Worship and Eucharist: The Whole Christ, Head and Body in summary
Douglas Knight
Each chapter of Worship and Eucharist deals with the six themes of gathering, hearing, singing, praying, eucharist, and whole people. “Gathering” deals with the calling of each Christian into the event of the Christian service and membership of the community of the church. “Hearing” deals with Scripture, witness, judgment, truth, and discipline. “Singing” deals with worship, the Holy Spirit, the gifts given to the church, and with the resurrection.
“Praying” deals with intercession, confession, and forgiveness of sin and then with our public role with society at large, with the secular sphere, and so with politics, economics, and culture. “Eucharist” deals with our embodiment and materiality, with our being made holy, with Christ’s sacrifice, and with the bread and wine. The last theme, “Whole
People,” deals with the people we meet in church, with the holiness of the church, and how the whole church looks forward to its redemption.
- Christ is the whole Christ, head and body. The whole Christ is a central
Christian doctrine. It has been neglected, and Western Christians
and Western societies have suffered as a result, alternatively
putting too much emphasis on the individual against the crowd or
the crowd against the individual. - We cannot talk about Christ as though he were severed from all
relationships, without his company and his glory. We can speak the
truth about ourselves when we understand that our identity is created
by the relationship that God has with us. - Christian worship is public. It takes place where anyone can see it,
hear it, and join in. - Christian worship is the dialogue of heaven with earth. It is continuous,
nothing can interrupt it, and earth depends on it for its life. In it, Christ speaks for us, and with him, we learn to speak for one another. - We are created to be social. The gospel teaches that mankind is
made for others, and so it tells us about our life together as Christians
in the holy community of the church, and in the world of communities
and nations. - The truth about us is protected by God. Many want to regard us as
the inert object of their knowledge. But God gives us life and freedom,
a future and hope, so we are neither completely predictable
nor knowable. Our mystery and dignity are secured by God. - Mankind worships, unstoppably and inevitably. Human beings cannot
prevent themselves from directing their love and praise in one
direction or another. Worship is not something that Christians do,
but others do not. - Christians send their worship and love deliberately in the one direction
to the one who can return it to them and sustain them in an
ongoing conversation and relationship. Others send their worship
and love in many directions. Since the world is full of worship, it is
not secular, but cultic. - The public witness of the church means that some services take place
in the open air in the presence of large numbers of people. Christian
worship is observed and overheard by the society around it. - The revelation of God is simultaneously God’s revelation of humanity,
and so it is the revelation of each of us to all others. God reveals
that we can be truly known when we are known as creatures of God,
who have been given unlimited dignity and sovereignty. - Christian worship warns rulers not to overstep the bounds of their
authority and so prevents them from tyrannizing over their people.
Christians sing warnings to rulers and encouragement to those
ruled. - It takes all Scripture to set out the doctrine of the eucharist in its
fullness and to avoid clumsy formulations made with contextless
notions of presence and absence. The doctrine of the eucharist requires
an account of our being made holy, our sanctification, which
happens through time, and so we need an account of the consummation
of humankind and creation, which is the goal of time. - Christian worship sustains the communities of family, city, and
nation on which all others rely. It brings judgment and truth and
so preserves a society from becoming fearful, totalitarian, and
deranged.
Chapter 1 in Summary
- “Church” means the people who gathered around Jesus Christ. It
is the assembly of those worshiping God truly. - The gathered Christian community is the people of God and the
body of Christ. Christian witness is embodied and made present by
a particular body of Christians. God brings them together so that
the world may see this gathering and wish to be part of it. - When we discover that, in Christ, God has committed himself to
our service, we are thankful, and this thankfulness expresses itself
in our worship. - Christian worship comes down from God to mankind and then
returns back from us to God. When we sing and pray, we are taking
part in this second movement, from mankind to God, from earth
to heaven. - Each worshiping congregation relays the worship that takes place
in heaven. When we join the worship of that company, we relay its
gladness to the world around us. - Worship of the true God breaks us out of imprisonment to our
own idolatry. If we do not worship the true God, we create substitutes
for him, worship them, and become trapped by them. - The Lord speaks to his people through the word given in Scripture.
He relays to us the voices of the witnesses of his holy people. The
many books of the Bible contain the statements of many witnesses,
gathered by God to speak to us, each in his or her own voice. That
these many voices give us this single testimony is demonstration of
its truth as the single indivisible testament of God - His commitment to us does not threaten God in any way. He is not
prevented from coming close to us by concerns for his own power
or holiness. His power does not prevent him from being gentle, but
enables him to be gentle. He does not overpower us. - Each Christian can pray and speak to the God of heaven of earth.
