Ordination and the Laying-on of Hands: College of Presbyters, or Moonie Wedding?

Percy recently attended an ordination of priests where the prescribed ritual for sharing in the laying on of hands was ignored, to problematic effect. Instead of all priests participating in laying-on of hands, individuals who had some sort of special relationship with or interest in the particular candidate came forward, lunging for the head in question before scurrying away, lest they be seen too close to the next ordinand, who might be of the wrong social network or theological stripe.

The Book of Common Prayer, which is authoritative in Percy's own Church, is clear enough: "the Bishop with the Priests present shall lay their hands severally upon the head of every one that receiveth the Order of Priesthood". This clearly envisages a collective action, not by certain priests but by the whole group present.

The practice is not an Anglican peculiarity; although Roman Catholic ritual involves a sort of serial hand-laying, with each priest in turn going from candidate to candidate after the bishop's own prayer, the intention is the same, and in fact Roman canon law requires each priest present thus to act.

The significance of the action is however sometimes misunderstood; in a Church with episcopal polity, some may imagine that what really counts is that the bishop lays on hands, and the presbyteral involvement is icing, rather than cake. In a controversy of a very different kind, a writer of a more conservative stripe than Percy refers to a conversation with a bishop of the Church of England who thought the priests' action at ordinations was "just a blessing". Not so, right reverend sir.

English liturgical books may reflect this slippage; the notes to the current ordinal for the C of E state that "priests" (not "the priests present") who take part "do so at the invitation of the bishop, who determines where they stand, and by what gesture they indicate they are joining in prayer with him". This is unfortunate language, for granted the need for the bishop to lead, the involvement of presbyters in this rite is not a matter of a bishop's "invitation" or other discretionary act, but an imperative that derives from the character of the relationship between bishop and priests as a collegium.

The ultimate authority however is biblical: "Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders" (1 Tim 4:14). So priests do not take part in this action to bestow some sort of individual grace from their own private hands or prayers or office, but as members of a group, into whose membership the newly-ordained are moving in the very act of ordination.

The cost of failing to uphold this ancient and general custom can be very great. In a situation where, as in many places today, there is difficulty holding together the reality of the Church, the failure to express a corporate presbyteral identity at ordination is at least a lost opportunity. Each priest present is receiving a new colleague in every ordinand, not merely a new fellow-traveller for their own cause if and when certain conditions of theological agreement are met.

More than this however, the emphasis on individual relationships in this rite is coming to signal a new and pernicious form of clericalism. Ordinands are sometimes treated like (e.g.) graduands, or like newlyweds, whose individual "big day" is celebrated with liturgical trousseau, family fuss and such (in the case that provokes this reflection, family members and supporters of each candidate are told to stand during "their" person's ordination prayer, distinguishing them within the group rather than reflecting their common ministry). The collective character of the event is thus relativized quite drastically; it is more and more like a Moonie wedding, where the individual's celebrations happen to take place together. And it is hardly surprising if the result is clergy who understand their own ministry as a matter of individual tastes, opinions, and prerogatives, rather than as part of a greater whole.

Some will object that there is a practical problem at ordinations when dozens of clergy are present. It is simply not possible for every priest to lay on hands in the "scrum" that forms around each candidate. Yet it is not uncommon, even in circumstances like those discussed here, for a larger group of priests to form something like a layered set of circles, where some are immediately around the candidate and others then around them, perhaps extending into a group on either side or otherwise to accommodate the reality of a particular space and group. The Roman solution of "serial" hand-laying is another real possibility, but would have its own cumbersome character where more than a handful of candidates are involved.

These logistics would be worth struggling with to state clearly what is being achieved in a priestly ordination. Priests are ordained by the Church, for the Church, not by their teachers or mentors or friends. To be ordained is to be available for more than those with whom you have learned to agree - it is to be at the disposal of a Church with different members, whose sprawling character and unity might well be expressed in the awkward crowded space of a Cathedral, and in the clumsy but faithful efforts of a diverse group of presbyters physically to welcome one more into their midst.

Percy does posture, or: Standing up for Jesus?

