Copyright: © 2001 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

I recently heard a Hebrew scholar, a Christian and a professor at a Lutheran Seminary, make a striking observation. He said there's a rabbinic tradition about the reading of scripture in worship, and about preaching on those scriptures, that's useful for Christian worship leaders to contemplate. The tradition is this: When the scriptures are to be read in synagogue public worship, the (usually male) reader is enjoined not to lift his eyes off the text he's reading. And when those scriptures are to be proclaimed and interpreted in preaching in public worship, the (usually male) preacher is enjoined not to lift his eyes from his audience, but to engage his eyes with theirs.

Making contemporary allowance for the exclusive language, I like those two principles. Not to move the eyes from the text one is reading: That signals to me a salutary devotion to the words of scripture, and to the Word they contain and carry. Granted, those words cry out to be read with expression and vibrancy, as if they mattered. It ought to be apparent, to all in the assembly, that the reader regards these words as significant, and wants to get them across to hearers. In the graceful phrase of a friend, hearers ought to be aware of a "will to communicate" in the reader's speech, in the reader's delivery and demeanor, even without eye contact. "Eyes on the text" could signal, to me, an honouring of the Word.

And during the sermon, the preacher's focus is to be not so much on the text as on the people, the assembly, the audience. As I confessed in Essay 43, it's my favourite method of preaching: I prefer to prepare my remarks so thoroughly as to be able with confidence to ignore the pulpit altogether ("fifteen feet above criticism"), and instead to situate myself in the middle aisle, speaking directly and conversationally to my audience, without any text or notes. "Eyes on the people" could signal, to me, an honouring of the Body.

Now, how about those texts? When we do read scripture in public worship, what shall we read from? Answer: a book, a "pulpit Bible". A large, handsome, leather-bound volume, with hubbed spine, gold page-edges, and ribbon page-markers. Anything less is decidedly "tacky" and does not sufficiently honour the Word. To read scripture in Christian public worship from a paper pamphlet, or from the back of the day's bulletin or guide-to-worship, is to betray a contempt for, or at least a carelessness with, one of the most basic tools in your toolbox as worship leader. More than that: It is ultimately to betray a carelessness with respect to the First Article of the Creed. See Essay 36 above.

The Bible of our proclamation is one of the most important "signs" in Christian worship. It's among the chief tools in your toolbox as worship leader. Surely something is amiss if the garage mechanic who services your automobile exhibits a greater respect for the tools of his/her trade than you evince for the tools of your trade as worship leader.

And those ribbon page-markers in the pulpit Bible are an important refinement in your work. See Essay 18. I've seen --used!-- an ambo Bible in a festive Service that featured half a dozen handsome tapestry ribbon page-markers, each ending in a small metal cross or medallion for ease of page access, the "live" ribbons "stacked" at page-edge (see Essay 18 again), the un-used ribbons "dead" at the spine.

As for that wide fringed brocade ribbon in the colour of the Day or Season that's a feature of many lecterns or pulpits: it too is essentially a page-marker. I'd urge congregations to use it as such: actually use it to mark the location of first or last lesson to be read, and actually carry it closed in the Bible when that volume is borne in procession at the "Little Entrance" on festive occasions.

As with the Bible you use in public worship, so also with the "altar book" or missal: what LBW calls its Ministers Edition (LBW/ME). Not for nothing have publishers for generations presented congregations and worship leaders with handsome volumes to use specifically in leading worship. When you serve up front in the leadership of worship, that is, the "pew edition" is for hymns only. You use the missal --that is, the "altar book", the LBW/ME-- for everything else in your role as worship leader.

Further: You must be willing to spend time and energy getting accustomed to utilizing the ribbon page-markers in that volume. An altar book or ambo Bible bristling with paperclips or "post-it" paper scraps is not an edifying sight for worshippers. And --Ahem!-- it's a sure sign of slovenly worship leadership.

And on those occasions when you're leading worship at a Service not included in the LBW's altar book? I'm thinking of the Service of the Word for Healing, for example, available in LBW/Occasional Services, but not printed in LBW/ME. But I'm also thinking of experimental Services such as the Marty Haugen "Holden Evening Prayer". At such times you'll want to provide your own "altar book": a handsome three-ring notebook binder, perhaps in the colour of the season, its cover perhaps decorated with a simple cross design in coloured tape. The experimental Service you'll be leading will be photocopied, in its entirety, and bound into this binder.

Where I live, one sometimes encounters congregations which use such a three-ring binder for all Services, even reading the scripture lessons from photocopied pages inserted into it. I can understand that it might be handy for worship leaders to have access to the actual texts of the scripture passages to be read in worship. But I'd shy away from actually reading the lections from a three-ring binder, rather than from a handsome Bible or Lectionary. To read the lections from a worthy volume --a handsomely-bound Bible or Lectionary or "Gospel book"-- is an action that itself constitutes a "sign" in worship. And the volume read from is a separate and distinct and irreplaceable "sign". To read scripture publically from photocopied pages in an improvised "altar book" is to frustrate the principles of Ritual Clarity (see Essay 5 above).

Well. I sound more autocratic, in much of the above, than I've intended. Blame it on my recent open-heart surgery.