They can speak and pray for all those who do not speak or pray for
themselves and so can act as the intercessor and mediator between
mankind and God. - Those who were scattered are gathered together to become one
body. Though mankind has become broken, humanity may be reintegrated
in the company of Christ’s people. - With the Spirit, Christ makes us members of that body that he is
presently alone. Having made us whole, Christ present us as such
to the Father. - The Holy Spirit delivers and installs in us the gifts and abilities of
Jesus Christ. Each gift, and each Christian, serves the whole body. - The Holy Spirit gives us the holiness of Christ and purifies us from
what is unholy. Our progress through the world, and endurance of
its opposition, is the way he purifies us. - The Spirit supplies the truth of the world to us in installments. We
receive in doses the redeemed world within which we can develop
the character and practice the action of Christ. - The Holy Spirit makes this public assembly vocal and articulate so
that it may speak and pray truly.
Chapter 2 in Summary
- The church is the assembly of witnesses by which the world may
see its salvation and in freedom receive its life from God. - Christian worship takes place in public where anyone can see and
hear it, and join in. The gathered Christian community is the body
of Christ making itself available in that locality. - The church worships God in order that we remain his people and
do not become prey to other gods and forces that are unable to
help us. Christian worship saves us from all other forms of worship
in which we are tempted to fear and obey whatever malignant
creatures, institutions, and ideologies wield excessive and destructive
power. - The word of God calls into being those who bear the gospel. Christian
worship broadcasts the whole gospel. In each service Scripture
is read out loud to any member of that society that cares to hear it.
From the Bible we hear the many voices and statements of those
whom God has made his witnesses. The church follows the narrative
of the incarnation and passion of the Lord through the worship
service. Then it takes that same witness through the world. - The whole company of heaven sings, and we sing back, so every
service is made up of this call and response. As we sing together,
we become of one mind, with each other and with the Lord. - The Holy Spirit brings us here before all these other people and
holds this community together, making it the body and voice of
Christ. The Holy Spirit frees our voices and enables us to sing. He
holds us together as a single worshiping body and so enables us to
speak and sing together. - In all Christian worship we declare that we have received mercy,
and then we ask for more. In all our worship we ask God to give us
what is good, and to show us how to receive everything with thanks
so that we are able to receive everything that comes from him as
good. - The Lord takes away sin. He releases those who have become
trapped by our sin. He has authority to act for them all, to release
them from us and us from them. The Lord has the authority and
power to act on behalf of all creation and of each creature in it. It is
his exercise of this authority that keeps creation open, so that it is
not crushed by the weight of its own past. - We receive this judgment and mercy with thanksgiving. Our
thanksgiving detoxifies and purifies us. This true worship enables
damaged relationships to recover, love to continue, forgiveness to
be given and received, conflict to be avoided, and new starts to be
made. - The Holy Spirit preserves the identity of Christ, revealing him to
us so we may come to know him and see his glory, but not so we
may know him utterly or gain control of him. He gives us Christ,
but slowly so we have time to become holy. - Anyone who does not give his praise to God, does not flourish.
Driven by fear, we exalt ourselves, attempting to make ourselves
master of those around us. When our mastery is thwarted, we are
enraged and lash out. When we insist that we are above challenge,
we are making a claim of absolute power, and so of divinity, over all
others. - In Christ, we may grow to be master of ourselves. We can take
whatever curses and degradation the world throws at us and reply
with blessings. - The passion of Christ shows us the unbreakable love and covenant
of God for us. For us God has made himself weak and given himself
into our hands. A free and unforced relationship with God is open
for us in the difficult and non-obvious way of the cross. We can take
on this service of God to each other without loss of dignity and, in
our worship, we affirm that true power requires no self-assertion. - Christ is here by the Holy Spirit. We are present to Christ, but the
Holy Spirit hides Christ from us, while revealing him to us in the
challenging form of the Christians whom he surrounds us with. - The Spirit joins us to Christ, while he keeps Christ distinct from
us. The holiness of the head is not compromised by the body: his
divinity is not weakened by our humanity or flesh. The Spirit holds
Jesus out of our grasp and beyond the power of our perception. The
incarnation of God with us is not a threat to, but a manifestation of,
the glory of God. - The church stands for mankind. The church insists on the dignity
of every person, engages with them in hope, pointing them to the
promise of redemption. The society that does not hear the witness
of the church is liable to subordinate humanity to other ends. - In the church we meet one Christian after another. As we receive
them, and discover that it is Christ who is giving them to us, we
learn who he is. Christ comes to us first in the form of these Christians
whom we meet here in the church service. - The whole people will be raised. The church is the anticipation and
the pledge of the resurrection. The unity of Son and Spirit, demonstrated
by the resurrection, holds all these otherwise incompatible
persons together in the love and communion that is the church.