Some readers (but not all) will remember an Anglicanism in which kneeling was the done thing. The bidding "Let us pray" was instantly and easily understood as an instruction to kneel, and we did. The opening prayers, the Collect, the intercessory prayers (aka "Prayer for the Church Militant"), the whole of the Thanksgiving and Consecration...if in doubt, we knelt.

One of the messages of the liturgical movement that hit the Church in the second half of the twentieth century was that we had been kneeling a bit too much. It was true. The one-sided emphasis on penitence and submission found in much Anglican liturgy was one of those camels we had swallowed from the Medieval Church while straining at sacrificial gnats. The ethos of Christian communal action implied in the New Testament, and lived out in the ancient Church, was less focussed on individual breast-beating than on the collective celebration of God's grace.

The resulting message had one startling central theme: stand up! We had been used to standing only for singing - presumably for practical reasons related to our diaphragms - as well as for the Gloria, the Gospel, and the Creed. These had left a clue behind about the meaning of such a posture. We rediscovered through the sixties the fairly natural coherence between a theology emphasizing the victory of the Resurrection and the liturgical norm of standing. The new texts and orders that were introduced around the Anglican world - Series I-III, Australia '69, '77 etc, A Liturgy for Africa - all implied or stated their alignment with such different understandings of posture.

Of course it was not all about standing. Each of standing, sitting and kneeling had a place in this revised set of understandings about how our bodies reflect our belief. Standing was for corporate prayer, including prayers of intercession and the Great Thanksgiving. Kneeling was only for specifically penitential or reflective and personal elements, such as private prayer and the corporate confession of sin. Sitting was for readings and sermon only, aside from waiting before and after the liturgy.

This was, however, an incomplete revolution. Even where the liturgical movement took deep hold, there was hesitation, or appropriate variation, about some specifics. Many have remained deeply connected to kneeling to receive Communion, for instance. While some clergy were being actively and carefully taught such understandings of the new liturgies, others were less well trained. And those who had become liturgical-movement purists were not thereby necessarily good educators or effective pastors.

The result is a mixed bag. In the Diocese of Melbourne, Australia, where Percy has recent and decades-old experience, the basic news is of back-sliding and mess. Where in the 1980s parishes of progressive Catholic mood were standing more and kneeling less, what is most striking is how often they are sitting. Without sufficient education or leadership, sitting has become a norm for corporate prayer of intercession in particular. There is no good reason for this at all, but a perfectly reasonable explanation: sitting is the flaccid via media for people no longer sure whether or stand or kneel, or why.

A related phenomenon is the disconnect between the posture of ministers and that of congregation. It is increasingly common that at times when kneeling might still be expected or encouraged, ministers actually remain standing. Example is, as always, a powerful teacher; where ministers do not kneel, people see little point.

Sitting does have its place, we have acknowledged. And there may be circumstances where that place is larger - where, for instance, the liturgy is celebrated with a more-than-usual emphasis on the meditative or reflective, as in the ethos connected with the community of Taizé. Yet otherwise Percy suggests sitting is, in the tradition of the Church catholic, intended for listening and waiting.

Liturgy is based on the idea that the physical disposition of objects, space and our own bodies actually does matter. There may be different specific opinions about posture, but the present indifference and confusion evident in the Australian Anglican Church, and some other branches of the Communion, is not a matter for celebration.

Wait for it...

Many Anglicans join in the annual rituals of rolling our eyes when Easter eggs appear in the shops before Lent has begin, or when Christmas fare stocks the shelves in October.

The same people however are doing some odd and unreflective things about liturgical time. Most obvious is the tendency to anticipate feast days. In quite a few places, Churches appear to celebrate any major feast, or feast associated with their life like a patronal festival, anything up to a week before the actual day.

Is this a problem? Well it's not a problem like poverty or pain, to be sure. In dealing with liturgical questions like those Percy addresses, it's always important to keep things in perspective - God will cope.

