Suffering in Worship

Anglican Liturgy in Relation to Stories of Suffering People

Armand Léon van Ommen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317048480
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

How does the universal experience of suffering relate to the experience of worship? Questioning how Anglican liturgy welcomes people who are suffering, Suffering in Worship uniquely applies a narrative–ritual model for the analysis of both the liturgical text and worship services themselves.

In this book, van Ommen draws on interviews with participants in worship as well as clergy. Highlighting several elements in the liturgy which address suffering, including the Eucharist, songs, sermons and prayers of intercession, he shows the significance of a warm and safe liturgical community as a necessary context for suffering people to find consolation. This book also uses the concept of remembrance to plead for liturgy that attends to the suffering of both God and people. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of pastoral theology as well as clergy.

1 Introduction

Several years ago a friend told me the story of Anna and Kate, whom she knew from church.¹ A group of teenagers from their church in Belgium were on holiday in an African country. On their way from one place to another the driver lost control of the car. The car crashed and two teenagers died in that terrible accident. Back home they had a funeral and the funeral service expressed the Christian message of hope. But no words of pain. No words of mourning. No words of grief. Two weeks later my friend saw Anna and Kate after a church service. These girls had lost two of their friends. My friend looked at Anna and Kate and said: “You mourn, don’t you?” All of a sudden the girls burst out in tears and my friend just embraced them and let them cry. That evening Kate’s mother rang my friend and said: “Thank you.” Rather surprised, my friend answered: “Why do you say thanks?” Kate’s mother replied: “Because no one has given my daughter the opportunity to express her grief. You are the first one.”

The story of Anna and Kate is one of many which I have come across and which has stimulated my interest to write this book. It is a story about grief and a church community that was not able to give room for Anna’s and Kate’s stories of suffering, neither as a community nor in their worship services. Even in the funeral service the pain was not dealt with. In the face of tragedy, the tragedy itself was not faced. The grand story of divine hope was communicated at the expense of the small stories of human suffering.² But how can liturgy acknowledge stories of suffering? How do the story of God and the stories of people come together in public worship? These are the kinds of questions this book raises.

In the present chapter we will discuss a number of issues that set the parameters for our research. First, we bring out the tension between liturgy and suffering, which leads to the primary research question for this book. We then briefly review the treatment of the topic in contemporary research and the relevance of the topic. We then discuss some keywords and reflect on our specific research interests and on our own position. In the following section we introduce the narrative–ritual liturgical approach to our topic. Finally, we introduce the churches and people who participated in this project.

The tension between liturgy and suffering

The story of Anna and Kate is not an isolated one. Many people struggle with finding a place for their grief and sorrows in church. A number of theologians who study suffering, and lament as an expression of suffering, testify to the limited space for suffering in the liturgy and the community of believers.³ Furthermore, some of the participants in this research who shared their stories of suffering testified that the church did not provide the space to express their grief and struggles. Apparently, it is not easy for churches to address suffering and connect with people who go through difficult times. Nevertheless, not all church communities and not all worship services lack the sensitivity to deal with suffering. Some communities and some liturgies do comfort those who go through a bad patch. As a matter of fact, the church has a rich tradition and resources to address suffering in its pastoral care, its community of believers and its worship. After all, the central story of the Christian faith is that of God’s love expressed in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ and of resurrection life that still shows scars of wounds.

These stories and witnesses demonstrate that the relationship between liturgy and suffering is ambiguous. The ambiguity is highlighted by some participants in our project who say that liturgy addresses suffering and at the same time “I feel I cannot express my own suffering.” In this book we want to explore and evaluate what is going on between liturgy and narratives of suffering, asking how liturgy can do justice to people who experience significant negative life events.⁴

The complaints about the lack of attention to suffering in liturgy are not limited to only one denomination. The scholars and participants referred to so far, and the stories they refer to in their publications, come from a huge variety of Church backgrounds, including Free Church Evangelical, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic. These Churches vary in style, in theology and in atmosphere within the community (and sometimes these variations are found even within one denomination), and yet the observed tense relationship between liturgy and suffering runs across these Churches.

