A Contemporary Form Of The Daily Office

Christian Faith and Life Community

The Christian worship service on these pages represents an effort of the Christian Faith and Life Community, standing in historical continuity with the Church in every century, to utilize the insights of contemporary psychology, philosophy, theology. and literature to embody the historic drama of the Word of possibility for life in Jesus Christ.

This service is one of a series of contemporary worship form being developed in the Community in which present-day thought patterns are held together with the ancient structure; of the Christian service, looking toward the recovery of vital Christian worship in the 20th century.

In every area the Church makes anew the effort to understand her drama of corporate self­understanding afresh in the light of the thought patterns which are current in that time. So it is that the great work of Pope Gregory, Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer, and the Church of South India is far more than the effort of some man or group to "revise the liturgy." Rather, they were attempting to set the ancient drama of Christian worship into readily understandable categories for modern people who understood themselves as the Church of Jesus Christ.

Let there be silence as the Community gathers for the Office. At the appointed hour, the ministers shall enter and kneel in prayer. As the ministers arise, let the Community stand and face the Table. The minister shall then begin the Office by saving.

We assemble ourselves as the People of HIM.

Community: HIM is HE who gives us our being.

Minister: The Author of our life and our death HE is the LORI).

Community: HE who is the LORD is our LORD.

Minister: There are no other lords before HIM. Community: AMEN! Let us serve the Lord.

THE OFFICE OF CONFESSION

Then the Community shall face one another after which the minister shall say:

As the People of the Lord, I declare to you, that we have been given life but we have not lived: we have been called to freedom but have found the burden too heavy. In fear and in pride we have turned from life to live in self­deceits and to serve other lords. I therefore call upon us to acknowledge commonly our willfulness and our weakness in denying, what is given, for the beginning of life is our decision to die: thus it has ever been and thus shall it always be.

The Community shall then kneel or bow and repeat with the minister the following prayer of confession

O THOU our Lord, who art before and after all things; the last of all the powers of this world: by whom and before whom everything exists, that exists; in whose hands lie the mysteries of each yesterday, tomorrow, and today: we are those who knowing the wonderfilled dread of thy presence, have lacked the courage of our awareness, vainly striving to hide ourselves from THEE, we are those who, knowing that life is good, have murmured against our fate, abusing the world about us and all therein; we are those who, knowing that life is given to us only in the present, desperately cling to our false images about the past, and our imagined fantasies concerning the future, knowing that we are received in being, do not choose to be; knowing that we are called to live, do not elect to be called. Have mercy upon thy sick creation, O LORD; O LORD, have mercy upon us. Amen.

Then while the Community remains kneeling or bowed the minister shall read what follows,

I would now remind you of that WORD in which the People of the LORD have lived, of which People we are this day the posterity.

Minister: Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Community: We acknowledge on behalf of all mankind our holy dread of thee; our utter creatureliness before thy limiting power; and the absolute obedience.

CALL TO

PENITENCE

PRAYER OF

CONFESSION

which is required of us and all creation

Minister: Give us this day our daily bread

Community: Let us live for this day as good and significant in itself; evcr free from the securities of the past; ever open to the uncertainties of tomorrow.

Minister: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors;

Community: In every life circumstance which the day may bring, let us live under the single requirement, freely to accept ourselves and freely to receive our neighbor.

Minister: Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Community: May those trials, which sorely test our courage to live as free persons open to life, never come; but if they be given this day, may we be found faithful and without default. Amen.

THE OFFICE OF THE WORD

WORD OF PARDON

I say unto you now, let us rise up as living men.

Community: We rise to the givenness of our daily lives.

The Community shall then rise facing the Table as the VERSICLE

minister says

To live is to live before the LORD: HE who is HE

who is the Word; He who is the Word of our life.

Community: Such has it always been, such shall it

ever be; such is our life e~ en now.

Amen.

Minister: So to live, is the praise of the LORD.

Community The Name of HIM be praised! Amen.

Then shall the Community, facing one another, read in PSAETER

unison the following Psalm,

Praise the Lord !

Praise the Lord in his sanctuary

praise him in his mighty firmament!

Praise him for his mighty deeds

praise him according to his exceeding greatness!

Praise him with trumpet sound

praise him with lute and harp!

Praise him with timbrel and dance

praise him with strings and pipe

Praise him with sounding cymbals

praise him with loud clashing

cymbals!

Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord! GLORIA PATRI

LORD'S PRAYER

SCRIPTURE

The Community shall now be seated and the appointed scripture lesson for the day shall then oe read, after which LESSON the minister shall say,

May our ears be opened unto our hearing of this Word that we might truly see ourselves in our situation, for the sake of our calling to freedom in the world.

The One we celebrate as the Primordial Friend of HlM said once and for all to hear:

He who saves his life shall lose it, but he who loses his life shall find it: which is to say: that whenever and wherever we die to our false imaginations and vain strivings after life, we are given, exactly there brand new possibilities for living.

A very ancient Friend of HlM still cries through the ages:

The LORI) gave and the LORD has taken away blessed he the name of the LORD: which being interpreted means: that whatever comes to us is a part of life, and that life is from HlM, and we can therefore be bold to embrace all of life even unto death. A contemporary, among that host of the Friends of HlM, reiterates the cry today:

You are accepted by that which is greater than you. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted: which means: that whatever we have done or will do, nothing can obliviate the fact that we are received in this world, and that even now we can dare to be who be are.

Finally, in communion with the LORD'S People of all ages, I say unto you:

In Jesus Christ your sins are forgiven: which is to say: You are valued as you are; life is good as it is given; the future is open; arise and walk: This is the one objective and everlasting truth; receive it unto yourself and live.

