Ritual for Ritual's Sake?

Ritual for ritual's sake is Pharisaical hypocrisy, of course. When the Pharisees chided Jesus’ disciples for not washing their hands, he called out their hypocrisy: “Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition” (St Mark 7:7-9).

Cue the howling: See, you Gottesdienst Crowd are doing just that! You Pharisees!

It’s an easy way to set aside liturgical propriety that one’s not used to observing. But it fails to note one important thing, namely that the commandment of God is that we have no other Gods, that is, that we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. To kneel in worship is to acknowledge God’s holiness. To cross oneself is to acknowledge the holiness of Baptism in His name. To maintain liturgical decorum of all legitimate kinds is to indicate an awareness of the presence of Christ. None of these rituals are ends in themselves, any more than the ritual removal of Moses’ shoes was an end in itself. He removed his shoes because the place whereon he stood was holy ground. In fact, sometimes a failure to engage in ritual indicates a failure to worship in truth. At least we can say that the appearance of a Celebrant at the altar in a polo shirt certainly doesn’t lend itself to the notion that one seriously believes he is in the presence of the Incarnate One.

Every godly rubric can be traced back to the presence of Christ and His precious Word and Sacraments.

As for the Pharisees, they washed when they came from the market, before meals, a washing that had nothing to do with Christ, whom they derided. Their ritual was devoid of Him, and even led them to scoff at Him.

But our ritual is full of Him and intended to increase pious devotion to Him. It’s the exact opposite of theirs.

Which means one must think twice before setting liturgical propriety aside. Our chief blogger Larry Beane is quite right about that.