Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology

I will attempt to keep this review as brief as possible, for
though I could write pages and pages about how this book has challenged me,
enlightened me, caused me to ponder, reflect, and change, I do believe that an
advanced critique of Lathrop’s book Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology would be
above my pay grade.  This is an advance
book, and I feel more comfortable critiquing books that are aimed at laity and
pastors.  This book is more at the level
of seminary textbook.

This is not to say that a normal person, Joe Six-Pack, Joe
the Plumber, more aptly Joe Liturgical will not enjoy this book.  You will enjoy this book and its
conversational tone (it’s not lecture or textbook, but it’s not Eugene Peterson,
Brian McLaren or Scot McKnight conversational either—there is jargon and it
is very heady at times, but Lathrop never makes you feel stupid).  Just bear in mind that this book has Latin,
Greek, and German sprinkled throughout, and name drops church fathers like a
rapper name dropping shoe brands.

Now to the book; it is in three parts: Patterns ~ Secondary
Liturgical Theology, Holy Things ~ Primary Liturgical Theology, and
Applications ~ Pastoral Liturgical Theology. 
The first part is a copious history of the liturgy and its beginnings.  Lathrop ties the Christian liturgy to the
Hebrew liturgy and the cosmological and astrological understandings of the
ancient peoples.  The seasons and stars
had great meaning for the ancient peoples, and this was foundational to the
dating of Christian holy days, though this does not retard their significance
in any way (77).  Pascha, or for the
layman Easter, is the center of the Christian liturgical calendar, and Lathrop
sees the pattern of the liturgy as each Sunday being a little pascha leading up
to the Great Pascha:

Then the Sundays could begin to be numbered after the
Pentecost or organized in repeating cycles of eight, as in the Eastern cycle of
eight tones, to make of the whole year a continuing resonance from the paschal
center.  Sunday itself, with its readings
set next to the death and resurrection of Christ encountered in the meal, with
its reinsertion in baptismal meaning, could be regarded as an observance of the
paschal mystery. (77)

The second part, Holy Things ~ Primary Liturgical Theology,
deals with the things that are primary in the liturgy: meal, Word, and water: 

The center of our assembly ought rightly to be in water,
word, and meal set in juxtaposition for only one reason: that the grace of the
God of Israel, encountered by this assembly in Jesus Christ, might be spoken in
clarity, transforming our experience. (100)

These things are set out to invite the people of the
assembly to participate in the worship of God (116).  Because all are welcome to participate, both
stranger and holy person, great care must be made to preserve the significance
of the holy things, for holy things are for holy people who have been
reconciled to God.  Holy Things reconcile
people, and all church services should lead to a person being invited into the
full process of baptism and faith. 
Lathrop comments here concerning the stranger in the midst of the
people: 

Christ is at home with all outsiders.  But a terrible thing will have happened if
there is no way to come deeper, no invitation to the water, no catechumenal
process, no continued warning and welcome. In welcoming such a stranger we will
simply be mirroring the multitude of ways in which we ourselves have been
welcomed back into Christ, time and again. 
Word and table together are the deepest repeatable form of that welcome.
(132)

The stranger is to be fully transformed by the liturgy, and
believers are to have a "liturgical theology perpetually open onto reform" and
sacrifice, especially of ourselves to the gospel and to the poor (156).

The third part, Applications ~ Pastoral Liturgical Theology,
is scholarly yet practical.  On pages
167-69 Lathrop lays out dozens of questions to critique the local church’s
worship service.  This section would be
excellent for any pastoral staff to go through as they discuss how their local
church worships.  Lathrop uses the
metaphor of the city to discuss the diversity of Christian practice that must
never loose site of its commonality and unity, that

there should be unity in the deep sense that at the center
of the "city," no matter what gifts of the nations are flowing through its open
gates, will be the bath, the word, and the meal that engage us in the holiness
of God. (223)

Through the jargon, the scholarship, the advanced academic
dialogue, the history, and the theology comes a common stream of persistence, a
persistence Lathrop commends us to, to hold "holy things" at the center of our
faith, that every local church participate in the centrality of grace: meal,
baptism, and word.