Worship for the Whole People of God. 2nd Edition (Ruth Duck)

 

  WORSHIP FOR THE WHOLE PEOPLE OF GOD. Second Edition. By Ruth C. Duck. Louisville, KY: Westminister John Knox Press, 2021. Xx + 336 pages.

                In my opinion, the worship of God stands at the heart of Christianity. This stands in line with the Shema (Deuteronomy 6) and Jesus' First Great Commandment, which reiterates the Shema.  This command calls on us to love God with heart, soul, and might. Jesus adds a second command, which he draws from Leviticus 19. That command calls for the love of neighbor. These two commands are related to the expectation that the love of God will include the love of neighbor. The worship of God, therefore, stands as the foundation for all that we do in the world. As for how we worship, well that can take many forms depending on tradition and cultural context. Whatever form worship takes, it involves offerings to God of praise and thanksgiving and even lament. Our worship enables an encounter with the God revealed to us in the person of Jesus and through the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.

                Our worship experiences are rooted in particular traditions, but change is inevitable. That reality has been, perhaps rudely, reinforced by the COVID pandemic that upended normal practices across the globe. Congregations of every kind had to adjust their worship to accommodate the new reality. How do you do worship online? Can you have communion? What about singing? Although adjustments were made, there are still principles and practices that remain part of our experience even in challenging times. When it comes to discerning how worship is understood and practiced we need wise guidance. Such guidance needs to be updated regularly, even if what is shared has deep roots in what has gone before. One of those guides has been Ruth Duck, who recently retired as Professor of Worship at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and an ordained minister within the United Church of Christ. She is also the writer of hymns that include “Womb of Life, and Source of Being,” “Diverse in Culture, Nation, Race,” and “Lead On, O Cloud of Presence.”

                In 2013, a few years before her retirement, Ruth Duck published a new textbook on worship titled Worship for the Whole People of God. She wrote the book for use in seminary classes on worship and liturgy. As such, it covers theology, history, and practice. It does all of this masterfully. In this day and age, a textbook on worship must also address issues that might have been brushed to the side a generation or two ago. Therefore, a suitable textbook must take into consideration the global nature of the church. Gender is also something that must be engaged. There is also the matter of the arts and media that have made their presence felt in new ways. Again, Duck addresses all of these topics with grace and wisdom. That was true of the first edition but recognizing that the church and its worship has continued to evolve, she began to revise the textbook in 2018 and was published in 2021.

                Although it is designed to be used as a textbook, it should also prove useful as a refresher course for those of us who have been at this work for many years. We too need to be re-empowered and inspired to facilitate vital, vibrant, life-giving, and participatory worship in our churches. She acknowledges that she received numerous helpful comments about the first edition that opened her eyes to ways of improving the book. This advice ranged from her writing style to the inclusion of new ideas and resources for worship, especially worship that emerges out of nontraditional and minority experiences. This is especially true of recognizing more fully the diversity of those who worship. While much of the book remains the same as before, it has been improved upon. Added to the book is a new chapter on recent trends in worship, including a focus on contemporary forms of worship. Also added to the book is an appendix written by David Gambrell that explores the challenges and possibilities of online worship. This appendix emerged out of the realities of COVID and draws upon the material present in the core of the book. This should prove helpful even after the pandemic ends because we may take with us much that was learned from the pandemic into the future.

                Since I take worship preparation seriously, I found Duck to be refreshingly blunt about the serious problems facing the church today went it comes to contemporary worship practices. This includes a word about the lack of true participation in worship. Many of these issues have theological roots, which she addresses in the course of the book. One of the areas that I greatly appreciated was her attention to the sacraments—baptism and Eucharist. The discussion of the Eucharist, including how we word our prayers and share them, needs to be read with great attention. Duck is an advocate of frequent reception, but if we are to share in this meal, we need to make sure our practice is theologically sound and vibrant. This is, as she reminds us, a meal of thanksgiving, not a funeral service. Remembrance is part of the Eucharistic service, but the one we remember is alive and present with us.

