in his person we are alsoable to say Our Father. What Christ says is received by the Father. He isGod in conversation with God, but now for our sake he is also man inconversation with God. He is man-with-God. So the Christian service ofworship is Christs service to God, since Christ directs himself to God and tono other master. So we sing:Breathe on me Breath of God,fill me with life anewthat I may do what thou dost loveand do what thou wouldst do. (NEH 342 Hatch)

3. We sing in response to what we have heardOur worship is our response to the Scripture that has been read, so we singout of a sense of relief. God speaks to us in Scripture and we reply with songsand hymns. The Lord sings, and we sing back, so every service is a call andresponse. The psalm is our first response to Scripture, and our hymns are ourresponse to the psalm, so we have a pattern of these three elements ofScripture, psalm and hymn. Just as there are different readings from thedifferent communities of witness of the Old Testament and New Testament,we respond to them with different sorts of song the psalms from Israel, thehymns from the Church, and the briefer worship songs from the contemporaryChurch. So together we all sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs and makemusic in our hearts to the Lord (Ephesians 5.19). The hymns are our ownsongs sung in response.

In all this hearing Scripture and singing the replies to it, the Lord is singing tous. He is not only speaking to us in Scripture, but he is singing to us in thereplies to the Scripture. He is not only singing to us, but he is doing so in thevoices of the congregation that we hear all around us, and even in the wordsthat come out of us in our own voice.

We sing, together, and from that, we are able to conclude that we have been

brought together to do so. The Spirit has set us in Christ, and in effect thatmeans that the whole company of heaven which is animated by the Spirit, andwhich pre-exists us, this whole company has welcomed us and made usmembers. We are many voices, many different minds and personalities, butnow we also we have one voice, and are of one mind. Before we were manyvoices, but all our individual attempts to make us ourselves distinct, and toestablish ourselves on our own terms, made us all alike, an undifferentiatedlump. But now our unity, given to us by this heavenly company, maximises ourdiversity, so we are diverse and we are able to recognise one another asdiverse and to let one another be so. Our new unity does not lessen ourdiversity: it establishes it at last. Because we sing with one voice, each of us

truly gains his or her own voice for the first time.Let us join our cheerful songs

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with angels round the throneten thousand, thousand are their tonguesbut all their joys are one (Isaac Watts 349)

4. With one accord

Our reception into the communion of God through forgiveness andreconciliation, makes us burst into thanksgiving and song. This thanksgivinghas a basic pattern. Each service at St Marys follows the same basic pattern.This is laid out in the form of service set out by the Church of England inCommon Worship. We call it Common Worship because it enables us toworship in common, that is together. We do not all sing and pray individuallybut in unison and harmony, and the result is that we and anyone who hearsus, can understand what we are singing about and giving thanks for.

Our worship must be intelligible, Saint Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 14. Wesing and speak intelligibly, so that people can understand what we are saying.

Though we worship God, and we also lead and teach those worshipping withus how to worship, what to say. That is to say, it gives us its reasons and soexplains itself as it goes along. Our worship consists both of short phrases,like Lord, have mercy, and such as worship songs are made up of. And itconsists of long sentences with complicated syntax of the sort hymns aremade of. We need the full account and the acclamations that sum it up. Thesermon points out how our songs reply to the Scripture we have heard, so wenotice what we are singing, and sing with our minds, so that what we singbecomes truly ours.

Common Worship contains a vast amount of Scripture. It is a long chain ofpassages from Scripture adopted by the Church from its earliest days for itsworship. With all its prayers, sentences and responses, it gives puts thewords of God in the mouth of the whole congregation, where it can dwellrichly. Psalms give us our response to each passage of Scripture, and hymnsgive us our response to the psalm. We these three elements of Scripture,psalm and hymn. We need the sermon to point out to us the connectionbetween Scripture, psalm and hymn, and we need someone who understandsthe Scripture and the psalm to choose the right hymn, that picks up the themethat appears in Scripture and psalm. Just as there are several readings fromthese various communities of witness of the Old Testament and New

Testament, we respond to them with different sorts of song, the psalms fromIsrael, the hymns from the Church, and the briefer more ecstatic form ofworship songs. So together we all sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs(Ephesians 5.19).

5. The fellowship of the Holy SpiritThe Holy Spirit brings us into his fellowship, the communion of God. Thiscommunion is the love of God, here for us. This communion is love,embodied as these persons, and so as the Church. It opens us up to love andto mutual subordination to one another. We sing:Love is kind and suffers long,

love is meek and thinks no wrong,

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love than death itself more strong;therefore, give us love.

