A priestly offering
... and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree - Romans 11:17. In the 1922 (England)/1926 (Ireland) lectionary, Romans 11:1-24 was the New Testament lection at Mattins today.
One of the joys of praying Mattins and Evensong in the Prayer Book tradition is becoming aware of the theological significance and spiritual meaning of the ordering of these rites. For example, that Te Deum - the Church's song celebration of the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation - follows the Old Testament lection at Mattins, draws us to recognise that the God whom we encounter in the story of Israel is the Triune God, that the Incarnation is the fulfilment of the promises to Israel.
Saying Psalm 85 at Evensong on Monday was a reminder that of the six versicles and responses preceding the collects at the morning and evening offices (or, in PECUSA 1928, just the evening office), five are taken from the Psalter: Ps. 85:7, 20:9, 132:9, 28:9, and 51:10/11. These staple petitions of daily prayer in the Prayer Book tradition, then, are a means of us praying according to the Psalter. Petitions for our salvation, for the common good of the commonwealth, for the Church, and for our sanctification are rooted in the ancient prayer of the Psalms. Sparrow in his Rationale notes that the one petition not from the Psalter - "Give peace in our time, O Lord" - is also derived from the prayers of Israel, from Hezekiah's plea to Isaiah, "Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days" (2 Kings 20:19). Petitions for Church and commonwealth, in classical Anglican fashion (see, for example, the Litany and the Prayer for the Church Militant), intermingle, reflecting the reality that the Church's life is within the commonwealth.
The fact that these staple petitions of the daily offices are rooted and grounded in the prayer of Israel, embodies the truth proclaimed by the Apostle in Romans 11 that the Church is grafted on to Israel, "and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree". The Church's prayer flows from and is shaped by the longing of Israel over the centuries, the experience of hope and lament, of blessing and exile. These versicles and responses, rather than being a merely functional 'bridge' between Lord's Prayer and collects, are a rich tutorial in the Church's prayer as the continuation of the prayer of Israel, a tasting of the "fatness of the olive tree".
Something of this is also reflected in the rubric directing that "the Priest" leads the versicles and response "standing up". That deacons or lay readers can do so does not detract from the symbolism at work here. In the words of Sparrow:
the Ministers of the Gospel are appointed by God to offer up the sacrifices of prayers and praises of the Church for the people, thus to stand betwixt God and them and to shew this his office, in these services he is directed to stand.
That the minister leading the versicles and responses does so standing is a reminder that the work of the apostolic ministry is priestly in nature (Romans 15:16), and that the Church's prayer is the sacrificial offering of "a holy priesthood" (I Peter 2:5), both of which are also witnesses to the Church's identity as a branch grafted on to Israel, and certainly not apart from from it.
What can at first sight appear to be a rather prosaic element of Mattins and Evensong is, rather, a profound and beautiful expression of the Church's very identity and purpose, a means of being nourished by "a good olive tree" (Romans 11:24), and offering up "spiritual sacrifice" as a "royal priesthood" (I Peter 2:5 & 9).
And one final point. Such an understanding of the versicles and responses reminds us that Mattins and Evensong are no 'low church' option but are richly catholic.
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