Worship Notes: “The Post-Communion Songs, Prayers & Blessings,” pt. 2

 

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Last month, I began to describe the ending of our worship services.  In this “Worship Notes,” the journey finishes (or is it just the start?) as we look at the final prayers and blessings.

 

I.          The final prayer, blessing and dismissal send us on our way.  There is a choice of three final prayers in the green LBW.  The first, “We give you thanks, almighty God…” is translated from Martin Luther’s German Mass.  The second, “Pour out upon us…” is a variation of a final prayer from the Roman Catholic Easter service.  The third, “Almighty God, you gave your Son…” came from the 1928 Episcopalian worship service and was first used in our 1958 Service Book and Hymnal.

 

II.          The final blessing, or benediction (literally, “good speech”), ends the worship service.  There are a variety of choices, but perhaps the most common is the Aaronic benediction from Numbers 6:24-27 (The Lord bless us and keep us…).  In the book, Gathered and Sent, Karen G. Bockelman wrote,

 

Blessing is a powerful act, a sign of God’s gracious care in daily life.  The words of blessing are not an expressed hope, a request, or a prayer.  We do not ask the Lord to bless us and be gracious to us.  They are words of faith and fact.  They are not just wishful thinking, but true signs of God’s presence and power.  God looks upon us with favor and gives us peace.[1]

 

III.         And last, we are sent out with the summary words: “Go in peace, serve the Lord!” with the response, “Thanks be to God!”  This dismissal comes from the old Latin Mass, “Ite, missa est.  The translation would be, “Go, it is being sent.”  To say it more clearly, “You (all of you), go; it (that is, the peace you’ve received here) is being sent!”[2] 

These are excellent and summarizing words of faith and commitment.  Through the Word and Sacrament, we have been confronted, we have confessed, we have received forgiveness and the promise of the Lord’s presence.  In short, we carry Christ’s peace with us.  Having received that peace, we need worry no longer about ourselves and our own salvation.  Freed from self-concern, we are finally able to truly obey the commandments of love—love of God, and love neighbor through words and actions.

 

 

Let me summarize this whole journey through the liturgy of the Service of Holy Communion with the words that I used in January of 2000: ”‘Liturgy’ literally means ‘the people’s work’  (from leit = people + urgy = work).  Our heritage has handed exquisite words and signs to us that describe the presence, actions, forgiveness and challenges of God.  With patient listening, these words and signs of liturgy can teach us about the depths of God.  They describe things that can’t be spoken.  These are the ‘works’ of liturgy.  But another half is necessary: you and me, ‘the people.’”[3]  

The people who gather on Sunday are not somehow different from the people that they are on Monday through Saturday.  Our worship on Sunday includes our whole selves, who and what we are, in the rest of our lives. 

This is the pattern of the ocean beach.  It’s waves move in and out, pulling and pushing debris and sand, sometimes from and sometimes onto the beach.  And then there is another larger pattern of high tide and low tide.  Liturgically, we move weekly, from Sunday to Sunday, but also from the “high holy-seasons” of Easter and Christmas to the lower “green seasons” of growth, like the weeks of Epiphany and Pentecost.

It is also the pattern of our lives.  You can find the ebb and flow of waves and tides in our daily habits, and the high and low times of our lives.  Reflecting that, at different times in our lives, different portions and expressions of the liturgy will mean more to us. 

When many people gather, believe me, at any one moment—no matter where you and your mind are—someone in the congregation needs this liturgy to speak to them, and they need us around them to help speak it.  Liturgy may be “the people’s work,” but it is the people speaking the Words and Assurances of God.

 

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[1] Augsburg Fortress, ©1999, pp. 52-53.  I will be using Bockelman’s book as a text for a Sunday morning adult education class, “Growing Deeper” beginning this fall of 2001.

[2] Torvend, Samuel.  Keynote speech at the 2001 Annual Assembly of the Southwest Washington Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

[3] To read through this series on the liturgy in prior “Worship Notes,” you can request Messenger articles from Vol. 52, #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11; and Vol. 53 #’4, 5, & 7.  You can also find them on Pastor Kaurin’s website: www.oocities.org/gpkaurin/, then click on “Newsletter Articles” for the menu.