The Holy Spirit brings us into the Body of Christ, which is the love of Godgiven to the world. The Holy Spirit is the Lord at work serving and securing his

people. He is the fierce glory of God, visible as the fire of Sinai, now tonguesof fire that separated and came to rest on each of them (Acts 2), nowglorifying Jesus Christ by uniting his people to him. The Spirit has been sentto us to act as our servant. He is theparaclete, literally on call. We have onlyto ask, to pray and he will teach us to speak with the Lord. He will not give uswhat we cannot cope with, so no absolute power is put into our irresponsiblehands. But he will enable us to ask for what we need.

The Spirit is known by the gifts he gives. All his gifts build up the whole bodyof Christ. The gifts given to you are to be exercised by you in service of therest of us, so you exercise your gifts for us, on our behalf. They are our gifts

because they are yours. As the canticle from Isaiah puts it:The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,the spirit of wisdom and understanding.The spirit of counsel and might,the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord

We live on the words of the Son carried by the breath of the Spirit. Theirspeech and life animates us and is all the speech and life we have got. TheHoly Spirit brings us here before all these other people and holds thiscommunity together, making it one body. So we sing:Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost,

taught by thee we covet most,of thy gifts at Pentecost,holy heavenly, love.

6. Freedom and discipleshipThe Lord brings freedom. The service of the Lord is to makes us free fromevery other master and from every kind of compulsion. To confess Christ is torenounce other masters and all forms of captivity. Where the Spirit of the Lordis, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3.17) Having identified the Lord, the rightlord, we are not taken in by any other master and can be fearless in the faceof them.

Within the fellowship that the Lord gives us, we are able to recognise oneanother as distinct and unique. Because we sing with one voice, each of ustruly gains his or her own voice for the first time. The unity, given to us by thisheavenly company, maximises our diversity, so we are able to recognise oneanother as different from ourselves and let one another be so.

The freedom of the Spirit has to be learned, which involves guidance,direction and control. So this freedom does not mean that we are abandonedto our own devices; freedom comes together with this fellowship, which

means with the helpers, and with all the practices and conceptual tools ofdiscipleship. The guidelines, practices and exercises of which this discipleship

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consists are the gifts of the Spirit. We learn to serve, to exercise restraint andto judge ourselves, and to serve one another and wait for one another. Weserve one another not simply by conceding whatever we ask one another for,but by whatever is good for us. We exercise judgment on one anothers behalfand we ask them to judge and correct us and so to exercise their judgment on

our behalf.

The Spirit gives all these other Christians, sanctified, experienced Christian,all of whom are dedicated to us for the purpose of our sanctification. SoChristians are taught this more rigorous lifestyle that involves learning to turnaway from some of the apparently urgent things presented to us. We cease toraise some people to far more prominence than is good for us or for them,and which render other people invisible. We are no longer as easily pushedabout as everyone else and we gain a mind of our own. So we say:Lift up your heartsWe lift them to the Lord

Let us give thanks to the Lord our GodIt is right to give him thanks and praise

4. Praying Asking for Forgiveness

Worship of God makes an articulate people, who can speak back to God,speak up for one another and give thanks for one another. The Church hears,sings and prays together because God has spoken and hears his peoplerespond. Each church prays with the many other congregations that make up

the whole Church. As all the Christians around the world offer their prayers toGod, we pray with them.

1. Praying peopleWe have come to pray to the Lord. We have come apart from the world andhave come together in order to do this. Each church service is a withdrawalfrom the world to pray for a while. Prayer does not require that we withdrawfrom other Christians, but that we meet and say our prayers together. We saythem without worrying about whether we do so with all our minds; sometimesour prayers are more heart-felt, said with more involvement, concentration oreven desperation. When we find nothing to say, we pray that God hears the

prayers of those around us; we learn to pray our own prayers unconcernedlywith them together.

This prayer continues outside church, in our home communions. There areusually at least a couple of people who are too infirm to get out to Church. Atthe eucharist a couple of us receive the eucharistic bread in a little containerand go round to the flat of those who are housebound and celebratecommunion with them. The communion service of the whole Churchcontinues in miniature in their front room, with a shorter version of the sameprayers. All communion is getting out and joining the saints in the freedom ofthe Spirit and this is particularly obvious at these housebound communions.You bring with you all the news, prayers and good wishes of the congregation

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so that that this elderly person can continue to share in the life of thecongregation, and we can share in their experience, which is often a matter offacing illness and death.