They mediate this resurrection to us, slowly, so that it may be internalized
within us. - In Christ alone we may grow to our full stature. In him, each of
us can become truly unique and individual, and be truly together
with our fellows, and not alone. Every aspect of man can be brought
together and integrated, not broken up or lost, so that man becomes
an entire and coherent whole, a living being who has a future.
Chapter 3 in summary
- Christ is the true and only God. Claims to absolute power made
by, or on behalf of, other powers are false and destructive. It is the
service of the church to say this to which ever society it is sent.
Christian worship is this public service. - A free and unforced relationship with God has opened for us in
the difficult and unobvious way of the cross. God has not overpowered
us, for his power does not prevent him from being gentle, but
his patience manifests his power. - God judges us for good, and under his judgment we are brought
towards the truth. In order to help, we ask one another questions
and suggest corrections. - There is one church into which we are baptized. Churches must
seek the judgment and correction of other churches in order to
remain faithful. - Christians read Scripture as God’s proclamation to the world. We
learn our identity through the worship of the assembly formed by
the narrative of Scripture, and so by the witnesses of both testaments,
Old and New, and by worship songs that are both old and
new. We grow by learning the songs, prayers, and cumulative experience
of all generations of the church. - The church celebrates in public places on the festivals of the
church, each of which sets out the descent and ascent of the Lord.
By celebrating the resurrection in public on each of the feasts of the
church year we set before our society the question of its identity, its
future, and its salvation. - The church processes through the narrow defile of the world made
fearful by the many cults and worships, motivated by love that,
without truth, has become idolatrous and destructive. - As it celebrates the resurrection, the church is able to receive judgment.
The good news of the covenant is the basis on which we may
receive the judgment and correction required for our redemption.
The church has to identify them as both the judgment of society on
itself, and of the true judgment of God. When we realize this and
repent, it is good news for the world. - The Holy Spirit makes the people of God holy. In installments he
gives us gifts that will reproduce the character of Christ in us. In the
church, love seeks permanence and so looks for the correction and
discipleship that will make it permanent. When we exercise self restraint,
we can act generously and for other people. The church
teaches self-control and the ability to wait. Christian discipleship
sustains our self-giving permanently. - The Holy Spirit enables us to acknowledge Christ and recognize
what we have received. He makes us articulate, able to sing, worship,
and give thanks. Through him we are able to speak for ourselves and
for others. The Christian assembly has the character of a parliament
and court of law: its members may raise any issue, make any challenge,
or speak for any community of persons as their advocate. - The Holy Spirit preserves the identity of each person. He reveals
them to us so that we may come to know them in their dignity. He
does not allow us to know them utterly or gain control of them. He
gives them to us and safeguards them from us. We have to learn the
hard discipline of taking these people as the very gift and appearance
of Christ - Our society believes it owes worship to many other gods. It is
not able to admit that it is captive to many cults; it refuses to name
these cults or give an account of the religion it is committed to. By
exalting himself over his peers, the individual submits himself to
unacknowledged forces, making himself subject to their cults, and
unreason proliferates until that society is exhausted by cognitive
dissonances and distress. - The love of God brings us to one another and makes us both human
and social. This love, defined by truth, binds each together
so that it may be a functioning society. We have to learn the hard
discipline of taking these people as the very gift and appearance of
Christ. - Those who have faith in the promise of God are ready to serve,
take risks, and make themselves vulnerable. The two fundamental
motors of society, trust and risk-taking, originate in the culture
formed by faith in the promises of God. - The body of Christ is the presence of Jesus Christ to his people
and the unity of this people with their Lord. Individuals and community
must undergo the long formation of the Holy Spirit that
will make each of them mature enough to affirm the freedom and
dignity of the other. - A Christian is a member of the communion of saints. Each may
become a distinct and irreplaceable individual as they undergo a
discipleship in the tradition of that communion. Through this discipleship
we may grow and learn to wait for one another and hope
for one another.
Chapter 4 in Summary
- Since the church is the witness of God to the society to which it
is sent, it worships out in the public square, where the world can
watch and hear. - Christians withdraw from the world to pray, and the world is intrigued.
The world watches, wants the qualities that they have, and
follows them. - Those who are formed by Christian worship develop self-control
and cease to be needy advocates of their own interests. Their well-ordered
lives are recognized and emulated, and the rule of law and
liberal political culture emerges. Private virtues create public virtues.
