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In a recent news article in the Des Moines Register the author, speaking of women, states “There are ceremonies to baptize their babies, but no rituals to mark the passage from girl to woman or to celebrate conception or pregnancy. There are few rituals to mark losses such as miscarriages or passages such as menopause.”¹ Shirley Ragsdale, author of the article, quotes Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild who states, “Liturgy creates our identity and empowers us.”²  Likewise, in a recent issue of the Women’s Presbyterian magazine, Horizons,  “Girls Becoming Women,” there are pictures of both a Balinese and an Apache ceremony celebrating a young girl’s “passage into puberty,” and the beginning of menstruation. The article provides an example of a ritual for the passage of young women into adulthood.³ With the same motivation, the web site of the Women’s Ministries in the Episcopal Church announces “We in the Office of Women's Ministries are working towards creating a resource to be used by women, men, parishes, dioceses, small groups, within the context of a Sunday morning service or any other appropriate milieu where the honoring of a woman's life passages and experiences beckons a liturgical response.”  Included among these are, “liturgies/rites pertaining to: menstruation, menopause, conception, pregnancy, any form of pregnancy loss, childbirth, forms of leave taking, and many others.”⁴  But why do we as Christians participate in liturgies and rites in the Christian Church? Is it to affirm our lives and the patterns and passages of our humanity or is there another that we are meant to honor? Perhaps a parallel question might be are we called to invent new liturgies and rites or do we simply shape, form and build on what is given in scripture? Finally, are we called to extol our own human growth or are we called to receive grace despite our human sinfulness?

I believe one of the best models of the biblical position in worship is found with the story of Mary and Martha. Mary sits at the feet of Jesus receiving his words, receiving the gift of grace. Martha is busy affirming her role as a woman, “distracted with all her preparations,” angry that Mary does not participate. Jesus states that Mary “has chosen the good part” (Luke 10: 38-42). The role of the true disciple is to listen to and adore Jesus Christ, to receive his gifts and to give honor to him. In the same manner, when Jesus speaks to the woman at the well he does not affirm her many marriages nor does he offer human affirmation of her bruised humanity, rather he offers himself as the living water. He tells her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:10). He reminds her that, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” This is not simply subjective worship concerned with inner feelings and affirmations nor some kind of empowerment but acknowledgement of truth, and not just truth as proposition, but also truth as a person, Jesus Christ. Christ calls the woman at the well into relationship, one that places him in the position as giver of life while she is the one broken, humbled and receiving. This is proper worship and the basis of all biblical liturgy and rite.

The two Sacraments accepted by Protestant Christianity are baptism and the Lord’s Supper. They are not meant as celebrations or as liturgies for an individual’s passage from one phase of life to another but rather they are God’s gifts to the church. Indeed, several hundred years after the beginning of the New Testament Church the liturgies and rites were still in conformity to scripture and under gird even the contemporary Church. They are a part of God’s grace given through the broken body of his Son Jesus Christ. Writing of the early church’s celebration of communion, F.F. Bruce writes:

There was, in fact, a recognizable pattern of words and practice in the central acts of the church’s worship from the earliest days; and it reappears in widely separated areas. It was not a rigidly fixed form; there was room for extensive local variations, and yet the variations do not obscure the basic pattern, which, indeed, underlies the manifold liturgical usages of the present day, a pattern which represents a true apostolic tradition.⁵

While the Roman Catholic Church holds several other events in the life of Christians as those events needing rites that are considered sacraments, such as marriage and death, the Protestant Churches do not view such ceremonies as sacraments. However, all Christian churches tie such events to a biblical world-view, which should mean not endorsing them as rites of passage nor times for empowerment, but as times of committing ones actions to the Lord. The actions may be as simple as gathering around a death bed to pray and sing as the loved one passes into the arms of the Lord, but still the Lord is the focal point. The loved one is committed into the presence of the Lord as an act of submission. In fact, the church has always remembered her saints in their death, but such services are also focused on Christ and the Christians relation to the Lord. The Christian remembered is holy (a saint) because Christ has given them his holiness and they are united with the Lord Jesus and in the presence of God. 

In Ragsdale’s article she refers to the story of a woman whose mother needs to relinquish her car keys. Ragsdale writes of the ceremony and prayer that are formulated to prepare all to accept the actions: the mother to feel secure in knowing she is loved and will be cared for, the friends and children making a commitment to faithfully care for her. She writes, “It isn’t exactly liturgy. But it could be. The congregation could recognize the mother’s contribution to the church and join in the promise part.” But these are family celebrations and truly rites of passage; they should not be a part of church liturgy but rather a part of Christian nurture and, in some cases, pastoral care. In our household there is always prayers at the beginning of birthday parties, or going away and coming home gatherings. The important point here is that liturgies and rites in the church are meant to honor Christ not people 

But the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Order does provide for biblical pastoral care that takes into account the events of people’s lives. It explains nurture from both a family focused view and a pastoral focus. W-6.2006 not only emphasizes the “Lord’s Day,” as the main place of worship for the Christian but also states that, “An important and continuing context for Christian nurture is the home, where faith is shared through worship, teaching, and example.” The occasions listed for pastoral care are not gender specific and cover such events as “the loss of power, the fading away of a once-important relationship and the departure of Children from the home.” (W-6.3007) Care is to be offered in several important areas, “W-6.3008 Care in Broken Relationships,” “W-6.3009 Care in Sin and Forgiveness,” and “W-6.3010 Care in the Transitions of Life.” Some of the resources for pastoral care are scripture, prayers, Sacraments and times of remembrance. In particular d. under W-6.3011 states, “The Lord’s Prayer, psalms, doxologies, benedictions, and other familiar portions of a congregation’s worship may extend the support and care of the community of faith to those whose special needs or circumstances have placed them in isolation and remind them of their place in that community.” The use of pastoral care then is still the honoring of Christ and the gift of his grace given to members of the church. It is Christ giving grace to brokenness, forgiveness to the sinner and care to the believer on her journey.  

The book of Revelation is filled with liturgy all directed to God. There is praise by the elders, “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created”(Rev 4:11). There is the praise of all living things, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever” (Rev 5:13b). There is praise from the persecuted church, those who have been cleansed by the blood of the lamb, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb” (Rev 7:10). None of this is gender specific, and it is all directed to God. These words of praise are refreshing to the redeemed reader; they feed the soul and cause the Christian to rejoice in their creator and redeemer. On the other hand, the only prayer offered without praise and acknowledgement of the redemptive work of Christ in the book of Revelation is that directed to the mountains and the rocks by those seeking safety from the “wrath of the lamb.” The only empowerment offered or acknowledged in this book of the Bible is that which belongs to the Lamb of God; he is given praise because he has taken his “great power” and has “begun to reign” (Rev 11:17).

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¹ Shirley Ragsdale, Register Religious Editor, “New Liturgy Marks Milestones in Women’s Lives,” October 30, 2004 http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041030/life01/410300301/1039&lead=1&t. 

² Quoted article, Sylvia Rothschild, “The Courage to Create New Liturgies,” at, http://www.bet-debora.de/2001/jewish-family/rothschild-0.htm. 

³ Robin Miller Curras, “Girls Becoming Women: Rites, Responsibilities and Reality,” Horizons, September/October 2004.

⁴ Hailey Wile Allin, “A Call for Liturgical Resources: Markers of Our Lives,” 10/8/2004, at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/41685_52050_ENG_HTM.htm. 

⁵ F.F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame: The Rise and Progress of Christianity from its First Beginnings to the Conversion of the English, reprint, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans 1973), 194.

⁶ Ibid, n. 5.