2. Intercessions

Scripture, sermon and the creed are followed by the intercessions. Ourintercessions are led by members of the congregation. They are lead by adifferent person each week, and the character of the individual intercessorshows through their prayers. The whole Church depends on the example ofthese few who know how to pray, probably because they have been taughtprayers in earliest childhood and know them off by heart. Whoever is leadingthe prayers begins with:Let us pray for the Church and for the world, and let us thank God for hisgoodnessThey give us long enough pauses which each of us fills with our own prayers.At the end of each set of prayers there is a response:

Lord hear usLord mercifully hear us

We pray for our children, and then for all the children they mix with. We knowthat there are plenty of children and teenagers without fathers to modelthemselves on; we know how angry some of the young in this borough feel,so we pray for them and for their baffled or absent families, and for thereconciliation of generations. We pray for those facing age, ill-health and thevanishing prospect of recovery, and so we pray for the provision of care forthe elderly and for the staff in hospitals. This leads us to pray for thoseworking in education and the social services, and so we pray for our boroughand city.

We pray for the world, usually starting with whatever part of the world is inconflict and in the news. We are also linked by friendships and relationships tothe Church in different parts of the world, and so we pray for those Christianswho we know are under pressure. And we know that they pray for us, so thatwe may be faithful witnesses here too. Finally we end:Merciful Father, Accept these prayers for the sake of thy Son, our SaviourJesus Christ. Amen.

Prayer continues in other forms after the service and before it. By the font atthe back of St Marys there is a prayer corner with a notice-board and a standfor votive candles. After receiving communion some of us come to this cornerin order to continue praying. We light a candle and pray for our families.Praying and lighting the candle is the same act in two forms: that candle is ourprayers, and lighting it and leaving to burn belongs to the prayer just as beingstill and bowing our heads does. On the notice-board people pin the names offamily members who are ill or in trouble; we keep a book with these names,and these people are then prayed for by name in the intercessions.

3. Repentance and reconciliation

After the intercessions, comes a general confession of sins, in penitence andfaith and the proclamation of our forgiveness, the absolution. First we confess:

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Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we have sinned against you and againstour neighbour in thought and word and deed through negligence, throughweakness, through our own deliberate fault

To confess our sins is the first breakthrough. To confess them is to give up

pretending. It is good to be able to call things by their names, and not to denythat they are what they are. At the very least, sins are misfortunes. Sin arethose misfortunes that having once happened to us, we now repeat. Evenbefore we get to issue of guilt and blame, it is something to be able to say thatwe are able to regret what we have done or not done. And we are able toadmit this, because the congregation, in the person of the priest, invites us todo so.We are truly sorryand repent of all our sins.

We are one body, so none of us carries our whole life by ourselves. If you

leave me alone with my sin, I am done for. However great the load andhowever long I can carry it for and keep it a secret for, it will wear away insideme, hollow me out and finally it will bring me to an end.

We can repent. It is a privilege and relief to do so. This means that we are thepeople who can let go off our mistakes, and allow them to be taken away fromus. If our sins are taken away from us, we are freed for new relationships withothers. So put down your burdens, for they do not belong to you anymore.This task is long. It requires repeated and lifelong effort. Each time we praytogether:For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,who died for us,forgive us all that is pastand grant that we may serve you in newness of life

When we ask God to forgive us all that is past we are asking him to put it inthe past and so to put it out of reach and out of the reach of everyone elseaffected by it. It is not in the past until God puts it there, but hangs around tosour our relationships and hinder all our attempts to try again.

4. Forgiveness and peace

Without forgiveness, each of us is like a computer that it has slowed to a crawlbecause of the junk on its hard-drive. Without this release each of us is helddown by the weight of unfinished business, encounters in which someone gotthe better of us, and we are tempted to nurse our wounds, so that they give usour motive, which is always to get even. But when God commands, we haveto own up to this sin, to this rage, and let it go. In the name of the Lord thepriest prays:Almighty God who forgives all who truly repent, have mercy upon you, pardonand deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in allgoodness, and keep you in life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord

This is the absolution. We are absolved: the ties that bound me are untied andI am released. Many people have been sinned against by me, but God has

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conversation, to tell the world that it is loved, and addressed and heard byGod.

