Monthly Archives: March 2020

COVID-19 and the liturgy at MtE

In view of the developing concern to minimise the rate of infection of the COVID-19 virus in the community, the health implications of gathering for worship and certain parts of the liturgy must be considered. As yet we have no reason to cease to convene in a common space for worship but such liturgical actions as the passing of the peace and celebration of the Eucharist must be addressed, not least because many of us number among those more vulnerable to the virus.

While no binding direction has been received from civil or church sources, at MtE the following changes will take place from this Sunday March 15 until it becomes clear that we can safely return to normal practice, or further changes are required:

  1. The passing of the peace. This important liturgical act, which typically involves handshakes, hugs and sometimes kissing, will be limited to the spoken exchange between the liturgist/minister and the congregation. That is, the declaration ‘Peace be with you’ will be heard, and the congregation will respond as normal; we will then proceed directly to the recitation of the Creed.
  2. The Eucharist. An obvious way to reduce the risk of infection is continuing the practice of the celebrant using a sanitiser before breaking of the bread. For the distribution, the option we will take up at MtE for the time being is ‘communion under one kind’. This method of communing – not always uncontroversial – has the priest/minister take of the cup and the bread but the congregation taking only the bread communion element, although received with the words ‘the body and blood’ of Christ.

A helpful source of information related to the issues involved here, can be found in two documents from the Lutheran Church in Australia: Guidelines on Hygiene in Worship and Guidelines for the Distribution of Holy Communion.

These changes at MtE are ‘imposed’ by the minister for the time being – after conversation with some members and colleagues – on the understanding that, while they’re not yet formally required, they may soon be so, and there will likely be a number of members whose concerns could affect their fullest possible participation in the meantime. There is now opportunity for reflection on the appropriateness of the changes, and any further changes, over the next few weeks.

MtE Update – 12 March 2020

  1. Lenten Studies are now underway. Details of our Lenten Studies for this year are now posted here; NOTE that the Wednesday night studies at MtE will now commence at 6.45, without the prior meal but with a tea/coffee break in the midst…  
  2. ‘Illuminating Faith’ is a ministry MtE extends to the wider church; see the web page for some of the recent materials; the recent sermon series on Jonah will eventually be added to this list as a study resource for local groups.
  3. The latest Presbytery eNews (March 12) is here.
  4. The most recent eNews from the Synod is here (March 6).
  5. THIS SUNDAY March 15 (Lent 3): we continue with our reading of the ‘servant songs’ from Isaiah, this week looking at Isaiah 49.1-9. See here for more information.

Old News

  1. Details of our Lent and Easter services are now available here.

Advance Dates

  1. The MtE congregational AGM will follow morning tea on Sunday March 29; papers will be available from March 15, and nominations for elders and church councillors are due by then!
  2. Sunday April 5 – Our morning service will be built around a hearing of the Passion narrative of St Matthew

8 March – The Poetry of Birth

View or print as a PDF

Lent 2
8/3/2020

Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalm 121
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17

Sermon preached by Rev. Dr Peter Blackwood


Our daughter came home from school one day to announce that her science teacher had taught her that the gestation period for humans is 32 weeks. Her mother, who had trained as a midwife and had confirmed the generally accepted period of 40 weeks through 3 pregnancies told our daughter the teacher must have got it wrong. When my opinion was sought, I said I thought it felt more like about 9 months but what would I know. The next day our daughter returned to announce that her science teacher still insisted that the gestation period for humans was 32 weeks and not 40 as her midwife mother and veteran of 3 pregnancies imagined. The next day our daughter took her mother’s midwifery book with her finger firmly planted on the number 40 vis a vis the weeks of normal human gestation. How was he going to get out of this one? Her teacher remained adamant. He declared that her mother’s midwifery book was old and out of date.

Mind like a steel trap – that man – a bit like Nicodemus who went to see Jesus in John chapter 3. Their conversation was about birth too. Nicodemus could cope with the idea of being born. What stretched his mind beyond credulity’s limit was the idea of being born from above. This was to present a concept so new that it would not fit into any ideas he had carried up to that point. He was being asked to cope with an impossible world image.

A thousand sermons have been preached about Nicodemus with explanations of what being born again might mean – about why he might have come by night and so forth. All I want to say today is that Nicodemus came to Jesus and Jesus challenged him to think in radically new and impossible ways about how life under God works. In matters of faith it will be OK to think in black and white for a while, OK to live in a cause and effect understanding for a time, but at some point it will cause you trouble.

The story of Nicodemus presents the ever present problem for the church — how to tell its ever new and always impossible story of salvation to a world that cannot think in metaphors and stories and effects sometimes coming before causes and ever so many shades of grey, for whom poetry is language that cannot convey truth.

