Theology Today - Vol 48, No.1 - April 1991 - SYMPOSIUM:THE REVISIONING OF WORSHIP - Moving out of Complacency: A Response to Nicholas Wolterstorff

29 - Moving out of Complacency: A Response to Nicholas Wolterstorff

Moving out of Complacency: A Response to Nicholas Wolterstorff

"The biblical critique of humankind," claims Nicholas Wolterstorff, "is that we live with the illusion that we can get the blessing without the ethic and that the blessing will be enough for the flourishing-believing, in turn, that the way to secure the blessing without the ethic is to engage in the actions of the cult." If I grasp the point of his essay, we are being told that if we do not follow the justice-seeking activities of Jesus, whom we call Lord, our cultic acts, especially worship and the sacraments may be little more than empty forms. Put another way, our worship is little more than an attempt to secure God's blessing for ourselves if we do not come to appreciate God's blessing and life-giving power through seeking justice for others. We act as if "enough of such pleasing liturgical actions may compensate, in God's eyes, for a rather poor ethical life. They will atone for our sins; they will propitiate God."

Wolterstorff's essay reminds me of the way the Protestant reformers used Scripture to critique the church. Although it seems radical to describe justice as a condition of authentic liturgy, I agree with the point that worship practices can lead people to believe they can "get the blessing without the ethic." For instance, what is going on when the church offers to baptize the babies of parents who do not even participate in liturgy? Here "just public service" is not even an issue. What is going on when people publicly acknowledge that they believe "in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior" but have never been instructed in what it means to say yes to biblical religion grounded in "a presentation and interpretation of Jesus?"

Why do some pastors view infant baptism as a form of evangelism, hoping that the baptism will draw the parents into the church? This is not just the practice of liturgy without a justice component that Wolterstorff deplores; it is administering a sign of God's love without teaching the people what it means to participate in that love. How can people be expected to realize that God's love is known through participation in liturgy and justice when it is not made clear to them

Janet F. Fishburn is Professor of American Church History at The Graduate School of Drew University. She is the author of the highly praised book The Fatherhood of God and the Victorian Family: The Social Gospel in America (1981).

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that regular worship is a part of Christian discipleship? This kind of totally unqualified "dependence on grace" is not faith; it is an illusion.

It is not uncommon to hear a pastor say that baptism makes the recipient a "member of the body of Christ." Presbyterians and Methodists now include children in the eucharist on the grounds that all baptized "members" should commune. Yet, where the ritual act of baptism is interpreted as making the recipient a member of the body of Christ without qualification, aren't "members" being misled about what it means to be Christian? This implies that the spiritual power is in the ritual rather than communicating to all present that baptism is an act of faith signifying that the baptismal promise will gradually be realized as the recipient comes to know the power of God's love through participation in "the body of Christ."

"The point of liturgy," maintains Wolterstorff, "is not the performance of certain self-contained actions..." I agree. Calvin took it for granted that pastors were expected to instruct the faithful concerning "the duties... both of faith and of love." Wesley devised the "class meetings" to assist both pastors and people in the spiritual disciplines necessary to being a faithful people of God.

Wolterstorff's formulation is startling: "Liturgy is for giving voice to life oriented toward God. This we learn from the prophetic insistence that the words and gestures without the life disgust God." I wish I could find a way to disagree with this proposition! But I do not find him guilty of asking us to engage in works-righteousness. Rather, in tones reminiscent of the same prophets he interprets, he asks us to defend ourselves against the charge of believing in cheap grace.

Members of a congregation embody what they believe about God's grace by their actions. A favorite formulation among proponents of liturgical renewal is the notion that "the liturgy forms the people of God." What does it mean to say that the ritual acts in which a people engage on Sunday morning "form" the people? All too often it means that the pastor hopes that weekly worship alone will somehow "transform" the people.

From the biblical perspective so carefully unfolded in Wolterstorff's essay, the hope that God's grace will "form" or "transform" those who worship-even those who worship every Sunday-is regarded as an illusion. It sets my teeth on edge to read that "... not unless we first shape our lives into obedience will our liturgy be authentic." The thesis is stated in a way that seems to suggest that God's love is conditional. Does this interpretation of Scripture ("not authentic liturgy unless justice") really pervade the biblical witness?