Christians listen to and intercede for the world, passing the complaints andrequests they hear on to God, bringing to the attention of rulers to the

situation of their people. With patience God will overcome our resistance toone another, enable us to hear one another and come into a clearerconversation. The very act of our praying is the outworking of Gods act inreleasing us. Our tongues are set free. We learn how to be thankful and howto be remorseful: we do not pursue these particular emotions, but they comeas we learn our place in the worshipping people, and begin to comprehendthe dimensions of what we have been given in Christ. So we sing:Jesus! the Name that charms our fearsand bids our sorrows ceaseHe speaks, and listening to his voice,new life the dead receive (Charles Wesley)

And we pray:For thine is the kingdom the power and the gloryForever and foreverAmen

5 Eucharist Offering and Passover

Every Church service combines the ministry of the Word and of Sacrament.

1. Word and SacramentEvery service in which Christians gather and worship God, is part of the oneeucharist of God. The first half of any eucharistic service is known as theservice of the Word and the second as the Eucharist, or ministry of word andsacrament, respectively. The minister of these two ministries is the Lordhimself: He is your living Word. Through him you have created all things fromthe beginning, and formed us in your own image. The Word of God that isheard when Scripture is read is the knowledge of himself that God gives,while the sacrament is the power that brings us into communion within whichthis knowledge is found. Every Christian service is eucharistic from beginningto end, even when we do not get as far as the bread and cup. When a servicedoes not take the explicit form of a eucharist, it may be described as aworship service, family service, healing service or in terms of some otherministry.

In the eucharist, we brought together and we give thanks. We are gatheredinto communion with God, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The eucharist isthe thanksgiving that results from our being gathered together. This is thecommunion to which the whole Church is witness and in which all mankindand all creation are bound together. Christ provides for us, and the world isthat provision. He brings us in and feeds and waits on us. The food and all the

material support that we have, comes from the creation that he has set out forus. He offers it to us, we have begun to receive it, and are able to give thanks.

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2. OfferingThe eucharist is the offeringof Christ. In my church of St Marys the serversbring the cup and paten up to the minister at the altar. The minister takesthem, lifts them up and gives thanks for them. So we lift creation up to God,

and so lift up our fellow human beings to God. We are able to do this, and theminister is able to do this, simply because this is what Christ does for us andwhat he enables us to do. The eucharist is the meeting and this provision thatbrings us into fellowship with the Lord. This fellowship meal is the Passoverthat liberates us from death.

The whole service from beginning to end is this eucharist. We are drawn outof all corners of the world into the presence of God. The service starts with theprocession in which we drawn out of work and homes, drawn through thestreets and into church, the same movement continues until we are drawn upthe aisle to the altar. At the altar, the priest holds up this single loaf, and we

are that loaf. Christ has drawn us together and now holds us together, forever:at this moment in the eucharist the priest is Christ, and we are one bread thathe holds and lift up before the whole watching world. We are the harvest thatChrist has gathered and worked, and which he now presents to the Fatherand which the Father receives from him.

We also have to put this the other way around. Christ is that bread, which wenow take. Christ has given himself and we have taken him. Man truly tookhold of Christ in the passion, laid hands on him, scourged and crucified him.That we have taken Christ in this way now determines the future of mankind.

3. Passover supperWe are witnesses of the Last Supper. In this event the Lord handed himselfover to us, and we took hold of him and handed him over to die. But there aretwo distinct acts of handing over here. Christ is handing the kingdom to us.And in the passion mankind hands Christ over to death. Christ gives us allthings. And we refuse them, and hand him as away as though he were of novalue to us. Yet we are not able to get rid of him, for this passion is not hisalone, but also ours.

The Eucharist is the Last Supper and the Last Supper is the Passover. We

are not only gathered at the table in the upper room in Jerusalem, but we arewith Israel in Egypt, at the climax of the great struggle with Pharaoh and allthe divinities of Egypt. The eucharist therefore places us in the events of theBook of Exodus: chapter twelve sets us in the meal that the people of Israelwere instructed to eat before the Passover itself began. Just as the people ofIsrael were confronted by Pharaoh, so now Christ is about to confront all theforces of death that are arrayed against him and all mankind. He is going totake on and overcome the principalities and powers, and lead his people outof captivity and away from the power of death. Through him you have freedus from the slavery of sin.