The mediation of the church maintains the fragile unity of the
nation. - The church is the source of public service. Those who govern themselves
well are able to help other people to do the same. From individual
self-government emerge the rule of law, public service, and
national identity. All government originates in the self-government
of individuals that gives rise to individual public service. - Christian worship gives rise to the secular public sphere and the
practices of public speech. These include good counsel, individual
conscience, record-keeping, and the public administration of justice.
These create trust and confidence and respect for the individual,
his work and property. This confidence makes it possible to take
risks, to explore and discover, and develop the culture that pursues
knowledge and science, and from which industry and prosperity
come. - Love aspires to permanence and so seeks the correction and discipleship
that will make it permanent. When we exercise self-restraint,
then we can act generously and for other people. The church
teaches self-control and the ability to wait. Christian discipleship
sustains our self-giving permanently. - Christian discipleship and discipline must be learned and taught.
Those who commit themselves to this vocation are our clergy, educators,
and academics. Those who listen to the whole people of God
will remain faithful servants, while others risk becoming stumbling
blocks. Teachers of the church who do not pass on the whole deposit
of faith, and fail to hear those who are suffering, risk the salvation
of a whole generation. - The church celebrates the passion and resurrection by travelling
publicly on its way of the cross. It travels to Easter through the passion
of Lent, in which it withdraws in order to prepare for the trials
that this witness requires. When it processes through our city and
society, the church has to address that society with prayers, asking
all sections of our society whether they are able to sustain or only
undermine the dignity that God has given to mankind. - The church repents for its failure to be the holy witness that the
world waits to see. The community that is made strong by the resurrection
can suffer, allow itself to remain vulnerable, repent, and
ask for forgiveness. It can lead the repentance of the nation and say
what that nation cannot say for itself. The church is the community
in which forgiveness is seen at work, in which trust is generated and
the social capital of a nation restored. - When the church fails to proclaim the resurrection, the world
suffers a passion that is without hope of redemption and so is
unending. Mankind is continually redivided into antagonistic communities,
in which the powerless are scapegoated and expended by
the powerful. - The church has to name the powers and diagnose our crises. It
does so by relating them to the high concept of mankind that comes
from the gospel, or to the reduced concepts of mankind used by
those cults and sensibilities that present themselves as secular (defined
by opposition to the gospel), which, disengaged from truth
and goodness (and beauty), reduce every question to the single issue
of power. - The liturgy of the world declares that we must extricate ourselves
from society and make ourselves alone. Each of us must raises
ourselves above all others. We have no fellows and are only ever
threatened by other people. Either utter isolation is your destiny or
loss of self-awareness and individuality through absorption within
the mob. - The liturgy of God celebrates that man is established in his dignity
and distinctiveness, in his individuality and in good company. We
acknowledge where our identity comes from, so we are content and
give thanks. Our thanksgiving is what our service of worship is, and
this worship is our service to our neighbors and the wider world. - Giving credit where it is due is the Christian public service. Christians
give thanks to God to whom it is owed and withhold their
praise from all other authorities that claim too much for themselves. - We withhold credit whenever it has been falsely attributed. We do
not give tribute to any authorities that demand it, no matter how
threatening they become, when they do not concede that we must
primarily give thanks and praise to God. - Our prayers are a form of public prophecy that addresses the powers
and institutions of our nation, warning them not to take for
themselves divine powers. The Christian doctrine of God is our
defence against false gods and demonic powers. - We may confess and repent on behalf of the powers that be. We
can invite them to give glory to God and so stop damaging our nation
by their defiance of God. By our worship we keep the pressure
on the powers that be and so keep them under control. - The church names the forces of disintegration at work in the nation.
The church tells the society in which it lives that it has no need
to torment and divide itself but may receive its restoration from the
covenant made public in the resurrection of Christ. - The world is presently being torn apart and dismembered in a
pagan sacrifice. And it is the world that is doing this tearing. It is
self-inflicted, but it is also always inflicted most painfully by those
with the power to do so, and most particularly against those without
any worldly power to resist. - The church asks the society to which it is sent whether it is consuming
those who serve it. It asks this society whether it is itself undergoing
the same division and destruction. The church points out
that, in the long term, those who only consume may be consumed. - The penitent church asks whether the nation is being broken and
scattered, or gathered, restored, and renewed. In its songs and prayers,
it asks whether any community represented in these markets is being
built up here or demolished. - The world is not secular but cultic. Our secularizing elite claims
that Christianity is religious and therefore irrational; only what has
been deracinated and so purified of all connection to the past can be
rational, it believes. Christians reply that this very claim, that there
is a duty of continuous secularization, is religious; as much as any
regime cuts itself from every tradition of thought, it is unable to
reason or to acknowledge any cultural givens at all, and so may end
in a mankind-destroying frenzy. - The church is the necessary voice within any society. The church
includes those who are not acknowledged or represented by in
any other institution, so it is the articulate and the inarticulate and
disenfranchised together. People from all stations of society stand
shoulder to shoulder and kneel and confess their sins together. It is
the embodiment of the reconciliation of all opposites and so is the
present anticipation of the future reconciliation of all mankind.