Yes and no. It is one thing to say that God's grace is "free and unmerited," that God's love is unconditional. This is a statement about God's nature. It is another thing, however, to talk about how we appropriate the meaning of God's promises into our hearts and lives.

31 - Moving out of Complacency: A Response to Nicholas Wolterstorff

The instruction of Scripture is sometimes more helpful than theology in telling us how the Word comes alive to us.

Wolterstorff uses Scripture to challenge the logical dilemmas of the either/or propositional reasoning found in most Western theology since "the age of Reason." He offers us biblical "patterns of thought" that differ from our culture's "patterns of thought." Through careful exegesis, he offers a dynamic, relational description of what it means to be the covenant people of God. He reminds us that "...justice is not a means to shalom, but a component thereof."

Participation in "deliverance, obedience, blessing" is the way we learn what God's love is like. The obedience of which he speaks is far more than mere keeping of laws, for obedience always has a justice component. This is a theological ethic both corporate and personal. This suggests that it is as we try to live in obedience to the way of Jesus that we will come to know what it means to be forgiven by God.

There are passages of Scripture that sound like God's love is conditional when read from a non-relational perspective: "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you: but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matt. 6:14-15). However, when interpreted from a relational perspective, this passage tells us what it means to participate in the covenant.

III

If we agree with a relational interpretation of covenant theology, this essay stands as a tremendous challenge to all scriptural interpretation influenced by Enlightenment thought. If the church down through the ages is expected to try to embody "Christ's example," then we should ask to what extent a particular congregation aspires to "the imitation of Christ." I take Wolterstorff to mean that those who re-present "the Jesus party" in history are expected to try to embody Jesus' understanding of the covenant theme of "deliverance, obedience, blessing." The meaning of "deliverance, obedience, blessing" is embodied in whatever a congregation expects of new members.

New-member rituals communicate what a congregation believes about "the essence of the church." If we take this proposition seriously, then we have to ask about the meaning of liturgical language. What does it mean to say that "our sins are forgiven" if we do not seek reconciliation with our brothers and sisters "before we leave our gift at the altar" on Sunday morning? What does it mean to say that our prayers are a "gift" offered to God, our worship a "service" to God if we have never participated in Christ's body by seeking justice for those people who are over-looked or despised by our social caste systems? What does it mean to say "the body and blood of Jesus given for you" to persons who have never participated in the body of Christ by seeking justice for some outsider?

If we do not ask how far God's justice extends, if we do not question

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our assumptions about who is and is not acceptable to God, if we have not broken the silence on behalf of those branded as outcasts by church or society, we simply will not know enough about suffering love to be able to appreciate God's suffering love for us. This is not a comment about the limits of God's love; it is an observation about the limits of our knowledge of God's love.

"Justice As a Condition of Authentic Liturgy" calls contemporary Christians out of spiritual complacency into recovery of a fuller sense of what it means to say that we are related to God through Jesus Christ. If I am correct about Wolterstorff's intentions, his essay challenges us to give up simple-minded beliefs about the meaning of God's unconditional love for us. If our theology does not teach us that God's love is known in and through relationships, it may very well lead us into a false sense of security about our own righteousness.

Wolterstorff offers us a way out of the conceptual bind that leads congregations to embrace either "evangelism" or "social justice" as their response to God. Justice, as he defines it, embraces a whole range of activities of God's people on behalf of a suffering world. We are to seek justice for all people, those who are Christian and those who are not. It is in this sense, then, that he tells us that we do not know what it means to "serve" God if we imagine service to mean only worship, or only evangelism, or only justice-seeking ministries.

This essay, which I take to be part of a larger project, seems like a contemporary exegesis of the first question in the Westminster shorter catechism. What is the chief end of human beings? Or, in more modern terms, what is the purpose of human life? It is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever. Herein does our God offer us fullness of life, the "shalom" of the prophet Micah, the yoke of Jesus, who is our Lord.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Mt. 11:29-30).