With Christ and with all Israel, we break out and escape. The eucharist is ourPassover in which we make our passage out of Egypt, the House of Death,

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and break through into the Promised Land. We are in captivity: before ourbreak-out we eat together for one last time in order to gather the strength forthe escape, and as an anticipation of the feast we will enjoy once we reachour freedom in the new country. But first Christ has to overcome greatresistance of Pharaoh and lead his people out of their captivity to all powers,

tyrannies and forces of evil. The cross is the break-out. Christ tears open ahole in the small and vicious place to which we have been confined. A holeappears in the side of the world we know, and we are led out into a vastlybigger world that we had no previous knowledge of. Christ tears open theworld that has been captive to death; when the bread is torn the wall that heldus in is torn down. Christ is the passage through the two halves of this bread.He is our way out and we escape as through his body.

Secondly, Christ carries out. He can carry us out because he himself isentirely unhampered. He has no sin and no needs of his own. This is why wecall Christ the Lamb, and that he is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the

world. It should be a beast of burden such as an ox or a donkey that carriesus or carries our pile of ordure away from us; a lamb is no beast of burden.But this beast of burden has this eradicable characteristic of beingconspicuously innocent. He has no violence whatsoever within him, no guilt,no taint of other peoples blood, and thus like a lamb. He is completely withoutburdens of his own to carry, so there are no constraints on him and no limitson his power to act for us and to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.That is why we sing:Paschal Lamb by God appointedAll our sins on thee were laidBy almighty love anointedThus hast full atonement made.All thy people are forgivenThrough the virtue of thy blood;Opened is the gate of heaven;Reconciled are we with God (Common Praise 168)

4. Christ offers all thingsChrist has set himself to serve us. We need him to do so because we areunable to serve ourselves. He now serves us by bearing us to God. Hesupplies us with what we need and takes us to the Father. Christ frees us

from all the other masters to whom we give ourselves away and makes uscomplete and perfect. We are the offering, and we are presented by him toGod. Christ is the giver, it is us who are being given, and God is whom we arebeing given to.

Now while we sing a hymn, the servers bring the collection up in a basket andtake it up to the altar. In St Marys there is no passing a collection bowlaround. You can drop whatever you want into a box that stands in the aisle,but equally you are free not to notice that it is there. You do not pay for us: wepay for you. The minister receives the collection bowl. He prays that the Lordwill take whatever we bring, and so take us in whatever condition he finds us.

Then he receives the bread, wine and water which have been up to the altar.The whole offering is compromised of the eucharistic bread and wine, and the

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money given in the collection. This is what earth has given and human handshave made. This offering is presented here.

Two things are happening at once. One is that Christ carries us to God andpresents us to God as though we were his own, indeed as though we were his

very own body. And God accepts us and receives us from him and in God'sview, we are his. The second is that Christ is being presented to us. We candecide whether we will accept him and receive him, and whether we willaccept and receive his work, and receive each other and all creation from himas his people and his creation, altogether as his body. If we receive thiseucharist from him we receive the forgiveness and salvation that he holds outto us. So in these two ways God us gives himself and in Christ he takes usand holds on to us forever.

5. One loafChrist gives us the Church. He gives each of us this fellowship and

indestructible communion and makes each of us a part of it. The priest whoholds aloft the large round disc shows what is happening here. Where we seethis priest and this loaf, there is Christ, making himself locatable for us. He ishere, in this way, for us. As we process up towards that bread, we becomeintegrated into this single loaf that he holds up to us, and opens for us. We arethe many fragments, whom brought together, are made into this one bread,pure and indivisible. All opposites are united, the different divisions of theworld are brought together, and the divided become indivisible. So, followinga theme of the very earliest eucharistic teaching of the Church, the Didache,we sing:As grain once scattered on the hillsidesWas in this broken bread made oneSo from all lands thy Church be gatheredInto the kingdom of thy Son (Common Praise 298: Bland Tucker)

The Christian community is a single indivisible loaf. There is one loaf, theApostle Paul says. We who are many, are a single body, because we sharethis one loaf (1 Corinthians 10.17). We are being made that pure andindivisible entity which nothing can pull it apart and which we will thereforenever be separated from. The bread that the priest lifts up is an image of thisunity. Just as we grasp that bread, we are grasped and held by the whole

Body of Christ. We eat and internalise this wafer and just so the Bodyreceives us. The Gospel of John makes this just as palpable as it can: chewon my body, Jesus says in John 6. Christ has grasped you and he will neverlet you go; now we can be a little image of him, so let us grasp Christ andnever let go. The hard masters and economic forces of this world want to gettheir teeth into us, to chew us up and spit us out. But in Christ we are notchomped and swallowed; we are not absorbed or assimilated. We are part ofthat indivisible loaf in which our integrity is established for ever. Nothing willever break down that unity or divide you from it.

