Have you ever thought of worship as a drama? Not a dramatic reading, or a small play in worship, but rather the entire unfolding of Sunday liturgy as dramatic? Our Christian liturgy is rooted in the practices and texts of Jewish worship and we share many symbolic acts and texts by which we bless, thank, remember, and petition God. By the fourth century, in both Eastern and Western worship, the liturgy itself was viewed as a divine drama. Church fathers, like Theodore of Mopsuestia, described the liturgy as “a series of episodes representing scriptural events.” In other words, liturgy, as a whole, was a dramatic re-telling of the story of salvation. By the medieval period, many independent religious dramas that taught the basics of Christianity were being performed, quite separately from the Sunday worship. Today remnants of such teaching traditions can be found in cultural events such as Holy Week processions, the world-famous Oberammergau Passion play, or in the manner in which some congregation animate or dramatize scripture readings.

The liturgical renewal of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has focused more attention on the structure and enactment of liturgical forms instead of focusing strictly on the texts themselves. Worship is neither theatre nor political praxis but is a form of symbolic action through which the community rehearses its relationship with God. The gestures of the ritual take on equal importance with the texts of the prayers, the words of which are “speech-acts” (not statements), vocal gestures by which the worshipping community enacts its relationship with each other and with God. The performance is not strictly theatrical, rather, it is the re-enactment of the life of the community with its members playing various roles according to the traditions of the denomination. Such an understanding of liturgy is equally applicable in high liturgical and free worship traditions.

Think of a play: it has a beginning, laying out of the problem/issue, the solving of the challenge, and the ending. So too, does the Sunday liturgy: it gathers participants who physically represent the church as it comes together for worship.  When everyone is gathered, the celebrant leads them in opening prayers, a quest for the right state of mind and heart needed to hear the gospel proclaimed.  The stage has been set, now the first act of the drama is ready to begin: the Liturgy of the Word. A member of the congregation emerges from the crowd, just as the Hebrew prophets and the early disciples did, to declare the word of God. It is then the task of the preacher to expand upon the scripture readings of the day so that the people understand the import of what they have heard in this first act of the drama.  

With the gathering and presentation of the offering, the second act of the drama begins: the Liturgy of the Table. I must note here, that Communion is the norm for the liturgy – when Communion is not part of the liturgy, the prayers of thanksgiving and intercession remain.  Thinking through the Communion liturgy, the offering includes the bread and wine, basic foods to sustain life. Two people carry them to the Communion table in the hope that God will take our physical food and change them into spiritual nourishment.  The celebrant them leads the people in lifting up their hearts in praise (Sursum Corda) so that together they can sing the ancient hymn of worship (Sanctus) and again affirm their deep desire to be among the worshipping community (Benedictus). Then follows the Prayer of the Holy Spirit by means God blesses the gifts of bread and wine. A time of reflection, thanksgiving, and petition follows and united the congregation shares the Great Amen. Then each person is called to make their own personal journey to receive God’s gifts.  Receiving Communion, spiritually restored and strengthened, they return to their seats.  At the conclusion of Communion, the presider once again assures the gathered faithful of God’s blessings, and together they sing a hymn of praise before being dismissed with the instruction to go forth to love and serve our Creator. Thus we enact the cosmic drama of our own salvation through our participation in worship.