Bringing more BCP language into the UMC liturgy

After several years of membership in "non-liturgical", evangelical churches, it was at St. Alban's Episcopal Chapel at LSU that I began to get reconnected and reacquainted with the Great Tradition of the universal Church, especially our ancient liturgical and sacramental spirituality.  For this reason I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the liturgy and language of The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) of 1979 (the liturgy used at St. Alban's), though it is much maligned by some conservative Anglicans for various reasons.  What follows is a Eucharistic liturgy that incorporates much of the language of the 1979 Eucharistic liturgy (Rite II, Prayer A - with slight alteration) into the highly flexible Service of Word and Table III from The United Methodist Hymnal (p. 15-16).

The United Methodist Service of Word and Table III is intended to be a "bare bones" framework, into which a variety of liturgical material (including extempore prayers) can be incorporated without running afoul of the rubrics (red-letter instructions).  With this flexible rite a United Methodist pastor could incorporate language from, say, the Lutheran Divine Liturgy (especially appropriate since we are in full-communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), or (as I have done here) the Book of Common Prayer, while still honoring his ordination vow to accept and uphold the doctrine and liturgy of The United Methodist Church (UMC).  

If you are familiar with the UMC liturgy and the BCP liturgy you will see that I actually maintained the Words of Institution and the Epiclesis from the UMC liturgy, though technically Word and Table III would allow me to use the slightly different versions found in the BCP.  It is just easier for me to use the familiar phrasing at those points when I am handling the elements and therefore least likely to be looking at the page.

So, here is the Great Thanksgiving Prayer incorporating language of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (in italics), for use with United Methodist Word and Table III:

The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.

For you are the source of light and life; you made us in your image, and called us to new life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.  Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.

Holy and gracious Father: in your infinite love you made us for yourself; and, when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.  He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

On the night in which he gave himself up for us, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread; he gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

[Likewise] when the supper was over he took the cup; gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples and said, “Drink from this all of you; this is my blood of the New Covenant, poured out for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins; do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith:

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine.  Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood.

By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory, and we feast [with all your saints] at his heavenly banquet.

All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ.  By him, and with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
All honor and glory is yours Almighty Father, now and forever.
Amen. 


Prayer after Communion:

Eternal God, we give you thanks for this Holy Mystery in which you have given yourself to us.  Grant that we may go into the world in the strength of your Spirit, to give ourselves for others in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

or

Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.  Send us now into the world in peace and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

For a similar post, click HERE.

Recommended Reading Round-up

1) David Watson asks, "What is Christian Unity?"
Over the past couple of years the debate within United Methodism over sexual morality has been complicated by a number of clergy and even a few bishops who have openly broken with their ordination vows to uphold our Discipline.  This has led to a crisis of trust in the denomination and a sense among many that we may be heading toward a schism.  In more recent months there have been numerous proposals to restructure the church.  Some would create a separate jurisdiction for liberal clergy and churches that would have its own standards for ordinations and its own theology of Holy Matrimony separate from the rest of the church.  Other proposals would leave sexual morality issues and the question of whether to bless same-gender unions to each local church and each individual pastor (this would be a radical step towards congregationalism and raises questions about the viability of our itinerant system).  I have asserted that it is foolish to think that these compromises will actually satisfy everyone and "end the debate;" in fact some of them would, I contend, move us from an ugly fight every 4 years at General Conference to an ugly fight every year at Annual Conference.  Would this really deepen our unity?
At some point it is worth asking if these "compromise measures" are not themselves actually dismantling our unity, albeit in a more subtle way, as the connections and the covenant that bind us are deconstructed.  Who are the real schismatics here?  Watson also prods us to ask if the mere sharing of the same denominational name, pension system, and logo is sufficient to make us a truly "United" Methodist Church?  If real Christian unity of Spirit, of faith, and of covenant loyalty does not exist, what exactly is the point of bending over backwards and radically restructuring our inherited polity to maintain a mere institutional unity?

2) Why Religion will dominate the 21st Century:
This piece at The Week asserts that, while the 20th century was a highpoint for secularism and atheism, the great events of the 21st Century will be dominated by religious convictions.  This might sound counter-intuitive considering the rising numbers of "unaffiliated" in the USA today, but the USA is not the world, and even some of the comparisons between the religiousity of Americans today versus the 1950s might surprise you.

3) The new-old-fashioned conservatism of prince Charles:
I once read a blogger argue in favor of constitutional monarchy like this: elected officials (by the nature of their office) are always looking to the next election, while constitutional monarchs (by the nature of their office) are always looking to the next generation; they help balance the short-term political expediency of elected officials with a longer view on things.  This article at the week, examining the recent publication of Prince Charles' letters to government officials seems to bear that argument out.

4) Again from David Watson - "The Millennial Obsession"
Professor Watson examines the United Methodist church's "obsession" with asking what will help us reach "millennials" and also explains his skepticism about bloggers who claim to speak for this whole generation.

5) Obama's MidEast Failure is outlined in THIS article at National Review. Plenty of commentators (including me) have bemoaned that the 2003 invasion of Iraq is a primary reason that the MiddleEast is ungulfed in fire and blood today.  But the National Review points out that Obama inherited an increasingly stable Iraq and could have exerted tremendous influence there for good, had he not rushed to remove our troops as quickly as possible. Now we are beginning to hear talk of whether we ought to send troops back in to retake areas for which our troops already bled.  There was a reason we  did not remove troops so hastily from Germany, Japan, or Korea, but worked long and hard to stabilize and sustain what had been hard won.