Chapter 5 in Summary
- The church is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic communion
of God as it appears amidst each society. This display of the power
of the resurrection to bring about the reconciliation of world is the
distinctive contribution of the church to the life of any nation. - The church is simultaneously many people and one person. This
reconciliation of one and many is played out in the form of every
Christian gathering. This head and this body face each other, and
this body must be reconciled to this head. - Each church has to recognize this single Christian as the gift of
Christ. We have to take each leader as the presence of Christ to us.
Each Christian, and Christian leader, has to recognize the whole
Christian people as the people Christ has given him to, and for
whom he is responsible. - Christ sends the apostle who is most humbling to us. This is why
leadership is always the most testing issue. The apostle is Christ
unrecognized, who has to suffer our dismay and revulsion at the
darkness of the cross that represents the extent of our sin and
helplessness. - The service of the church is to bless the society to which it is
given. It talks that society up, and enables it to pull back from
self-destruction. - The church that declares the limits to the authority of the worldly
powers is prepared to undergo the suffering that results from this
witness. The church is able to undergo the suffering transferred to it
by a society that is in denial about its own limits. To those in power
and most anxious to silence it, the church always appears to be suffering
and in crisis. - Together with our Lord we are being holy through undergoing a
continuing passion at the hands of the world. Christ is suffering,
rejected, despised by our society; those who abuse us, defy him,
and destroy themselves. Whenever their rejection turns violent, the
church more truly becomes the body of Christ, increasingly able to
realize and reveal that the passion of Christ is the way God is sharing
his glory with the world. - The eucharistic elements are miniature embodiments of Christ’s
passion. This bread represents “being broken,” and so indicates that
the church is breaking and opening itself for the world so that the
world can feed on it. This wine indicates that the church is to be
poured out as a drink offering, for the world which is likely to reject it. - The eucharistic bread and wine are embodiments of Christ’s victory,
and first installments of the reconciliation, fulfillment, and
perfection of all things. They are the unity of Christ and church
in one body, and they bring that order and unity to creation.
Bread and wine are embodiments of the passion and resurrection
simultaneously. - We are being integrated into Christ and into one another. Christ
is the whole loaf with his people. The bread displays the uniting,
coming into existence, and coming together of the body of Christ.
The body of Christ is incorporating us into itself. Eating this loaf is
analogue to our being incorporated into this indivisible body. - The proper context of the eucharist is the transformation and sanctification
of mankind and creation. They are the work-in-progress
of the ongoing priesthood of Christ. This living relationship must
be presented in dynamic terms, not in the static terms of substance
and presence. What we say about any creature depends its future, its
redemption, and its participation in the eternal life God intends for
it. What is living cannot be defined by what is dead. - The Holy Spirit has taken hold of us, put us in Christ’s possession
and is now making us present to one another. We cannot lay hands
on Christ, and cannot put ourselves out of his reach. This “presence”
is not reciprocal. We are present to him, but he is not present
to us. The very fact that we cannot see him, grasp and seize him is
guarantee that he is the Lord, not us. - The indivisible and indestructible Holy Spirit supplies us with
many witnesses, saints, and gifts of holiness. Endlessly able to divide
himself, he remains indivisible. - Christ has freed us from the compulsion to force one another. We
can no longer devour one another. He commands us to grasp and
hold onto him with all the force of which we are capable. - Mankind is the point at which creation becomes free, and at which
eternity enters creation, lending immortality to mortal creatures. - Christ is the whole Christ, the head and the body. When he is head
and body, we may also become part of this body. We are the body
because he makes us so and constantly sustains us as his. He makes
us holy and does so in order that the world can see through us to
him. - The Holy Spirit keeps Christ distinct from us. The absolute difference
between the Lord’s divinity and our createdness remains clear,
so he is not absorbed into the church, but forever remains God, and
our God. - Christ makes us present to one another, to God, and to all creation.
Our existence and presence are fitful, based on promise and
hope. God brings us into being and sets us before one another, in
the hope that all will receive the approval of all. - The church is the image of the future of all mankind, redeemed
and glorified. Whatever is happening to the church now is for the
glory of God and the glory that God gives to us.
