Trinity and Liturgical Experience

In the latest issue of Liturgy published by The Liturgical Conference, theologian Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen explores the trinitarian shaping of Christian worship. He approaches the three persons of the Trinity as a systematician who is deeply committed to the ways in which the Trinity fund our primary communion with God.

I wish to lay out as clearly as I can the basic trinitarian logic and narrative that undergirds and funds all of Christian life, but particularly prayer and liturgical life. This base is the trinitarian narrative that can be found in the New Testament and that was formulated doctrinally in later Christian tradition. . . . Liturgy is deeply Trinity-formed. 

. . . The Reformed Karl Barth rightly intuited that the Bible points to “the life of God Himself turned to us, the Word of God coming to us by the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ.” [See Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, bk. 2] This same insight was reached in the common ecumenical statement by Roman Catholics and Lutherans: “What God has done for the salvation of the world in Jesus Christ is transmitted in the gospel and made present in the Holy Spirit. The gospel as proclamation of God's saving action is therefore itself a salvation event.” [See http://www.pro.urbe.it/ dia-int/l-rc/doc/e_l-rc_malta.html] Liturgy and prayer is the place to present that Gospel of Christ. Liturgy is the arena in which the proclamation and sacramental acts reflect the triune nature of One God who manifests Godself as Father, Son, and Spirit.

Regarding each of the Trinity in turn, Kärkkäinen lets the reader ponder the thoughts of theologians through the ages. Here is Martin Luther on the first person of the Trinity:

The meaning and distinctive nature of [God’s] deep and wide fatherly love was masterfully captured centuries ago by the Reformer Martin Luther. While better known for his theology of justification by faith, Luther is first and foremost a theologian of love. He makes the famous distinction between two kinds of love: divine and human love. Whereas for the latter, self-interest and the principle of reciprocity is in the forefront, God's love purely and unselfishly seeks the well-being of the Other.⁴ [See Evangelical Quarterly 74, no. 3]

Human love is oriented toward objects that are inherently good, where self-love defines the content and the object of the love. Men and women love something that they believe they can enjoy. God loves in a way opposite to human love: “The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it …. Rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good.”⁵ [See Luther’s Works, 1957, 31:57]

 Here is Karl Rahner on Christ:

In contemporary theology, probably no one else has reflected as deeply on the theological and spiritual implications of divine embodiment as the means of God's self-identification with humanity as has the Catholic Karl Rahner. 

“It is a fact of faith that when God desires to manifest himself, it is as a man that he does so,” as a man who appears only in the bodily form. Indeed, on the basis of this divine embodiment, we not only know the Divine but also the meaning of the human. . .  If we want to know what man is, or what flesh means, then we must, so to speak, choose this theological definition of the statement ‘And the Word became flesh,’ saying: flesh, man as a bodily, concrete, historical being is just what comes into being when the Logos, issuing from himself, utters himself. Man is therefore God's self-utterance, out of himself into the empty nothingness of the creature.”⁶ [Rahner, in Theological Investigations, vol. 17]

Finally, Kärkkäinen’s thoughts on the Holy Spirit beckon us to expand our sense of the Spirit’s work so that we do not settle on personal piety alone as the gift but come to see in an ever-larger scope the Spirit’s role in creation itself. Those who lead the church’s worship in word and sacrament will gain a deepened energy for corporate prayer through renewal of seeing the fullness of the Three in One in the liturgy. The author’s goal is a lively trinitarian prayer for all.

- Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen is professor of systematic theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, and Docent of Ecumenics, University of Helsinki, Finland. See Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen Trinity and Revelation, vol. 2: A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), chap. 2, for a full treatment of this subject.

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Loving Father, Embodied Son, and Life-Giving Spirit: The Trinitarian Narrative and Liturgical Experience,” Liturgy 30, no. 1 (2015): 60-66.

The Universe and the Human Brain

The July 2013 issue of Liturgy, guest edited by Taylor W. Burton-Edwards, offers four essays on recent research in neuroscience and how the findings might inform liturgists, worshippers, and scholars about what is happening in worship. Here is a peek at the contents through Burton-Edwards’ introduction.

Neuroscience and cosmology may seem an odd pairing for a journal on liturgy. . . Neuroscience tends to focus on how brains, bodies, and environments interact to generate consciousness, memory, learning, and, in some species, the sense of self. Cosmology addresses the origins and destiny of the universe as a whole, from “big bang” to “big stretch.” The vast differences in the scope of the two may seem to lead them to talk more past each other than to be in meaningful dialogue with each other, even if . . . neural networks and the structures of the universe may actually look remarkably similar.  . . . 