The problem is worth analysing however, because it is symptomatic of some broader issues about the wider reality of liturgy and ritual. Time itself is an important medium in the structure of Christian life, and failure to appreciate the underlying logic of the liturgical year is at best a missed opportunity. At worst, it may even reflect and reinforce problems that have real ethical and theological weight.

The tradition of the Church is fairly clear. Feasts are not celebrated before it is time for them. Feasts are actually preceded by fasts, not preliminary feasts. We all know this in theory, because of Lent and Advent (a particular challenge, admittedly). The Prayer Book of 1662 contains a table of "Vigils, Fasts, and Days of Abstinence" whose significance seems not to be understood by the framers of some later books, but Vigils in theory precede most feast days.

All this is a bit counter-intuitive to us, and we might well ask why. Scott Peck, of The Road Less Travelled fame, suggests that "delay of gratification" is one of the fundamental disciplines necessary to live a good life. Peck's language in that book is not theological, but it was not hard for many readers (and later him) to see the connection with spiritual discipline.

The structure of liturgical time reflects the call to such discipline, and the creative tension between feasting and fasting. If graphed, liturgical time would not merely be a gentle curve rolling from feast to feast, but a more angular and challenging trajectory, with lows as well as highs and - most remarkably - the two linked. That is to say, liturgical time is supposed to be a medium within which the logic of cross and resurrection is mapped and lived. This is why it is not trivial.

As things are, time has become a rather tame and sad thing in the Church's life. Leaving aside the neo-puritan dismissal of its significance, the catholic remnant in Anglicanism tends to baulk at the demands and promises of time. We see the passage from season to season, or from fast to feast, as a move from one flavour of liturgical ice-cream to the other.

Percy will write further about the temptation to do everything on Sundays - a related but distinct problem.

Read it!

It has become common in some parishes of more liberal and/or Catholic bent in Australia to omit one or more of the set readings from the Lectionary, on weekdays including feasts, and sometimes even on Sundays.

This is a very unfortunate development, for many reasons. It undermines the Catholic Anglican claim to present an appropriate relationship, 'both/and', as it were, of Word and Sacrament. It reflects and deepens a wider problem of biblical illiteracy. It undermines the intentions of the lectionary framers, and often particularly suggests a quasi-Marcionite view that downgrades the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible (since this is so often what gets dropped).

The reason? Apparently nothing more profound than that the liturgy 'takes too long' with all the readings.

This is breathtakingly bad reasoning and practice, but there are a few factors to consider to understand it.

One is that the Revised Common Lectionary, commonly now in use in Anglican circles, has been ineffectively introduced and is poorly understood. The lack of connection across the readings of a given day (as opposed to the readings from week to week) makes it easier to dislodge one or more of them, without a deep sense of loss for the congregation. And without a pattern of preaching that engages with the Lectionary as a whole, the disparate lections are all the more precarious. So there is a serious unmet need for teaching about the Bible, and the Bible in the liturgy - its natural home!

Yet the concern about excessive length or boredom suggests a problem of performance, for the readings and for the liturgy more generally. If participants are not engaged with the readings, or with any aspect of the celebration, attention needs to be given to how they are presented.

There is no rubric, printed or arcane, that requires readings to be done badly or inaudibly just so people can have a turn. There is no rule that says anyone equipped to mow the lawn or do bookkeeping has the duty or right to mangle complex rhetoric in the NT Epistles. If a music group can rehearse, so can a reader - but we just don't seem to care as much.

In other words, this problem suggests not only some difficulties about our interest in the Bible, but about our seriousness regarding the liturgy as a whole.

Our plea, then, is 'Read it!'. The Lectionary is there for a reason, and those who treat it in a sloppy manner will be ill-equipped to defend use of any set pattern of readings against the critical and the ignorant who think it more 'biblical' to pick and choose whatever they want.

If the reading of three disparate pieces of scripture and the Psalm presents a challenge, treat it as a positive one, and consider how to train readers, how to expound the course-readings from the OT/HB in preaching, and how to use other liturgical opportunities to 'read, mark, learn and inwardly digest'. This process of serious engagement with scripture is essential to Anglicanism, and we are on weak foundations without it.