The loaf is the Church, which is to say, it is all other Christians. We must

grasp and hold on to them. Joined to them, and clinging to each other, we arebeing made this one loaf. This loaf identifies the place at which the body of

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Christ is starting to come into existence. Perhaps it would be better to say thatthe centre of the eucharist is not the breakingof bread but the coming-into-existence of this bread, the whole and indivisible loaf that is Christ and hispeople. Through him you have made us a people for your own possession

6. Holy giftsChrist dispenses himself to us gently. He is always able to give us more andto do so slowly and gently. He patiently waits until we are ready to receivemore from him. He gives himself to us piecemeal, through time, and we callthese pieces, sacraments. Sacraments are instalments of holiness. Oneinstalment after another enters us. Each sacrament invites us to furtherholiness, and if this is what we want, each is integrated within us and we arefurther integrated in this holy body of Christ. Altogether the sacraments allowus to become holy. In this bread and cup is all the holiness of Christ, gentlyportioned out so that, given time, each of us becomes able to recognise Christ and recognise him as Christglorified, and as a result we are able to

recognise one another as holy and as belonging to him.

Christ not only supplies us with what we need but also frees us from all thatwe cannot cope with. He takes our misdirected worship, our half-truths and allour unfinished business and he sends it all to God for its redemption andrenewal. He is able to pick up our sins, and take them away from us. He is thebeast of burden who is able to carry away whatever we cannot cope with andthe refuse that is making us ill. He carries it away so that it disappears overthe horizon with him, where we cannot reclaim it, and it cannot bother usagain. Christ keeps us in good order. He gives us gifts and he takes ourdeficiencies away: this is the wonderful exchange.

The whole service is eucharistic, for where Christ is, his people and allelements of creation are assembled and give their thanks. Where he is, thefragments of this world are united, the opposites are united, the dividedbecome indivisible, and there is the indissoluble unity created by his love. Wehold up for the world the one bread that is us with him. This indissoluble unity,this holy communion that is eternal, gives itself to us in these instalments ofholiness. Each of them is a little packet of resurrection, and each enables usto look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Theeucharist is the whole Christian worship service with nothing left out.

May the tongues which Holy sangkeep free from all deceivingthe eyes which saw thy love be brightthy blessed hope perceiving (Ephraim the Syrian, Common Praise 323)

6 Whole People The Church in the weekWhen we are gathered together in worship Christ reveals himself to us. Hereveals himself and he also reveals us to one another. He reveals that we arehis and that he is ours and so he reveals himself as our king. His kingdom is

made up of these people, and we find ourselves members of this people. So

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when we call him Lord and Christ we mean that he is ourking, lord for oursake.

In the Church we meet one Christian after another. As we receive them, welearn who Christ is, and learn that it is Christ who gives each of them to us.

He comes to us first in the form of these Christians whom we meet here in theChurch service. He is really giving us himself, but they are the form in which,for now, he does so. By the long slow process of sanctification, week by week,we change from in-turned creatures who defend ourselves against the world,to persons who are able to receive every other human creature as thekindness of God to us, and so to take them for our own.

1. Dismissal and commissionAlmighty God has given us grace with one accord to make our commonsupplications. He has promised that where two or three are gathered togetherin his name he will grant their requests. Now he sends us out into the world, to

live and work to his praise and glory At the end of the eucharistic service thepriest says:Go in peace to love and serve the Lord

The one loaf divides and disperses into the world. We who have beengathered together are now sent out. We have seen that at the climax of theeucharist the minister holds up the loaf, as Christ unites and lifts up hispeople. Now Christ sends his people outwards from that gathered unity. Wesee this Spirit-filled people flow out from this loaf into the world. They comeappear from that loaf, descend from the altar, come down the aisle, and out ofthe church and into the world. We see them led by Christ, identified by thecross, the candles, the deacon carrying the Scripture, followed by the ministerand the congregation. From this loaf the procession of God's people streamsaway in all directions, into every corner of the world, bearing witness to God toevery part of it. They journey around the world, penetrating every part of it.These people are the form in which the communion of God comes to theworld.