 Christian worshipers need neuroscience. We need it to help us sharpen our understanding of how worship forms worshiping communities and individual worshipers, as centuries of experience show it does. We also need it to help us refine some of our doctrinal or practical approaches to worship that may not have had or may no longer have the formative effects we had believed or assumed they would or should have. 

 Baptism for us is nothing less than an initiation into resurrection and new creation. The Eucharist is our proleptic participation by our gathered communities here and now in the life and feasting of the age to come. Even the act of prayer, personal or corporate, embodies an implicit cosmology. We need the scope of scientific cosmology both to remind us of the boldness of our own claims, confessed or enacted, and to keep us epistemically humble about our capacity to make claims about the cosmos, given what appears to be our supremely limited time and place within it. 

 The four essays in this volume remind us of our time and place, as well as of the ways we inhabit or may better inhabit them through our worship. Brad D. Strawn and Warren S. Brown invoke James K. A. Smith's definition of human beings as “liturgical animals” to explore how neuroscience reveals the ways the liturgies of culture, including Christian ritual, may form or malform us in the image of the Triune God. 

 Christopher Demuth Rodkey takes their work several steps further to explore both the neuroscience behind what he describes as “The Synaptic Gospel” and how these insights have led in practice and may lead in principle to a dramatic increase in empathy across the generations of a typical congregation, starting with children. 

 Allan R. Bevere invites us into physicist John Polkinghorne's theological dialogue with scientific cosmology to consider how our own celebrations of Advent and Eastertide and our theology and embodiment of the sacraments . . . may provide credible witness to our cosmological hope. 

 Finally . . . my essay . . . calls us to reconsider what the ideals of “full, conscious and [actual] participation” in the liturgy may look like and how they may be better achieved in local practice . . .  

– Taylor W. Burton-Edwards is the Director of Worship Resources for the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church, Indiana.

Read further to find out what these ardent researchers have to teach us. This issue offers an excellent avenue for keeping up with some of what scientists are discovering that impinges on even our lives of faith.

Taylor W. Burton-Edwards, “Neuroscience, Cosmology and Liturgy: Introduction,” Liturgy 28, no. 4 (22 July 2014): 1-2.

Anti-Racism Preaching

The Liturgy issue published this year in April dealt with "Liturgy, Culture, and Race." These are big matters, and the entire issue is worth reading. However, for preachers, Suzanne Wenonah Duchesne's essay on preaching to undermine racism is particularly practical and helpful. Here are excerpts:  

KNOW THYSELF

To Know Thyself . . . means that a part of this journey involves a recognition that race is a construction embedded within U.S. society. The preacher, then, needs to discover his place within that system. Because everyone who lives in the United States is immersed in systemic racism, preachers need to be truthful with themselves. A high degree of honesty is integral to preaching because every sermon espouses a particular worldview whether the preacher acknowledges it or not. The degree of honest engagement by the preacher will be evident to the congregation and will go a long way toward building trust with the congregation as they observe the preacher as one who also struggles with the consequences of systemic racism. The benefits of getting to Know Thyself in terms of one's social location include not only increased personal knowledge and increased trust within the congregation but also the beginning of a self-hermeneutic that allows preachers to critically consider their worldview, how it influences their scriptural interpretation, and how they will convey that knowledge to their congregations.

  

KNOW THY CONGREGATION

[T]he antiracist preacher will want to remember the words of Audre Lorde when she points out, “Oppressed peoples are always being asked to stretch a little more, to bridge the gap between blindness and humanity.” [Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Berkeley, CA: Crossings Press, 2007), 132.] This is why it is necessary to keep power relations in mind. Eric Law describes the pedagogy of the powerless and the pedagogy of the powerful and emphasizes the need for structures that ensure that both the powerless and the powerful are able to speak in groups. [Eric H. F. Law, The Word at the Crossings (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2004), 119–20.] A pedagogy of the powerless enables those who are marginalized to always speak first, have their opinions considered first, and be supported in their speech so as to empower their liberation. At the same time, a pedagogy of the powerful engages the powerful in a way that avoids hopelessness and counterproductive acting out by challenging them to let go of their power, to engage in waiting and listening, and to encourage them to speak after all other voices have been heard. The goal is always that groups move beyond superficial multicultural sharing sessions and to move into deeper relationships that provides support against the pressures to stop the work of antiracism that will inevitably come.
 
The pressure and fatigue of antiracism work presents a strong argument for the antiracist preacher to be attentive to rhetorical strategies. One of the rhetorical strategies already alluded to is the importance of attending to the relationship between the preacher and the congregation. The building of trust is essential. But the passion with which a preacher presents sermons is also important. Nurturing emotional connections with one's congregation increases the preacher's ability to hear and respond. [See, as an example, Mary Alice Mulligan and Ronald J. Allen, Make the Word Come Alive (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2005), 114.] A preacher who can convey narrative tension along with the fine details of good storytelling will be far more convincing than one who makes a didactic argument.   

Suzanne Wenonah Duchesne, “Antiracist Preaching: Homiletical Strategies for Undermining Racism in Worship,” in Liturgy 29, no. 3 (15 Apr 2014): 11-20.

Suzanne Wenonah Duchesne is the Lead Pastor of Ridge Avenue United Methodist Church, Roxborough, Penn.; UMC Chapel Coordinator at Palmer Theological Seminary, King of Prussia, Penn.; and Adjunct Professor of Pastoral Theology at Moravian Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, Penn.

“Christ in the Sea Monster”

Images of the biblical narratives often show us the gospel by linking one image to another, thereby helping us to see a character or an event in new light. Gail Ramshaw has spent many years unveiling these images in order to help us see our faith through lenses both verbal and visual. 

Sometime before the thirteenth century, some unknown Christian invented an elaborate forty-page biblical instruction, now called the Biblia Pauperum; each page depicted an episode from the life of Christ, which was flanked by pictures of stories from the Old Testament that were considered to be in some way parallel. Christians transported this Bible study program all over Europe, painting it on church walls, translating its text into their own language, and printing it in block-books. On the page dedicated to the resurrection, Christ is holding a standard of the cross as he rises up out of the tomb, and in an adjacent picture Jonah is grabbing onto a tree on the land as he rises up out of the mouth of the sea monster.

These Christian artists and sculptors presented to the viewers not some large fish or whale, so as to prompt learned and literalist discussion about the size of the animal's stomach and the likelihood of Jonah's surviving his ordeal. Rather, the tradition was to depict a grand mythical sea monster with a long and sinuous dragon tail, thus connecting the story of Jonah more with our imagination of evil than with the water creatures at the local aquarium. Jonah was kept alive and well in Christian imagination as a picture of Christ rising from the grave and of Christians given new life after their baptism.

The images are the wallpaper in the room of the Christian assembly . . .

Many Christian churches have used biblical imagery all along in painted ceilings and walls, leaded glass, icons, and other artworks.

The Gospel writers lifted up images from the Hebrew scriptures to open the minds of those to whom they wrote a new interpretation of already familiar religious terms. Such is the trajectory of insight: on the foundation of what we already know, we are given a slant, a twist, even a radical new shape for seeing.

Sometimes such pictorial imagery is masterful and religiously helpful, but often it is too ill-informed and too tame, so that the picture does little except render the biblical story small.  

. . . Because we humans can construct these mental images, store them, and access them at will, believers steeped in the Bible have in themselves a gallery of pictures of how God acts, who Christ is, and what is the life of the baptized community. For this lifelong project of assembling a picture gallery of salvation, the more biblical readings proclaimed at worship, the better.

  

I concur with my church body that it is better for the first reading to correspond in some way with the Gospel reading than for it to progress week by week on its own. When the first reading, and during the Christmas and Easter cycles also the second reading, cohere with the Gospel, the varied complementary biblical selections assist preachers and worshipers to probe the depths of the Gospel narrative. And so I urge also those who read consecutively through the Hebrew scriptures to note especially the images in the readings and to concentrate on their importance for Christian meaning.

As readers of this journal are aware, the Old Testament is not “history” as our culture knows it, factual and even certifiable accounts of the past. Christians read the Old Testament not to know what happened in the past, but rather mostly to understand what the New Testament is saying about Christ.
 

Ramshaw’s essay ranges through numerous specific instances in which knowledge of the linkage between Old Testament and New Testament imagery changes how we read a passage.

Preachers will find fresh impetus for preaching and personal nourishment reading Ramshaw’s thoughts on lectionary and image.

Gail Ramshaw, “Christ in the Sea Monster: Biblical Imagery and the Proclamation of the Gospel,” Liturgy 29, no. 4 (10 July 2014): 38-44.

Gail Ramshaw studies and crafts liturgical language from her home outside Washington DC.