If you look at the post immediately below this one, you'll see the liturgy I used in the deconsecration service of the chapel of College Wesleyan Church (we are moving buildings).
I have excerpted some of the liturgy below. What do you think of the theology and/or hermeneutics?
1. The Opening Sentence
Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge. Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there I will gather you, and from there I will bring you back.
2. The Content of the Opening Litany
Throughout the Bible, the history of Israel, and throughout Christian history, God has set aside “sacred spaces” where heaven and earth meet. Such spaces are like the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. God sets apart ordinary materials for holy purposes, and they become special mediations of God’s presence and action in us. The Bible is no less of a sacrament, a “place” where ordinary words are set apart for holy purposes, and God’s revelation is mediated. The Chapel of College Wesleyan Church has served such a sacral purpose for us.
When the common materials of this building were consecrated to God, God began to use them to mediate His presence and action here. First, this place became symbolic of heaven and God’s presence. We did not treat this space as we would treat ordinary space but as we would treat the very presence of God.
But sacred spaces are not merely symbolic, for God graciously transforms symbolism into reality. Not by our action or conceptualization, but through His gracious action the common becomes the holy and ordinary space becomes God’s real presence.
Today we return this space to the common and return this place to the earth. God will still be present here, for He is always everywhere present. God might still meet us and act in this space, for God can meet us and act anywhere. But today His glory departs from this room and from this church with us, until He deigns to sanctify new holy ground for us.
The Collect for the Day
All present God, who has sanctified this ground as holy ground, has met us here in the body and blood of your Son, has sent your Spirit forth time and time again and created us anew: Go with us from this place today until we find another resting place where we may remove our shoes in the presence of Your holiness, through Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
What do you think?
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10 comments:
I loved the opening sentence.
As for the opening litany, it was very iconic, in line with the 7th ecumenical council opposing iconoclasts and defending iconic theology. BUT, I want to put more faith in the CHURCH as the temple of God's Spirit, than in holy places as sacramental. The church can be the church without a semi-permanent tabernacle.
First of all, I agree with Scott's thoughts above. We must focus on the church as being the temple/s of the Holy Spirit rather than placing too much focus on "sacred spaces".
That being said, I do appreciate sacred space and its ability to help focus our hearts and minds on communion with God but I am struggling a bit with this:
"But today His glory departs from this room and from this church with us, until He deigns to sanctify new holy ground for us."
I'd love to hear you expound on this. Do you mean that God's glory is departing because the members of CWC as temples of the Holy Spirit are physically leaving the building? Does that mean that in the past even when people weren't in the building that God's glory was there?
I'm also wondering about this:
"Not by our action or conceptualization, but through His gracious action the common becomes the holy and ordinary space becomes God’s real presence."
How does a physical place become the presence of God? I affirm that we can be in God's presence but I was under the impression that when the veil of the temple was torn in two God's presence wasn't fixed on a certain spot any longer.
I don't mean these questions in a smart alecky way at all. if they come across that way its probably because I need to go to bed and my brain is addled from Greek class. I do want to hear your thoughts.
A few other late night ponderings:
I don't know if it is a "movement" in the Wesleyan Church or not, but I have noticed from Steve Deneff's books, the new CWC building, and the new chapel at IWU, that sacred space is a huge focus these days. Is this just a pendulum swing away from the boomer multi-purpose room? You know, women's aerobics on Thursday, youth all-nighter on Friday, men's prayer breakfast and basketball on Saturday, with the Eucharist being served on Sunday.
How will this kind of shift, (if it is a real shift and not just a Marion thing, I haven't studied it much) match the kind of church that Keith Drury is thinking about this week with his current and recent students?
Sorry Ken, I am starting to ramble. Thanks for making me think. It's nice to look beyond Gordon Conwell for a few moments.
Great challenges Scott and Mark. A few first responses:
1. If I follow my own hermeneutic, I have to take an ecumenical council seriously, although given the rejection of it by and large in Protestantism, I don't feel completely obligated. You might notice that I also used the original form of the Nicene Creed without the "filioque" line added in the West without the consensus of the East.
2. If you were to press me (which you are), you would likely find that I have a weaker sense of "real presence" than most Roman Catholics and Orthodox. But I want to say more than most Protestants do about the space itself, for example, when no believer is in the room. It is still a different room from other rooms, just as bread that has been consecrated is different bread.
3. Liturgical language, in my opinion, is often hyperbolic language. I am not convinced, for example, that the author of Hebrews meant this line literally: "through whom also He made the worlds" (1:3). So the metonymy, "become the real presence" is somewhat figurative speech the literal version of which would be something like "become so typified by the Presence of God that we might say that it has become the divine presence."
4. The movement to appreciate sacred space and symbolism is far more extensive than Marion (it is a characteristic, for example, of the so called "emerging" church). But I doubt there is any danger of it coming close to balancing out the aversion to metaphor in deference to the literal that has often characterized Protestantism. I personally believe, however, that there is no true understanding of what the Bible means by holiness, without grasping the idea of divine "space."
Some of my thoughts...
It is interesting to me how few people (including most members of College church) believe that anything material can be sacred or holy--including material human beings... one person said Sunday something like, "the only way a person can be holy is they have a soul--only the spirit can be holy." Which is why she rejected both the idea of consecrating a building or de-consecrating it...
Hmmmmmmmm..... I wonder how our doctrine of the sanctification of space and of human beings relates?
Thanks Ken, I appreciate you taking the time to expand on that for me.
I particularly like the way you worded this: "...the aversion to metaphor in deference to the literal that has often characterized Protestantism."
I have to admit that I'm a bit of a hypocrite in that I haven't worked through that aversion you speak of. But I sure do enjoy sacred spaces when I find myself in them. Every time I make it to IWU I love to spend time meditating in the Williams Prayer Chapel.
Where did this idea of "deconsecrating" come from? Is this something you worked out by looking at orthodox theology and the stance on "sacred space" or something you came across being done elsewhere (or in a different era)?
Interestingly enough, it's something that the holiness tradition has done for as long as we can remember. In my websearch, I did find a Methodist and a Roman Catholic Church that had done it. I was wondering if it particularly has picked up as a concept in the last fifty years when there was a whole lot more moving of church buildings from growth and move to suburbia than there were, say, in medieval times.
I will say that the holiness tradition had a heightened sense of what you could and could not do in the sanctuary. We joke about the "6 inch" rule that would not allow a fellowship hall (where you ate) to be closer than 6 inches from the worship building.
The idea seems fundamental to consecrating a building. If you're going to consecrate it when you move in, why wouldn't you deconsecrate it when you moved out? I remember a pizza place in KY that used to be a synagogue. It had a bar where the front used to be. Somehow it seems appropriate to me to have some sort of ceremony for that kind of a transition!
It would be an interesting masters thesis for someone to do no doubt.
Some protestants might certainly take Jesus' metaphor, "This is my body, this is my blood" as just that - hyperbolic, metaphor, instead of "deferance to the literal."
That's an interesting reversal isn't it! So strong on the literal on biblical interpretation and avoidance of ritual but on communion the sides reverse. Good point...
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