Now we must look at the relationship between the service that is just endingand the week to come. After the service we are sent back out into the world,reinvigorated and renewed to continue this work of carrying the world. When

the service at St Marys ends, we gather around the back of the Church. Thebanns of marriage are read out and notices given. At the back of the Churchand over coffee we organise ourselves for the various forms of ministrythrough the week. There are the Sunday school and youth groups to run.There is the Fair Trade stall. Some go off to take communion to those who arehousebound. There is a world of mid-week activity.

2. Uninterrupted ProcessionThis congregation does not usually gather again in the week, so for the nextsix days the Church is much less visible. We are all in our various homes andworkplaces, though we are nonetheless single indivisible body. Each Christian

is in their particular place like a seed dropped into the ground. We are indifferent places, but we are not ultimately separated by space and time for

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they are not finally able to divide what the Holy Spirit holds together in theindivisible presence of Christ.

This people are already a people, so they already have a certain presencehere in the Church in the world. And yet this people is also still on the way,

and must continue down that long path of discipleship, for it is only nowbecoming the people of God. The unholiness of this people is still obvious:this body is not yet glorious and complete.

We are being led by Christ. He leads his people through the whole world, andby this process they are becoming holy, and in the course of this long journeythey are being made holy. The whole world can watch can watch this process.It is up each onlooker to decide whether they see simply an unholy andunattractive people, which they want no part of, or they see this as the journeyof the people being made holy by God, and desire to be part of this people.

The Christian people come from Christ and they return from him. He sendsthem out to take his service into the world, and he calls them back to berefreshed by him, so they are always on the way out and on the way back.Their service and witness is only good as long as they regularly come back tobe renewed.

Each Christian is the whole worshipping assembly and the uninterruptedservice of God in miniature. In the person of each Christian the service is sentout into the world. The assembly can divide into as many little assemblies asthere are Christians, each of whom takes the whole service of Christ withthem wherever they go. Each is a lamp that burns with the fire of the Spirit.Each Christian is given a candle at baptism and at the Christmas and Easterservices to remind us that each of us is the flame of the glory of God. Youcannot detach a single Christian from this company of saints, because theHoly Spirit binds each one of us to all the rest of us. Each is the wholeprocession in that place, making Christs people visible there for all whowatch, both for those who turn away and for those who are drawn in.

3. The people in ChurchJesus sends us these people whom we find here in Church. They are his firstgift to us. We have to receive them from him. We even have to receive them

as Christ himself. This is not to say that we should try to see through them orpast them to Jesus, or to imagine them as Jesus and so to look past their ownparticularity. Rather their very individuality and awkwardness is the gift ofChrist to us. There is no way to him except through life lived with them.

The Holy Spirit brings Christ to us by bringing the people of his communion tous. He does so in instalments so that Christ comes to us first in the form ofthese Christians whom we encounter here in the Church service. They are allthat Christ yet is giving us of himself. He is really giving us himself, but theyare the form in which, for now, he does so. So we sing:For all the saints who from their labours rest

Who thee by faith before the world confessedThy name O Jesus be for ever blessed

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Alleluia, alleluia (Common Praise 232)

You see all sorts of people in Church. They are the first gift of God to us. Wesee these people in the pews around us, but behind them, presently beyondour vision, are many other rows of Christians. We are with the whole company

of heaven.

In many churches you see an array of people portrayed on the walls and inthe windows. There are the images above the altar, and in the carvings abovethe choir stalls, and in the glass of the windows, in paint, fresco and mosaic allaround the Church. In the windows of my Church, St Marys Stoke Newington,you can see Christ in glory, and below, Jesus carrying a lamb, his signatureas it were, framed by Mary on one side and John on the other. In otherwindows there are other figures from the Old Testament and all the apostlesfrom the New Testament, and from the subsequent history of the church. All ofthem look to Christ and point us to him. These pictures give us a preview of

the many encounters with the people of God who are ahead of us. That is whywe sing:For all thy saints, O Lordwho strove in thee to livewho followed thee, obeyed, adored,our grateful hymn receive

Many church buildings are covered with images of the patriarchs andprophets of the Old Testament. But when the patriarchs are not portrayed infull they are represented by the single figure of John Baptist, and the peopleof Israel are represented by the single figure of Mary. The saints gatheredaround Christ. He ministers to them and they radiate his holiness. They havebeen made holy, and they have been made your servants. They are there foryou and they are urging you on.For all thy saints, O Lord,who strove in thee to diewho counted thee their great rewardaccept our thankful cry Richard Mant (NEH224)

4. Man with GodGod is faithful to us. His concern for us is unfeigned. He has decided to risk

his reputation on us, to share our fortunes and not to let us go under. Theunbroken and undying life which the Father and Son have together is the lifethat they have opened to us, so that now it may be our life too.

