Three strands of my life have coalesced in the recent publication of two books. First, in 2000 I built my first round communion table, which was followed by several more over the years, including one where I have gathered with others for over twenty years of roundtable worship.
Second, when I left active teaching in 2001 I began developing my long-time interest in writing poetry, including some fiction, in order to give freer expression to my understandings and experience. Finally, I began convening forms of worship that might incorporate more fully the political symbolism of our longing for more genuine republics of democratic participation. All of these strands have run through the postings on this site for the past dozen years.
These three strands have come together in a pair of books, the first being Circling the Table: The Spirit and Practice of Roundtable Worship. I lay out the theological foundations of this spirit in the first five chapters of the book, which greatly develop and augment the argument I first brought out in The Politics of Worship in 1999.
In a time of resurgence of post-traditional monarchs in the form of despots, dictators, tyrants, or celebrity mobsters, this search for a proper political symbolism of our longing for just republics becomes even sharper than when I first started thinking about these concerns in the 1980s.
Possibly the most jarring claim in this book is that worship is the enactment of rituals and symbols of legitimation for the governing institutions in which we seek justice and peace. But, as I hope I have pointed out successfully, this is what the entire Biblical narrative is about, not to mention the broad history of Christian liturgy.
However, in place of the enthronement of “the Father” and the obedient self-sacrifice of “the son,” I ground our worship in the form and power of the Holy Spirit which constitutes the field of power at the heart of God. The “Word” promulgated from on high becomes the word of conversation and reconciliation at the heart of God. I hope, in these few pages, I can lay out these foundational concepts for a worship that is both novel and yet anchored in our most ancient practices.
In its last two chapters I describe the practice of roundtable worship as it has emerged around our table over these twenty years. Among them are the gathering at a round table, the invocation of God’s presiding Spirit, a remembrance of the grace revealed in God’s covenantal work of creation and transformation, and words of gratitude sealed in a taste of bread and drink.
At its core is the circle conversation under guidance of a circle steward and a talking piece. Prayers and words of recommitment conclude this simple and in crucial ways ancient worship practice. In the last chapter I turn to some of the issues, challenges, and prospects this particular worship form raises.
Accompanying this volume is a compilation of some of the liturgical materials I have composed for these worship gatherings so that others might be able to use them to fashion their own roundtable gatherings. They have been formed by my increased attention to poetic form, sound, cadence, and “speakability.” They are written to be spoken together, forming us in common utterance. They depend on common imagery rather than wordy constructions.
Words at Table: Liturgies for Roundtable Worship, is available from Amazon.com in paperback or in a Kindle e-book that enables worship leaders to easily copy materials into an order of worship.
These publications come with two intentions, two hopes. First, that they would be a guide to people who are seeking to form themselves in the circular patterns of worship that arise almost instinctively in our spiritual journey in these times.
Even in rectangular churches, people are moving the center of worship from pulpit and chancel to center table. In meetings and conferences, when people really want to work out a plan of action or adjudication of disputes, they gather in circles of conversation. It is in these circle gatherings that we sense a deeper legitimation for our common action than in pronouncements from high tables and altars.
Second, in the cataclysmic disruptions to our received forms of democratic and republican governance, roundtable worship might be a new way of grounding our spiritual formation toward a just, participatory, and sustainable public life. I do not believe the renewal of Christian or public life can emerge in celebrity performances and shows, but in the kind of immediate assemblies at table that we find at the heart of the Pentecostal and eucharistic origins of the assembly we call church.
So that’s the invitation of these books, both to our thought and our practice. I look forward to any conversation and practices of worship they may engender.