Isaiah 29:13-16

Matthew 23:23-39

The Idol of Ceremonialism

This is the last installment in our series on idols of our age (pause for applause.) We have determined that idols do not need to be hand crafted and bowed down to in order to be worshipped. We started from the premise that idols begin with ideas. The idols we have discussed are in the form of ideas. They are idols of the mind. All of us have been challenged these past many weeks to worship God and God only while not allowing contemporary ideas to displace Him. I recognize that the final idol on my list may not be an idol for most of you. In fact I presume it is not and I am aware that this sermon is most appropriate for the ears of clergy rather than laity, but I trust we all will receive something of value by applying God’s Word to our lives. The idol I am speaking about is ceremonialism. Some have titled ceremonialism, ritualism, which is an incorrect title because ritualism refers to rites. Rites are prescribed ceremonies by the Church. Simply stated, rites are what the Church hierarchy requires. Ceremonies outside of what the Church requires may or may not become an idol. When a ceremony becomes an idol it is in the category of ceremonialism.

Those of you who do not have a Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran or Eastern Orthodox background most likely perceived a service such as ours to be ceremonial when you first attended here. If you had any of those backgrounds I mentioned you likely perceived services at St. Stephen’s to be much less ceremonial than you were use to. Those of you who have been in the Reformed Episcopal Church for a number of years have seen a shift toward a greater emphasis on ritual and ceremony within the denomination and here at St. Stephen’s since my arrival. I refer to our many perspectives for the purpose of helping us see that our perception of ceremony is highly subjective. A Baptist might perceive us as stuffy and rigid. A Roman Catholic might perceive us as irreverent. A traditional Reformed Episcopalian has trouble knowing what to think and usually fears that the Church is leaning toward Roman Catholicism. Neither of these perspectives is entirely accurate. I say entirely because Baptists and alike think we are stuffy regardless of our biblical emphasis. Roman Catholics perceive us as irreverent because we don’t practice all of their ceremonies. And there are I humbly admit, ministers within the Reformed Episcopal Church that would like our denomination to look more like Rome. Those who want to look more like Rome are guilty of ceremonialism.

To put types of ceremony in perspective let us examine what some of the others branches of Christ’s Church practice. The Roman Catholic and Easter Orthodox traditions have ceremony within ceremony. There are ceremonies that the laity goes through before the service begins. In the Roman Catholic Church the laity dab fingers in holy water and cross themselves while entering the sanctuary. Genuflecting is expected before entering the pew. The priests carefully and reverently prepare the elements for Holy Communion using their own rituals not seen by the laity. During a service the Priests have their ceremonies and the laity respond with theirs. Yet, these are minimal compared to the Easter Orthodox Church. The Orthodox laity practice a service by themselves before the Holy Communion service begins. This includes the veneration of icons, usually statues of the The Virgin Mary and Jesus. These statues are bowed down to and the feet of them kissed. Whenever the trinity is invoked the people cross themselves like those of us from the west only their crossing is more precise. They cross from left to right using the thumb and first two fingers to make three (symbolizing the trinity) with the other two fingers pressed down to symbolize the two natures of Christ coming down to earth. The people also prostrate themselves before the altar and the icons. The Holy Communion service consists of cutting off the edges of the leavened bread, mixing the bread from the middle of the loaf with the wine and feeding it to the laity with a spoon. Many more ceremonies such as these are carefully followed by the worshippers in the Eastern tradition.

Comparing these examples to the practices of the Reformed Episcopal Church it hardly seems fair to label what we do as ceremonialism. And yet what we do can easily become so as the Scripture explains.

The accusation made toward the people of Israel in Isaiah 29:13 is one of a number of accusations the Lord placed upon his people as they continued to disobey his commands and ignore his prophets. As the prophet describes, the problem with Israel at this time was not that they refused to come to worship. It was not that they were going through the wrong ceremonies. The problem was with their hearts. The people spoke true words of God with their lips but their hearts were far from Him. They did not mean what they said. This is a great danger for all of us for when we worship using the Prayer Book because what we read can become so familiar that we do not think about what we are saying. We are tempted to recite the words without believing the content. Reasoning seems to escape many who have this problem. They find themselves mouthing the words of Morning Prayer, for example, and realize their thoughts are miles away. Because their conscience is pricked by such thoughtless worship they reason that the liturgy itself is to blame. Because the service of the Prayer Book is the cause they abandon the Prayer Book for what is considered a more heartfelt worship. Such heartfelt worship is extemporaneous. Supposedly because it comes out of us in a short time frame it appears to us that we are catching a wave of the Spirit. Such worship can be exhilarating at first. It’s new. It’s fresh. What is greatly underestimated with such experiences is just how prone we humans are to ceremony. What was once fresh becomes something we repeat. What we repeat soon becomes ceremony. The result is a liturgy that began as extemporaneous expression and is now a modern liturgy. The point being that liturgy or form is not the problem. The problem is with the hearts of men. It is not the liturgy or rites of the Church that need to change but the heart of every man who worships.

From our Psalter reading we learn that God is not as concerned about ceremony as much as he is with the hearts of men.