Jesus Christ took what we gave him. He took our hard knocks and underwentthe apprenticeship we put him through, and treated it all as the apprenticeshipof God. He was tested by us and he graduated from our rough and dismissivehandling of him. He came through the long trial that we inflicted on him. Werejected him, and tried to make him reject us. We did everything we could tooblige him to let us go, but we were unable to make him do so. Despiteknowing the worst we can do, the Lord loves us with an unwavering love. He

is resolute in regarding humanity as good and as his, and we are unable tobreak his resolve.

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The heavenly hosts, world without endshall be my company aboveand thou my best and surest friendwho shall divide me from thy love? (Richard Baxter, NEH 371)

5. Man is raised in ChristWhen we say that Christ has risen, we mean that Christ is man with God.One of us has grown up and decided that all human beings are indeed asgood as God insists, and he has committed himself to them without limit. Oneof us has learned to love. In doing so he has upped the definition ofhumankind. To be properly human means to be in a free relationship of lovewith every member of humankind. It is others that complete our status ashumans. We can continue to test him and we will see that he continues tohold good. He knows who we are, and is neither appalled, nor afraid, nordisengaged, but rather he is ready. He knows us and he regards us with faithand hope and love.

Since Jesus Christ is the full definition of the love of God, he safeguards themystery of human life. Because of him, I may not presume that I already knowyou, or manage and control you. The gospel prevents us from puttingourselves above judgment. In the communion of Christ we may learn to judgeourselves with the judgment of God and so we may find one anothers properuniqueness. We may decide to become disciples, and so to take thecorrection and discipline of Christ, which form us in the love of God. Only theChristian who has accepted much correction and who has been chastened bythem, is able to offer correction.

Man is with God. In Christ, this is the truth of man. Jesus is man with God,and God with man. Man is made for the society of God, that is, to be as freefor God has God is free for him. All attempts to give away his freedom will beunsuccessful, for God has determined that man will be free. He is made forlife with God, and with all the other creatures of God, and freedom is anaspect of life with God. Man may not extinguish his freedom. Man may wishfor something less than life with God, but there is nothing less for him to have.

Christ has been raised. He is the head of this body, and what is true of thehead will be true of the body. The whole people will be raised. This community

is the pledge of the resurrection. The Church is the anticipation of theresurrection. It mediates this resurrection to us, slowly, so that it may beinternalized within us. The unity of Son and Spirit, demonstrated by theresurrection, holds all these otherwise incompatible persons together in thelove and communion that is the Church.

The Spirit keeps us joined to Christ, and he keeps Christ distinct from us. Heholds Jesus out of our grasp, beyond the powers of our perception. Christ ishere by the Holy Spirit. We are present to Christ, but the Holy Spirit hidesChrist from us, and reveals him to us only in the strangest and least obviousway. He reveals Christ to us bit by bit, in the strange dark form of the many

persons of whom this community, the body of Christ, is made up. As we aremade holy we may realise that it is indeed Christ who is being revealed to us.

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At the resurrection you and I will finally be fully turned outwards towards oneanother. We will not longer be cut off from each other, but I will be raised toyou, and you will be raised to me. The resurrection presently makes its knownto us how, again by faith, in the resurrection of Christ and in the existence of

the Church. The Church is the thin of the wedge that is the kingdom of God,inserted into the side of the world to open an imperceptibly small crack. Whatis visible of this wedge, is the Church, but the Church is the gap throughwhich the whole communion of God comes serially and gently to us, in time.

God has raised Jesus Christ, one of us, to the full stature of humankind. InChrist the whole work of creation has been successful, and that success isopened to all of us. Through the Holy Spirit Christ has attached us to himself,so that the resurrection of the first man is the beginning of the resurrection ofall humanity. Easter is a preview of the consequences of this for us: Christsresurrection is a rehearsal for ours. So in the resurrection God comes to man

in Christ. For this reason we say:It is indeed right,it is our duty and our joy,at all times and in all placesto give you thanks and praise,holy Father, heavenly King,Almighty and eternal God,through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.

ii the worship of one church

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