The minister shall now kneel with the Community and then say,

Our Father who art in Heaven;

Community: Thou who art the Incomprehensible ever beyond the grasp of the structures of this world, yet before whom we are given boldness to live:

LORD'S

PRAYER

Glory be to the Father, and to the

Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was

in the beginning is now and ever

shall be, world without end. Amen.

Community: Amen. Then the minister shall offer a witness to the Word, after which he shall say, Praise the Lord all nations; extol him all peoples; for great is his kindness toward us: and the faithfulness of the Lord is everlasting. Hallelujah!

WORD OF WITNESS

Community: Amen.

The Community with the minister shall then rise, face the . Table, and read responsively their corporate confession,

Minister: I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker

o{ heaven and earth

Community: We submit ourselves to the LORD,

that final and unpassing power

without whom no thing comes to

be and before whom all things pass

away.

Minister: I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our

Lord

Community: We submit ourselves to the LORD

that Word of life as it is, that only Word of the one who is, that final Word by whicl1 we live.

M. Who was concerned by the Holy Ghost; born o{ the Virgin Mary;

C. which is in our time as unbound by any title; is comprehended as not subject to comprehension; is grasped, only as having been grasped by it.

Al. Suffered under Pontius Pilate: was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;

C. whicl1 breaks into our concrete situations :is the eternally incredible promise that in every suffering, death and prison house, lies the possibility for life, rendering every human extremity vulnerable to new beginnings

M.

He ascended into heaven; and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead

C. which, everlastingly beyond our power, forever rules our future and unceasingly invades our present, to place in question our every thrust of being.

Minister: I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Catholic Church, the communion o{ saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting Amen

Community: We submit ourselves to THAT LIFE, our LORD, wherein we live before HIM and the WORD, as a people bound one to another for mission to the world; in dialogue one with another, through which we are continually becoming who we are and ever anticipating new possibilities for living, which is life as it has ever been, is now and will ever be. Amen.

APOSTLES CREED

THE OFFICE OF DEDICATION

The LORD has called us to the mission of living Community: He has laid upon us the burden of this world.

The Community shall then kneel or bow and the minister shall say,

Let us, as representatives o{ all the People o{ the Word, take upon ourselves anew our responsibility in and for the manifold structures o{ this world which minister unto all men everywhere and without which no creature lives.

ERSICLE

Then shall the Community say together,

O thou who art bound by no order, while maintaining the many orders forged by mankind: we express our gratitude for the whole realm of nature and for all the various historical structures: for the home, the nation, our common economic life, our educational systems, our religious forms, our international relationships, and for all other efforts of men to bring sustaining structures into human existence. May all expressions of justice, equity and love prosper. Awaken us to our sick and destructive responses within them, renew within us a passionate concern for their sustenance and give us courage to use our critical intelligence as free persons creatively shaping their destiny. Hear us, O thou who cost judge our every effort and rule the destiny of all mankind. Amen.

The Community shall here individually make known the particular concerns of their hearts and lead the People of the LORD in special prayers for the world, at the close of which the minister shall say:

INTERCESSORY

PRAYERS

Let us especially remember those upon whom a heavy measure of trial has settled, all those who have fallen out of the orders of this world, whether by the natural course of events, their own internal sickness, or the violence of other men.

The Community then shall say together what follows,

O Thou who are present in every happening, wholly impartial in thy concern for all thy creatures: we remember before thee all broken marriages and families, and all suffer in loneliness and separation. We hold before thee those denied education and economic privilege: the poor, the jobless the uninformed, the bigoted. We call to mind those who suffer under the tyranny of others, those who are exiled from their homelands, all prisoners and persecuted minority groups. we particularly remember those who are sick in mind and body, and those who face the near approach of death. In the sign of the Word by which we live. Amen.

The Community shall be seated and the minister shall then rise and say what follows

I call upon us to corporately present ourselves through the offering of our goods, be{ore the LORD, for the sake of our mission in the world

Then while the gifts of the Community are gathered and brought to the Table, the minister shall read the offertory sentences which follow,

OFFERTORY

SENTENCES

Give thanks to the Lord, call upon HIS name: make known his deeds among the nations, proclaim that his name is exalted -Isaial1 12:4 Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Matt 6:25 You shal1 open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy, and to the poor in the land.-Deut. 15:11 The Community shall here stand and the minister shall then say,

Let us lift Community:

up our gifts.

O LORD from whom we receive all; and upon whom we are ever dependent: accept this offering of ourselves before thee unto the service of mankind; use, we beseech thee, our being and our doings, our gifts and our goods, for thy glory and the well-being of thy creation. Amen.

DOXOLOGY

Then shall the Community rise, face the Table and sing,

O thou who art the One Who is; who every past and future gives, may we obedient servants be, and live our lives in courage free. Amen.

PRESENTATION

OF

OFFERING

The minister shall then say,

The LORD be with you.

Community: And with you be the LORD.

Here the Community shall stand facing the Table while the Peace, as an offering of our communion in the LORD is passed from one to another with the words: You are free to live in the LORD. The minister of the service shall first give the Peace to the other ministers officiating, who in turn shall pass the Peace to members in the pews. The minister shall then read the following grace after which the Community shall kneel or bow in silence, each departing as he elects.

THE PEACE

Go forth now to your task in the knowledge of your acceptance before the Lord; be present to life as it is given unto you; have the courage freely to decide as you must decide, and remember your obligation to every creature, in the sign of HlM, the Word our LORD.

BENEDICTION