In this book we will focus on the Anglican community, more specifically, on the Church of England. This Church has explicit resources in its liturgy to address stories of suffering. At the same time, it will be interesting to discover whether a difference can be found between ‘high’ and ‘low’ churches. Anglicans have a rich tradition of worship for which the Book of Common Prayer has been, and still is, foundational. Throughout the twentieth century the Church of England (and other churches within and outside the Anglican Communion) has seen much liturgical revision, the latest being a range of worship books in the series of Common Worship. For our project, to study worship in this church is most interesting because most churches within the Church of England make use of Common Worship, while great differences of style and (theological) emphasis can be found, ranging from Anglo-Catholic to frontier ‘Fresh Expressions.’ Apart from these reasons to study Anglican liturgy, the choice is informed by being Anglican myself and my own appreciation of its worship. Given the fact that I live in Belgium and know the Church of England in the Benelux best, the focus will be on this geographical area.⁵

The above observations lead to the following main question that we hope to answer in this book: How does or can Anglican liturgy (in the archdeaconry of North West Europe in the Church of England’s Diocese in Europe) address and connect to people with regard to their narratives of serious negative life events?

Status quaestionis

The relationship between liturgy and suffering is not much reflected upon from a practical theological perspective or in liturgical studies, at least not with regard to the regular worship services (the literature on the so-called casualia is rich). The topic does not find its way easily into general introductions of liturgy, and the number of monographs or articles discussing it is limited. A thorough exploration of how people appropriate liturgy when experiencing negative life circumstances is lacking, especially from an empirical point of view.

In the field of liturgical studies, Rachel’s Cry: Prayer of Lament and Rebirth of Hope by Kathleen Billman and Daniel Migliore is one of the few monographs devoted to the subject of lament and therefore of suffering.⁶ The topic of suffering is addressed by James Farwell from the perspective of Holy Week.⁷ Gail Ramshaw proposes five “Theses for Discussion,” which seek room for lament in the Eucharistic liturgy and place lament within the typological framework of praise and grace.⁸ Don Saliers is one of the few liturgical scholars who takes the human plight very seriously throughout their books. Saliers also writes one chapter specifically on lament.⁹ Together with Nancy L. Eiesland he has edited a volume on human disability, which contains several essays on disability and liturgy.¹⁰ Taking into account insights from trauma theory, Dirk Lange rereads Luther’s theology and rethinks liturgy.¹¹ John Witvliet provides biblical underpinnings for the recovery of lament in liturgy in his Worship Seeking Understanding.¹² Finally, the work of David Power needs mentioning, as he engages with the topic of suffering and liturgy extensively in his Eucharistic Mystery. His work includes a narrative perspective on liturgy.¹³

Some other books on worship take up the theme of suffering (often more specifically the theme of lament), but seldom devote more than one chapter to the topic. Furthermore, these chapters often draw on Old Testament studies, thereby not taking liturgy as point of departure, let alone empirical research on worship.¹⁴ One exception to this is the collection of essays in Worship That Changes Lives, edited by Alexis Abernethy. Some of these essays are based on empirical research. The focus of that particular project is on transformation and the topic of suffering is included. However, at the end of the book Abernethy urges that “future research will need to consider more fully the important role of pain, suffering, and sadness.”¹⁵ From a practical theological perspective comes Lament: Reclaiming Practices in Pulpit, Pew, and Public Square.¹⁶ This book contains a collection of essays that aim at rediscovering lament as a valid and much needed expression of suffering and brokenness. Finally, the collection of essays in Evoking Lament, edited by Eva Harasta and Brian Brock, should be mentioned here, although most essays in this collection deal with lament from a systematic theological perspective.¹⁷

It should be mentioned here that feminist liturgical scholars have asked attention for the suffering of women.¹⁸ In a sense the feminist liturgical movement(s) can be seen as one group that thoroughly reflects on suffering and liturgy. The suffering often mentioned is the silencing of female voices throughout the Scriptures, tradition and in contemporary liturgy, especially by male dominated language, rituals and power.

In sum, few monographs or articles are directed to the specific topic of suffering and liturgy in regular worship services. Some books pay attention to the topic, but do not have it as their main focus. What is often lacking is a thorough treatment of what is happening when liturgy and the human experience of suffering meet, whether...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword by Bruce T. Morrill, S.J.
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• Part I A narrative and liturgicalritual analysis of liturgy and stories of suffering
• Part II Liturgical theology: human tears and divine tears
• Bibliography
• Index