Adapted from John Drury’s writings on John Wesley and the Shaping of Liturgical Time
by Marie Sol Villalon
John Wesley was raised and educated under the ethos of the Anglican liturgy. The primary source for his own pattern of pious time was outlined for him in the Book of Common Prayer. His early preaching was especially guided by it. Yet even as Wesley began preaching extemporaneously and outside the confines of church walls and schedules, he maintained a deep affection for the Anglican forms. These forms continued to shape the content of his preaching.
Our primary task is to walk through the church year, stopping at points along the way to exhibit the liturgical yearly cycle’s influence on John Wesley’s sermons. Correlation as well as special emphasis will be noted. As the liturgical year commences with the season of advent, so shall I.
Unfortunately there are no published sermons on Wesley’s preaching during the Advent season or even addressing the Christmas message. However, his perpetuation of the traditional Anglican celebration of Christmas is evidenced in his instructions to the North American Methodists. The edition of the Book of Common Prayer he sent to them is designed for use on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. However, he retains Christmas as one of three holy days which do not necessarily fall on a Sunday. The prescribed lessons (Isa. 9:1-8; 7:10-17; Lk. 2:1-15; Tit. 3:4-9) and Psalms (19, 45, 85, 89) are modeled after those found in the 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.
New Year’s Day
The liturgical year has often been understood as the church’s attempt to live out the life of Christ. The story of Jesus’ life begins with his birth, celebrated on December 25. As the Gospel of Luke records the circumcision of Jesus on the eighth day according to Jewish law, so too the liturgical calendar has included the commemoration of Our Lord’s Circumcision, eight days after Christmas on January 1st.
Advent and Christmas
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer designates Romans 2 as the epistle reading for evening prayer services (“mattens”) on January 1st. On this day in 1733, while teaching at Oxford, John Wesley expounded on Romans 2:29: “Circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.” He preached a beautiful sermon on the four inward virtues implied by the spiritual circumcision of the heart: humility, faith, hope, and charity. This was the first of his writings to be published. His choice of theme clearly originates from liturgical celebration, and his reference was given to him by the lectionary.
Furthermore, not only was the form of his sermon shaped by liturgical time, his content sprang forth from the pious organization of space. One might note his odd pairing of the three theological virtues with humility. The reason for this association comes to light in the architecture of Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, for there, chiseled into the stone of the floor, are found nine virtues. The virtues lead like stepping stones from the four cardinal virtues to the three theological ones. Mercy and humility form the bridge between these traditional sets. So resting before the eyes of any Oxford student was the unlikely foursome of humility, faith, hope, and charity. Wesley, at least in his earliest days, was under significant influence of the liturgical ordering of time and space.
Soon after involving himself in the revival ministry, John Wesley and his Methodist societies began practicing a Watch-night service. Although the first services of this nature occurred spontaneously and on a near monthly basis, the Watch-night service became a New Year’s Vigil. The Methodists would gather on December 31 to sing and pray throughout the night. Although this time scheme was carried over from the Moravians, Wesley was convinced it was in line with the Anglican tradition. In a 1750 letter to Mr. Baily, Wesley proclaims, “Sir, did you never see the word Vigil in your Common-Prayer Book?… it was customary with the ancient Christians to spend whole nights in prayer … we have not only the authority of our own national Church, but of the universal Church, in the earliest ages.” So, although Wesley borrowed an arguably primitive church liturgical act from the Moravians, his defense includes an appeal to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
On New Year’s Day itself, the Methodists would make or renew a covenant with God. Wesley repeatedly recalls the blessings of this solemn service. Unlike the Watch-night service, this communal confirmation of personal commitment finds no precedent in the Anglican liturgy. The driving principle of a covenant has obvious associations with the Puritan Free Church movement. However, it had a liturgical form, for which Wesley published an order of service in 1780, and the Lord’s Supper was a central aspect of it. Its association with January 1st has little liturgical precedence. The practice could simply be a pragmatic one, for the societies would already be gathered from the Watch-night service the night before. However, the folk connotations of New Year’s Day with future commitments (“resolutions”) makes some sense of covenanting on the first of the year.
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