Week Four - Part Two - Robert's Questions about Liturgical Prayer

Robert said this:

In session 2.1, you beautifully described “The Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise: The Continuing Priestly Privilege and Responsibility of Israel toward a Messianic Jewish Understanding of Prayer.” What seems to be the hold up in our movement towards this type of prayer especially because we participate in hastening the consummation of all things? In my experience in MJ, there has never been such an emphasis on Siddur prayers as you have placed upon it in this class. I have a great desire to learn the Siddur prayers more in depth with much Kavvana, has anyone in our movement expressed a desire to form an interactive daily prayer web-site? Maybe this can be a step towards your dream of daily MJ minyan's?

Robert,

What a sensitive and appropriate question!

You ask, for the reasons for “the hold up in our movement towards this type of prayer especially because we participate in hastening the consummation of all things?” The reasons are many.

Way back about 1990, I devised what I term “The Law of Obstructive Leadership,” which helps to address your question. Here is what I said at that time. Sadly, it is still as relevant today as then.

The Law of Obstructive Leadership states

“The greatest obstacles to liturgical renewal are the ignorance, fear, pride, prejudice and negative experiences of decision-makers. The next greatest obstacle is lack of motivation.”

It is not by accident that ignorance appears first in my list of factors. Ignorance about things liturgical is widespread in the Messianic Jewish community, among leaders as well as among laity. However, it is more of a problem for leaders, whether professional or lay, because most leaders resist being put into a position where their ignorance becomes apparent. Frankly, most congregations create an atmosphere where it's not "safe" for a leader to say "I don't know."

Therefore, ignorance among decision-makers presents a two-fold problem

1. Leaders/decision-makers have inadequate experience and knowledge to appreciate the value of liturgical renewal, leading to a tendency to avoidance or deprecation.
2. Even should they favor liturgical renewal, they don't know how to implement it.

Some decision leaders fear exposure of their own ignorance, while others simply fear change of any kind as being potentially erosive of their power and safety. Since not many of us came from meaningfully observant homes, it should come as no surprise to know that prejudice against liturgy is widespread in our movement. This prejudice against liturgy is further exacerbated by the input many of us have received in the wider church world (and the legacy of anti-Judaism and anti-rabbinism mixed together with the assumptions of dispensationalism, which I mentioned in my “Seeds, Weeds . . .” paper).

(In addition) most of us only have church experience in the "free-church [baptistic] tradition." In many cases, we've internalized prideful and negative attitudes toward liturgy from people who themselves were nurtured in environments which equated "liturgical" with "liberal" and "dead." Therefore, it is no wonder that we are not objective on the subject.

At all times it is helpful to remember that not all repetition is vain repetition. If liturgy is well-used, it can be most beneficial to community life.

Opinion leaders don't like to appear ignorant. Their pride gets in the way of admitting their deficiency in experience and knowledge, and as a defense mechanism, often they simply declare liturgy to be at best of questionable usefulness.

There aren't many of us who can point to their backgrounds as places where we came to know, love, and reverence liturgy. Rather, especially for those of us who encountered liturgy at a young age, perhaps in Hebrew school, liturgy has a negative connotation because of meaninglessness, authoritarian-based rote learning, and ample dosages of the "guilt treatment" with which we encountered it in our youth. Others of us, grafted in to the Messianic movement from, say, Roman Catholic upbringings, may also have only negative memories of liturgy.

In point of fact, the Bible itself is very liturgical and there's not a hint there that liturgy is a short-cut to spiritual deadness.

Motivation for change will remain low until congregational leaders and decision-makers see the negative effect adhering to other service models is having upon the impact and cohesion of the Messianic community.

Additionally, only as leaders come to understand our role to be a sign, demonstration and catalyst for God’s consummating purposes for Israel, and as we see how a lack of a “crunchy” Messianic Judaism is greasing the skids for assimilation and intermarriage, and as leaders come to see that assmililation is truly wrong, only then will the motivation change. For now, many remain unmotivated for reasons stated here, and more. Only when people see what is being lost, and own up to their own prides, prejudices and fears, will change take place.

As we develop richly liturgical congregations that are growing, healthy, and full of heart-felt worship, other leaders in the movement may be motivated to get on board.

Another principle I have been teaching since about 1990, related to your excellent question, is the Prime Directive for Liturgical Renewal.


The Prime Directive For Liturgical Renewal

In any change program, there must be a system of priorities. In some congregations, liturgical renewal just won't be possible until an underlying climate of resistance is recognized, identified, and dealt with. In others, even should liturgical renewal be recognized as desirable, an entrenched style of doing things will need to be lovingly, respectfully, and gradually modified as the process occurs. Because each context is unique, one cannot prescribe the same change process for all situations. However, certain generalizations can be made.

One of these is what is termed "The Prime Directive for Liturgical Renewal." It has this august title because it is a factor which cannot be omitted if a congregation is to move in the direction of more thoroughgoing contextualization.

This is the Prime Directive for Liturgical Renewal:

“The better people understand the liturgy, the better they’ll like it. Therefore, each congregation must have an ongoing program to increase liturgical literacy, beginning with the leaders and opinion leaders of congregations.”