Finally Comes the Poet, Brueggemann’s book on preaching, divides the world of spoken and written language into two – poetry and prose. The title of his introduction, ‘Poetry in a Prose-Flattened World,’ forewarns the reader of the content of what is coming and something of the feelings the writer has about prose. His feelings of irritation with prose lie in the conviction that prose predominates as the language that attempts to convey the truth. It attempts to answer every question, talk every issue to a standstill. The world that confines itself to the language of prose is affected by its desire to nail every point down, leave no question unanswered. It promotes in our world a technical way of thinking. When we take this language into conveying the truth of the gospel we find that it ‘has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane.’[1] Mysteries become problems to be solved, miracles have rational explanations to be discovered. Prose is the language of the Enlightenment, a movement that still penetrates deep into our Post Modern culture. The church’s preaching is to address the world that is dominated by engineers, inventors and scientists and the language of prose will not be satisfactory in that address. Brueggemann quotes Walt Whitman:

After the seas are all cross’d (as they seem already cross’d,)
After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,
After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,
Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.[2]

The preacher and the prophet come singing these songs. These are the songs that take their hearers beyond thought to emotions, beyond what is, to a vision of what might be. The poet’s speech does not replace prose. Human endeavour will have its go first, but it will necessarily come to a wall that must be addressed by another language.

Putting into words the miracle of coming to faith, and, even more miraculous, continuing and growing in faith is pretty near impossible. Especially so in a world that relies more and more on scientific exactitude. Norman Young, one of our most esteemed theologians, and Jim Brown, a scientist who, coincidentally, developed advances in the science of human reproduction. Both devout Christians. They would argue, the theologian insisting that there are aspects of knowing about God that remain a mystery, and the scientist insisting there must eventually be answers to all the questions, even the ones about God. Jim wanted scientific language to explain what only poetic language could reveal.

We rely on the language of metaphor or  symbol and simile, of talking about rebirth when we do not refer to the events of a natal delivery room, when we light a candle, not because there is a power failure but because we want to say that we can see what cannot be seen with eyes, or we are seen and known and loved by the one who cannot be seen or fully known.

Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about being born when he had already been born many years since, and he spoke to him about not dying when it was perfectly clear that his body would one day decay in the ground. At one level the language of faith is nonsense —

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

— you see? It’s nonsense, but it is life giving and God loving nonsense, the kind of language that makes golden sense in the Kingdom of God.

[1]              Walter Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), p. 1.

[2]              Walt Whitman, “Passage to India,” 5:101-5 Leaves of Grass (New York: Mentor Books, the New American Library, 1954), p. 324 cited in Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet,  p. 6.

Illuminating Liturgy – A Tenebrae Service around St John’s Passion

Tenebrae services, or Services of Shadows, come in many variations. This present service is structured around the account of the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus given in St John’s Gospel, divided into seven sections. This text is the set Gospel reading for Good Friday which, on account of its length, is often not heard in its entirety in Good Friday services. Using this text for a Tenebrae service on Maundy Thursday or another evening in Holy Week makes possible a hearing of the whole of the narrative as preparation for whatever shorter part of the set Gospel might be used on Good Friday.

The service simply allows John’s passion narrative to unfold, punctuated by periods of silent reflection, a sung refrain and the extinguishing of a candle after each section. An opening and closing prayer are the principle points of interpretation of the narrative, which is otherwise heard without comment.

The service concludes with a final prayer and musical reflection before the people depart in silence, when ready.

This service is shared in the hope that it might be of use to others. Please feel free to download the service document (in MS Word .docx format) and adapt it as appropriate to your local context. We’d love to hear whether it has been useful to you!

Illuminating Liturgy – The Passion according to St Matthew – A Service Order

For a number of years the Congregation of Mark the Evangelist has heard the passion narrative of the gospel for that lectionary year on Passion (Palm) Sunday as a preparation for Holy Week. A version of that order — for Matthew’s Gospel in Year A – is shared here in the hope that it might be useful to others .

The text of the passion narrative is punctuated with prayers, psalms and hymns, with a few suggestions for dramatic actions which might help to reduce the ‘wordiness’ of such a long reading in church. The order also includes the Eucharist. More explanation of the service and how to prepare it are given in the downloadable document. Used ‘as is’ – including Holy Communion – the service would run for 70-75 minutes, depending on your music choices.

Please feel free to download this resource (in MS Word .docx format) and adapt it as appropriate to your local context. We’d love to hear whether it has been useful to you!

Lectionary Commentary – Lent 6A – Passion/Palm

The following links are to the Revised Common Lectionary commentary pages of Howard Wallace and Bill Loader, and are suggested as preparation for hearing the readings in worship for the Sunday indicated above.

Passion Sunday Isaiah 50:4-9a and Psalm 31:9-16 

Palm Sunday Isaiah 50:4-9a  and Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 

Passion and Palm Sunday: Philippians 2:5-11

Palm Sunday: Matthew 21:1-11

Passion Sunday: Matthew 27:11-54 (26:14 – 27:66)

See also the UCA’s ‘By the Well’ Podcast on the readings for this Sunday

 

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