                Throughout the book, she counsels us to be creative, while also being true to the inheritance of history and denominational tradition. But all things must become new. One of the items that stuck out for me from the first edition was the encouragement to engage in hymn-writing, even if that is simply paraphrasing a psalm or a traditional hymn. I heard the challenge and worked with my minister of music to create a response to the reading of the Scripture and a new version of the Gloria. I will confess that I’m not a poet, so I couldn’t simply use an existing hymn. Fortunately, my minister of music was able to compose music that fit my less than rhythmic wording.

                The book is comprised of fourteen chapters beginning with a chapter on theological foundations, reminding us that worship needs to be theologically grounded, whatever form it takes. She then moves on to discuss the importance of worship being participatory deals with diversity, planning and leading of worship, the arts, words (vivid words), prayer, Scripture and Preaching, sacraments (three chapters), varieties of pastoral liturgies (weddings, funerals, life-related rituals), and liturgies of healing and reconciliation. The concluding chapter titled “A New Church Still Emerging” reworks the earlier version of the chapter that was titled “Vital Worship for the Twenty-first Century.”

                In this final chapter, Duck speaks to some of the changes facing the churches as we move through the twenty-first century. In this final chapter, Duck offers up four theological norms that she says are inspired by Don Saliers. The first norm is that “Christian worship aspires to praise and thank God and to transform humanity and all creation through communion with God.” With this norm, she lifts up the importance of recognizing that transformation occurs because of communion with God, but too often our “worship” is taken up with humans addressing humans—even in prayer (prayers become sermons). The second norm states that “Christian worship locates us in the whole story of God with us in Jesus Christ through the Spirit.” In worship, we tell the story of God and God’s relation with creation in Christ and through the Spirit. Third, “Christian worship invites the wholehearted participation of the congregation in worship and in life with God in the world.” In other words, worship should be participatory—beyond simply singing a hymn or two and shaking hands. Finally, “Christian worship draws on the language, symbols, and art forms of local culture to glorify God, transform humanity, tell the story, and engage heartfelt participation, while at the same time remaining in tension with elements of culture.” Worship must be enculturated, but it can’t simply become enmeshed with culture (pp. 286-291). These are the norms that guide the course of the discussions in this book.

                Duck reminds us that there are no one-size-fits-all quick fixes. Worship is contextual. It reflects different cultural contexts, which need to be respected. While we might not agree with Duck’s interpretations or proposals at every point, we will find the resources we need to facilitate the kind of vital worship that will connect us with the living God, resulting in the transformation of our lives and our relationships.

               I do want to take note of “Appendix 1” provided by David Gambrell. He is correct, clergy faced a dilemma when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020. While some congregations were already live-streaming worship and therefore had a good handle on things, most of us had to figure this out on the run. We made our adjustments, but for many, this was a steep learning curve. Recognizing that some of what we took up will continue, it is helpful to have guidance that emerged amid the pandemic that reflects the work Ruth Duck had done in the book. I should note here that Gambrell doesn’t address the issue of copyright and licensing. Reference is made to use of public domain music, which I largely used at the beginning, but that limits us to music from the nineteenth century and before. To use more recent materials, there is a need to purchase licenses. It would have been helpful if he had given some guidance on this matter. There are two other appendices to the book. One provides a learning center coordinated with the liturgical year. The other lists “Ethical, Pastoral, and Liturgical Resources from an LGBTQ Perspective.” These can be useful, though I need to point out that David Gushee’s book Changing Our Mind was not published by Westminster John Knox Press. It’s an excellent book, but it is published by Read the Spirit Books.

                Over the years I have read widely in the field of liturgical studies. My thinking has been heavily influenced by Keith Watkins and Robert Webber—one a liberal Protestant of my own denomination and the other an evangelical Episcopalian (now deceased). I count Ruth Duck as a third important influence on my own thinking. Indeed, after the publication of the first edition, I had the privilege of hosting her for a weekend workshop on mission and the eucharist so that the congregation could share in her wisdom. Not only that but she wrote a communion hymn specifically for the congregation that is now added to the other hymns and prayers I had encountered before this.

                If you believe, as I do, that worship that transforms begins in full communion with God, and you wish to engage in this ministry with creativity, then my advice is to pick up this new edition of Worship for the Whole People of God and devour it. If you’re a pastor, read it closely and then share its contents with anyone involved in worship leadership from ministers of music to worship committees. If you’re not a member of the clergy but are in worship leadership, you also will benefit from reading it. Why? Because worship stands at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.