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Article: NARRATIVE, SYMBOL, AND RITUAL TOWARDS A REINTEGRATION OF WORD AND IMAGE (Continued)
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by Colin Harbinson
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, at least, the
poets speak on: the great lights, they say, and
the days and the weeks they rule are ... made
by God ... the sun of righteousness. But God
is not the sun. And, for Christians, Sunday is
the order giving first day now, chiefly because
it is the day of assembly around the risen
Christ, not the risen sun.... the new poetics
say: “God made sun and moon!”9
The symbolism of these heavenly bodies has
been transformed by the introduction of biblical
poetics that “speaks” new content and new
meaning. God and sun are not one and the same.
God is declared the creator of the universe. This
established, the poetics are allowed to speak on,
as a symbolic reconnection is made, within a new
framework of meaning. When “biblical poetics”
are brought to bear upon an existing symbol, its
physical properties and the sensations it evokes
remain the same. Transformation is found in the
new meaning that it acquires.
Conceptual Thought
We return here to our understanding of
symbols as vehicles that unify vastly different
realities. Religious language is fundamentally
symbolic, because it points to the transcendent.
Symbols connect people with, and bond them
to, their story—their ultimate perception of
reality. However, it would be a mistake to think
that it ends here. Symbolism must be brought
to a place of greater understanding that comes
from conceptual thought. “Sacred concepts are
inextricably linked with the symbols that express
them.”10
When Ricoeur’s first three attributes of
a symbol are satisfied, he allows a fourth
dimension—the reflective. He states that, “a
symbol is a complex of meanings that may give
rise to thought, that might feed concept and
doctrine.”11 By linking symbol with thought
and concept, Ricoeur has opened a significant
door of understanding. Livingston concurs
that “most ordinary religious language ... is
richly metaphoric and poetic in character.
Yet, in literate societies, it does not remain at
that level. The symbols … and stories require
interpretation, elaboration, and commentary.”12 Symbolism on its own can move and inspire,
yet it can lack needed clarity. On the other
hand, conceptual thought
without a powerful symbol
system will lead to arid
ideology.
Narrative Re-enactment
Symbols “speak” in
many ways and on various
levels. They signify, mediate,
and evoke individual and
collective meaning. Rituals, on
the other hand, allow us to
experience our story through
re-enactment. According
to Larry Shinn, “rituals are
symbols acted out.”13 This
performative aspect is an
essential component of
ritual. Something “happens,”
something is “experienced.” Re-enactment
is evident, for example, in communion. It
is not insignificant that it is often referred
to as the Lord’s Supper, for Christ himself
is the paradigmatic model. Believers partake
of the symbols—bread and wine—in a ritual5
reenactment of the biblical event known as the
Last Supper, in response to Christ’s command
to do this in “remembrance of me.” As we
do this, we are “reminded” of our story, and
connected and bonded to it in a special way.
Focus on the symbols within a framework
of story recitation, moments of meditation,
response, and songs of corporate worship
allow the past, present, and future to come
together in a powerful experience. Ritual reenactment
enables the believer to experience,
in some measure, the original paradigmatic
event or meaning. This connection between
knowledge about the story and experience of
the story is found in the symbolic ritual of
Shabbat. The Jewish people experience their
story through ritual reenactment during their
festive celebrations. Commenting on these
festivals, Rabbi Eckstein describes Passover as a
time when, ”we retell the story and symbolically
relive the events.”14
Rooted in Narrative
To understand Jewish festivals is to be faced
continually with the critical link between story,
symbol and ritual. Ritual practice is always
accompanied by the reading of the paradigmatic
event from the Torah. Eckstein states that “it
is the Torah that guides the Jew’s path, shapes
his character, and links him with ultimacy. The
Torah is the lens through which the Jew perceives
life and reality.”15 It is this high view of Scripture
that continually informs a symbolic and ritual
practice that is firmly rooted in narrative.
When a paradigmatic story is not clearly
connected to the symbol or ritual, the story
loses its power. Meaning is replaced by
meaningless ritual and empty tradition. When
the form is present, but the meaning is absent,
the form, not the meaning, becomes sacred
and inviolable. When our symbols and rituals
are self-referential instead of pointing to our
story, they have become idolatrous.
Symbols and rituals must be continually
contextualized within the story, or else their
meaning will be weakened, or worse, forgotten.
Zahniser puts it succinctly: referring to
Christian discipleship, he says that symbol and
ceremonies without teaching soon lose their
reference to God; teaching without symbols
and ceremonies soon lacks relevance to life in
the world.16 Symbols speak and rituals reenact
in dynamic ways, because their appeal is to the
totality of a person. A powerful symbol system,
together with authentic ritual reenactment, will
bind us to the meaning of our story and to our
faith community. Without this, we will surely
bond to other narratives—other meanings.
Reintegrating Word and Image
It must be stated clearly that there is no
suggestion here that symbols and rituals in
any way replace the regenerative and ongoing
work of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life. No
amount of symbolic or ritualistic behavior can
bring people into a personal relationship with
God through Jesus Christ. The significance
here is the direct relationship between the story
of a given people and the symbol and ritual
system that bind them to it—and the powerful
potential that symbols and rituals hold as tools
for Christian discipleship. This brings us back
to Ricoeur’s schema and Lathrop’s meaningful
application that offers insight into how symbols
“speak” and the way in which their meaning can
be transformed. Here Lathrop uses evocative
and reflective language, even as he challenges
us to recover what has so often been lost in
Christian experience and worship:
The primary symbols of the assembly need to
be recovered as full signs that readily evoke
the cosmic, oneiric, and the poetic ... But we
are not about a new paganism; there is no
great hope in our symbols … but rather in
these greatly evoked and greatly broken in
the poetics and grace of God. The recovery
of symbols needs to be accompanied with a
profound recovery of biblical catechesis and
preaching, of mystagogy into the surprise of
Jesus Christ.17
Neither word nor symbol is complete
without the other. The new word in Christ—the
biblical poetics—must be reflected in the renewal
of symbol, ritual, and ultimate meaning. Lathrop
points us again to communion and the symbol
of bread as an appropriate metaphor of the
reality and process of meaning-renewal. “The old
cosmic, oneiric, and poetic references have been
received and broken and reshaped. There is no
salvation, finally, in our dreams or in our ancient
symbols ... but in surprising grace, God saves all
that we are—our hopes and our fears and even
our dreams and symbols and stories.”18
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