You do not delight in sacrifice, David says, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

From these verses poor reasoning would allow some to conclude that God does not care about sacrifice in worship. But to conclude this would be a failure to remember that sacrifice was God’s idea to begin with. It was God who specifically instructed what animal must be offered for what sin and what steps needed to be taken to make such a sacrifice. If God cared nothing for such sacrifices previous than we have no choice but to conclude that he is deranged to have demanded the same from his people. He of course is not deranged. David does not state that God does not care or no longer wants a sacrifice in worship. It is stated that he does not delight in such sacrifice. His delight is not there because the heart of the people is not there.

David recognizes this as he prays that God would create in him a pure heart, a clean heart. An unclean heart has its attention upon matters of the flesh while the lips are pretending to be worshipping God.

There is something called "love language" that relates to this point. Observers have noted that certain personalities display or receive love differently than others. Some people display love by giving gifts. Others display love by intimate conversation. Others display love with kind words, and so on. And we receive love in similar ways. One way that I like to receive love is undivided attention. If I am speaking with someone and they talk over me, are constantly looking over my shoulder as if they see someone else they wish to speak with besides me, or are giving me body language clues that say they wish to escape the conversation, I do not feel loved. If I am speaking with someone on the phone and they continue to talk with their children, dog or anyone else in the room while they are talking to me, I do not feel loved. God is looking for our undivided attention when we worship. He is not looking for it, mind you, in the same way I look for it. I look for it selfishly. I need you to care about me. God does not need us to care about him, as a man needs to be cared about. God wants our undivided attention for our benefit, not his. When we give him undivided attention we hear living words. When we give him undivided attention we are equipped for good works in Christ. When we give him undivided attention our souls are renewed. To pay lip service to God only when at worship is to go through the motions. It is bowing to the idol of ceremonialism.

Ceremonialism also occurs when the ceremony itself drives our worship of God. Such ceremonialism was one cause of the Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church had and still does embrace the principle of ex opere operato, which is Latin for "by the works performed." This Latin phrase summarized a doctrine of the Church that the rites and ceremonies practiced by the Church were God honoring in and of themselves. It does not matter whether there is attention paid by participants or faith present in the worshipper. It does not even matter if anyone one is in attendance. The focus is the ceremony. One could literally be "going through the motions" and that itself is believed to be sufficient. Ceremonialism is so deeply embedded within the Roman Catholic Church that mass is offered everyday in large parishes and if no laity attend the service the Priest or Priests will still carry out the ceremony.

What the Reformers objected was the belief that God was honored simply because the work was performed. They preached that the Scripture teaches the necessity that men must have faith when worship is practiced. They preached that the Scripture necessitates men having their hearts attend to God when the Sacraments are received. If there is not faith present the one baptized in merely getting wet. If there is not faith present a person receiving communion is getting a snack. For the Roman Catholic baptism is important not because there is faith in a parent on behalf of a child or faith in a convert who confesses Christ for himself, but that the Church performed the ceremony. The infant or adult is saved through baptism primarily because the Church performed the ceremony. It is the same with the sacrament of Holy Communion. Because the bread and wine are consecrated by the Church, they then contain saving power not enacted by faith in the receiver but by the Church that performed the ceremony. Such a belief is the same ceremonialism that Israel embraced for they too thought that the offerings they made to God were sufficient enough to appease him and that as long as they did what God asked of them ceremonially they could do whatever they pleased morally.

The next major cause of ceremonialism is man made ceremony. The latter part of vs. 13 of Isaiah 29 makes this charge of the people; Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. The practice of making rules of men required ceremony can be found in Isaiah’s day, in the time Jesus walked the earth and up to today. It is not so much that God is concerned about man made ceremony. Again, we recognize that man by nature is ceremonial. We have ceremonies we follow personally. We tend toward the same behavior when we awake each morning or go to bed at night. We celebrate birthdays in a similar fashion each year. We have family traditions (ceremonies) that we follow during the holidays. Man made ceremony is not condemned. What is condemned is man made ceremony that is made into law. There are many, many customs/traditions that we have as a local Church. We adorn the pulpit and lectern with certain colors to symbolize a period within the calendar year. I wear certain clothing to represent certain theological truths. It is our custom to have readings done by church members during Advent and Lent. We practice the custom of kneeling to pray, sitting to listen and standing to sing. These and other traditions are not required to worship. If you did not do them you would not be less of a Christian. We only have a serious problem and are guilty of ceremonialism when we turn these customs into law. If these were law every one would be required to participate or they would not be allowed to be a member of this Church and we would not consider them Christians. That is a form of ceremonialism because it is insisting upon something man has invented and requiring something beyond what God has commanded. Obviously, there is great arrogance in ceremonialism.

In summary ceremonialism is worshipping God without the heart of a worshipper attending to God. Ceremonialism is also trusting in ceremony alone believing that the actions of the ceremony themselves without faith are honoring to God. And finally, ceremonialism is making manmade ceremony into law on the same level or higher than what God has commanded. As I stated in the opening of this sermon, it is the clergy who are more likely to be guilty of ceremonialism than the laity. However, that does not let the laity off the hook. It is your responsibility to confront clergy when they are guilty of ceremonialism. It is part of your calling as members of the Church to encourage ministers to preach and teach the Word of God first. It is also necessary for you to remember that ceremony is not the problem. God commanded ceremony and he also commanded heart felt worship. And finally, it is your calling to remember that you or your family are not saved because of the ceremonies you follow but by Grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen