Rote Worship Loses Meaning?

This is a response to a wonderful post by Dan at Necessary Roughness,
Rote Worship Loses Meaning? My response is posted here as it seems to me to be too long to include in the comments section on his blog.


+ + + - - - + + + - - - + + +


Dan, you make some wonderful statements regarding the liturgy and your esteem of the liturgy is wonderful to behold.

I have some additional thoughts that I believe are worthy of pondering.

After listing aspects of the historic liturgy you then say: “These are the church’s tools, and we make them ours.”

Are these the Church’s tools? Is not this part of the false perception of those who decree that the liturgy is rote? While rote does not necessarily mean “lifeless,” this is what is implied. Tools are lifeless instruments. Are any of the portions of the liturgy lifeless? Are they not the very Scriptures put into practice? The Scriptures by themselves are without life, and merely point to the one who is the Life. But when the Scriptures are uttered, those utterances are the very Word of God, Jesus, actively present among those who rightly utter them.

These words are not tools. They are the very Life by which we receive life.

This is true even in the form of creeds and prayers that are drawn from and summarize and recite the doctrine revealed to us in the Scriptures. The pure and holy doctrine is not a tool. It is the very voice of God among us.

In your last paragraph you say: “That’s not bad stuff to recite every week. If it loses meaning to me, then the fault is mine, not the liturgy’s.”

No, it is not really a matter of fault. It is really a matter of where life is found. The liturgy is alive. The question is, “Is the worshiper alive?” Also, “Is the worshiper receiving the Life that comes to be present through the liturgy?”

That really is the issue for those who consider the liturgy to be rote or not lively. Those with such a view toward the liturgy have chosen to make worship based upon their own actions, their own thoughts, and their own words. They have turned their hearts away from God’s gracious activities and His gracious words of life and power and His thoughts of condescension toward us poor sinners, and have imagined themselves worthy of offering praise to God so that their hearts are filled with their own glorious acts and thoughts and words that they imagine to be elevated to heaven by their doing them. They reverse the Christ Mass, the gift of God, which is from heaven above come to earth below. They reverse the Epiphany of our Lord to us, to make it the epiphany of the worshipers to God.

They do not feel uplifted by the liturgy because they do not believe that they need to be lifted up. Only one who understands worship as proskuneo (forward toward-dog), prostrate kissing of foot or hand, only one who understands worship from this perspective can truly appreciate the holy absolution as that which lifts up the soul. This is why “This is the feast of victory for our God” was substituted for “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” The revelation of what is for those who are already in heaven was chosen in place of the blessed evangelism of the holy heralds from heaven concerning the great work and love of God come to earth to save those who have no hope in themselves and throughout their earthly lives look longingly to that which is above.

This is why the so-called contemporary worship promoters are not promoting anything that is truly contemporary with earthly worshipers. For true contemporaneity acknowledges the “now/not yet” reality of earthly life and worship. True contemporaneity does not look in the mirror without observing the poor, miserable sinner who has no righteousness of his own, who craves the continual declaration of the heavenly absolution. True contemporaneity declares that worship and praise have value only because these actions are faithful reiterations of the declarations of the one who is worshiped and praised, the author and finisher of the faith.