This week I found a prayer for the church written by Rev. Emily Swan from Sarah Bessey’s book, Field Notes for the Wilderness. This prayer calls us back to the idea that in worship we both serve God and are filled with God.
Spirit of Jesus / Come with fire that refines / Water that refreshes / Wind that topples / Breath that fills. // Kindle a global revival of empathy, justice and active peacemaking. / Birth a witness of Love that is bigger and better than we inherited. // Encourage us, so we do not grow cynical, isolated and burnt out. / Fan our hopes, our joys and our connections./ Allow us rest when we need rest. / Enable us to see you in each person we encounter. / Show us mercy, in our humanity. // Let us love more fully than we thought possible. / Let us not be quick on the draw, ready to retaliate, escalate, assassinate. / Let our collective fervour for justice eclipse institutional concerns. / Let us trust and follow the wisdom of those who have been marginalized. / Let us persevere in creating safe places of worship to eat bread and drink wine together. / Let us stand for Love and with Love, following the way of your Son as best we’re able. / Let us not fear an experiential spirituality. / Let us listen to the wondrous bodies you gave us. // Let us hear your voice and tangibly feel you with us. / Let us discern your guidance. / Let us abide in and with you. //
Show us what you’re doing, so we can work together. / Move where you will when you will, in whatever way you will. / Come Holy Spirit, and restore your Church. Amen.
Why do we worship? Why is worship meaningful for you? For generations you and I have made it a priority to mark this day of the week to assemble in the church to worship together.
Christian philosopher Soren Kierkeguaard asks us to see the sanctuary as a stage on which the entire congregation acts, promoted by the ministers and musicians. Our audience is God.
Christian philosopher Soren Kierkeguaard asks us to see the sanctuary as a stage on which the entire congregation acts, promoted by the ministers and musicians. Our audience is God.
Worship is the work of all of us who gather to praise, honour, and glorify God. The call to worship, the prayers and confession, reading of scripture, music and sermon that makes up “the liturgy” simply means the service or work of the people. Have you ever thought about what kind of “service” to God a worship service is?
In her book, Soul Feast, Marjorie Taylor writes,
Acts of service to one another have a sacrificial character. We serve God when worship expresses a spirit of sacrifice; first a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, then a complete self-offering – a willingness to listen for God’s Word and to give ourselves wholly to God’s designs in the world. We offer our will, strength and gifts in gratitude for who God is and what God has done for us.
Our worship is rooted in who God is and in God’s purposes. The “worth-ship” of God is the origin of human worship. We also worship because we are created to reflect and glorify the One in whose image we are made.
We begin with the story from Exodus. Moses had gone up Mt. Sinai to speak to God and receive the ten commandments. He had been away for 40 days. Since they left captivity in Egypt, God continued to lead the people into the desert where food and water were scarce. Moses being gone didn’t help matters. When Moses didn’t return, the people began to complain to Aaron. They worried, “We don’t know what has become of him.” I believe they were really saying, what will become of us?
Moses had been the mediator between the people and God. When the people heard the Word of the Lord, it was Moses who delivered those words. So it wasn’t just Moses that they missed. Since Moses was absent, they also experienced the absence of God.
When you start wondering if God is absent, it might be tempting to find something a little more tangible to hold on to. The scripture says, “The people gathered around Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make gods for us who shall go before us; as for this Moses . . . we do not know what has become of him” (Exodus 32:1). What the people were saying was, “Aaron do something to take away the fear of being abandoned. Make another god for us that is more manageable, a god we can get our hands on when we really need him.”
Aaron bowed to their complaints and fashioned a golden calf because it was a common symbol that was familiar and predictable. A golden calf didn’t make any demands on them and served to distract them from their fears. Aaron didn’t think he had given the people an idol. He thought he had given them a symbol that would help them worship the true God. But there is a fine line between symbols and idols of worship.
The candle is a symbol that Jesus is the light. The open bible symbolizes our openness to hearing God through scripture. Symbols are easily relinquished, because they only symbolize that which is valued, whereas idols become what we value. They are symbols that we have turned into gods. The blessings from God were never meant to be an object of worship.
Notice that Moses pleads the people’s case before God. Moses reminds God of God’s own nature to be faithful. That is the back and forth of worship that we plead our case before God. It is through worship and all its components that we are reminded of God’s faithfulness in spite of our shortcomings. That is our work in worship to encourage one another to be faithful.
Moses embraced his responsibility to the people and dared to keep God accountable to his own sacred nature to be merciful to them. Christian worship recalibrates our hearts toward God and his Kingdom.
In 2 Timothy we read,
“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,…”
Paul uses the phrase, “inspired by God” that literally means “God-breathed.” In the Genesis account of creation, God breathes life into humankind, so too, God breathes life into his word. We must not smother it. We have to let it breathe. It is the word of God, and it is not only inspired but inspiring– it can breathe new life into us.
Reading scripture is not an end in itself, it is given to us in worship to raise our awareness of ourselves in relationship with God.
We gather to remember who and whose we are. We come to recount the stories that shape our faith, stories that turn us from a collection of individuals into a community with a common source and vision. The church as a worshipping community carries our biblical faith and spiritual tradition down through the ages to each individual….Without the rites and sacraments of public worship, there would be no Body of Christ. It is through the praises, prayers, sacraments and spiritual proclamations of common worship that the church is continually given its life.
Show us what you’re doing, so we can work together.
Move where you will when you will, in whatever way you will. Come Holy Spirit, and restore your Church. Amen