Liturgical literacy is not the same as being fluent in Hebrew. You don’t have to be able to carry on a conversation in Hebrew with a Tel Aviv cab-driver in order to be liturgically literate.

By liturgical literacy is meant a combination of four factors in varying proportions. Those factors are [1] ability to read Hebrew orthography; [2] some understanding of what is read; [3] sufficient understanding of the function and history of the liturgical unit to facilitate intelligently using it for prayer; [4] ability to perform liturgically within the range of Jewish communal acceptability.

If the leaders and opinion leaders of the congregation are not behind the program of liturgical renewal, it will die—although there may be difficulty in identifying the cause of death. Because of issues discussed under the Obstructive Leadership Principle, leaders and opinion leaders may passively, even if not actively, resist these changes. Conversely, when leaders and opinion leaders become knowledgeable and enthusiastic supporters of the program. the success of the program is almost guaranteed.

Such a program of liturgical literacy should be both continual and cyclical. Through comments made during services, through well-managed in-service instruction, and through these targeted classes, the program of liturgical renewal will become cumulatively effective, and the level of congregational liturgical literacy will rise, but slowly.

It is important to bear in mind that trying to institute broad change too quickly inevitably results in backlash, and may create destructive turmoil. One needs to become acquainted with paradigm shift theory. I strongly recommend two books. The more recent is “Change is Like a Slinky,” by Hans Finzel, who was a protégé of one of my mentors, Bobby Clinton. This book will teach you all you need to know to institute a program of congregational change, and spare you oceans of grief. Another older book which I believe is now available through Wipf and Stock Publishers is “The Change Agent,” by Lyle Schaller. It is provides a good foundation and would work well in conjunction with Finzel’s book.

When instituting such classes and therefore such change in your congregation, at first, class rosters should be made up of hand-picked students whose chances of success and likelihood of positively advertising the benefits of the course are assured.

Perhaps the most challenging and crucial of the courses of instruction will be liturgical Hebrew. Again, one must strive for limited, defined and achievable goals, and as these are achieved in the lives of hand-picked pioneers, the atmosphere and expectation of the congregation will change, and more people will no doubt sign on as well.

Finally, returning to your question, I don’t think an interactive prayer website is in order, although I will be launching my own far-reaching website dealing with a broad range of Messianic Jewish issues soon. It will be called Rabbenu.org and will help me to provide a wide range of services to people like you and congregations like yours, even apart from my roles in conjunction with MJTI, etc. In the future I also plan to offer DVD’s and of course printed materials serving the Messianic Jewish vision and hastening the consummation of all things.

The best way to learn to pray is to pray of course, but we all also need mentoring. I would be happy to meet with you at some sort of regular interval to coach you in these matters. I also have done workshops on liturgical prayer for Messianic Congregations, and perhaps could do something for you and your lay leaders.

You also asked,

“Since we know that Yeshua is the Messiah, the One Man Israel, who in Himself perfectly embodies all that Israel was meant to be and to do. Where do we find Yeshua using a rabbinical pattern of prayer, such as found in Acts 3:1 where it is very evident or do we assume that Yeshua prayed in this manner?”

Actually, this is something we can very strongly infer from a number of factors.

First, it is obvious that Yeshua was brought up an observant Jew in a pious household. We see this in how his family conducts itself during his infancy and childhood, and also through seeing what an exemplary pious Jew was Ya’akov/James his brother! From this alone it is no far reach to infer that Yeshua too was brought up a pious Jew, and would have prayed as Jews do.

In addition, we read in Luke 4:16 the familiar passage, “Now when he went to Natzeret, where he had been brought up, on Shabbat he went to the synagogue as usual. He stood up to read.” Of course he would have read the Torah and Haftarah in Hebrew, which would not have been the common tongue of the people, who probably spoke Koine Greek in the streets. So he would have known how to read the Torah/Haftarah in Hebrew because he was religiously trained. In addition, we read there that “he went to the synagogue as usual.” Would he not have stood out as rebel and trouble-maker all those years if he was the only young man in Natzeret who went to synagogue but didn’t pray with the congregation? Remember, in those days, people did NOT go to synagogue to hear a sermon, or to do Davidic Dancing. Instead, they went to pray together and learn together. Yeshua went to synagogue as a matter of personal custom, and it is certain that the One whose life was characterized as “ . . .Yeshua grew both in wisdom and in stature, gaining favor both with other people and with God” (Lk 2:52), and who could say to his Jewish contemporaries, “Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?” (John 8:46), was not a person who went to synagogue week after week but avoided praying the prayers of the people—yes, rabbinic prayers.

Finally, Yeshua teaches in Matthew 11:25: “And when you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive your offenses." The assumption here is that his disciples will be standing when they pray. Why? Because they prayed the Amidah—the standing prayer!

To anyone who would challenge if Yeshua prayed Jewish liturgical prayer, I would ask: “Where is your evidence for this contention?” There is none! But there is much evidence for what I have presented here.

There is more to discuss on these issues. But let’s stop here for today.