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CLent2 Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35 February 28, 2010
Last week we began a series about our worship. What happens when we show up here and settle into a pew; How the church’s two main sacraments – Baptism and Holy Eucharist –shape our lives.
Today we will take a look at the first half of the service: The Word of God – words read from scripture, words prayed from the prayer book, words sung from hymnal and anthem book, words proclaimed from pulpit – all blended with the words of our own individual thoughts and prayers.
Words. Words. Words.
We often call the first half of our worship service the Sacrament of the Word – meaning that all these words come together to be an outer and visible and audible sign for us of the inner, invisible grace of God.
Do the words of worship make a difference in our lives? Do they evoke feelings in you? Do they serve to heighten your awareness of God? Do they inspire us to grow? To change? To trust?
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. But I think that largely depends on how we deal with them. Of course, my hope is that our look this morning will help all these words make a difference for us.
The Word of God in our service of the Holy Eucharist happens as two parts of a whole:
They proclaim something to us and they provide a response from us. They give us a form for seeking God and they guide us in speaking to God. Christ said that we are nourished by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. When we cry ‘Abba’ there is a connection, a joining with God as Paul says, ‘it is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God’…[Romans 8:15] This exchange is called prayer.
When we begin with ‘The Lord be with you.’ ‘And with your spirit – or - and also with you’ or in newer liturgies, ‘The Lord is here. God’s Spirit is with us’ we are reminded of God’s presence within our words; that all the words we say here are words of prayer, simply that God is involved and active in our words. This helps us to grow into an awareness that all of our life is prayer, not just in religious word and song, but that we have God’s presence in all that we say and do.
Does the Church really teach us to pray? Does the Church really help us to be open to the Word through all the words we say and sing and pray?
Here is one way that could be of great help.
It was understood in earlier Christian worship and perhaps has gotten lost along the way. It is an awareness that public, ordered prayer and personal, silent prayer are parts of a whole. There is a fullness, a synergism, when the two are intentionally practiced together.
We can come into this place and simply say all the words together. There is good in that. We can come into this place with our private prayers and our inner thoughts and we benefit from that. But there is a presence and power when we take in the corporate words and invite them to speak to our individual hearts. There is a fullness when we join our inner thoughts/needs/hopes into the formal words of worship and bring life and context to our time together here. Then our worship is alive with holy exchange.
When we really bring ourselves fully into the corporate words of worship, we take them in - and digest them - and let them work in us. The words of worship meet our words, flavor our thoughts, stir us, and evokein us the understandings that are our spiritual food and strength - that bring healing and hope to us. It’s why the scriptures speak of hungering and thirsting. How satisfying when we are nourished by every word that comes from the mouth of God!
Evelyn Underhill, English 20th century writer and mystic has these words for us: We do something immense, almost unbelievable, when we enter that world of prayer, for then we deliberately move out towards that Being whom Christianity declares to be the one Reality: a Reality revealed to us in three ways - as a Creative Love, a Rescuing Love, and an Indwelling, all-pervading Love, and in each of those three ways claiming and responding to our absolute trust.
And so there is this rich pattern in our worship that we would do well to regain.
Our collect of the day, readings, music, and sermon respond to seasons and themes in the life of Christ.
The stories, poetry, letters from scripture, the music through the ages, the prayers … they are the context of a world, a kingdom, if you will, that we have chosen, or that has chosen us. The stories and words, the songs and poetry, the emotions of joy and sorrow and praise and doubt resonate with our own and give us place and voice… There are other kingdoms, other realities whose songs we sing and words we listen to and respond to – the commercial world, the military world, the political world, the sports world, the arts world, the fashion world. We come together with the stories, poetry, music, prayers of God’s world, not to exclude all else, but that this reality may be our perspective through which all the others are understood.
There is a rhythm throughout the service that we tend to skim over. There is proclamation - then silence- an opportunity to take in what has happened and make it your own, and then a response …
The Old Testament reading is read – silence, a moment to assimilate, and then response with a psalm. The New Testament reading is read – silence, a moment to let it soak in, then, response with a sequence hymn. The Gospel and homily are proclaimed – silence, a chance for each person quietly to ponder what they have derived - and then we response in unison with a statement of belief, a creed.
So – let’s add the content of this second Sunday of Lent. The Collect of the Day begins with ‘O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy.’ In it and in the readings we hear the theme of the reality of God’s working his good purposes out even though everything appears to the contrary. Abraham is promised to be the father of a land and a people when nothing in his life says that will be possible.
Psalm 27 responds with the faithful reply, ‘I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.’ Paul’s letter to the people of Philippi speaks to them of their citizenship in the kingdom of God – a reality they can hardly understand. Luke 13 gives us Jesus going forward to Jerusalem to die and yet says that it will finally be said of him ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’
All of these ‘words’ speak of faith and trust in God even when we can’t see the outcome.
The, the Prayers of the People - every section is a call to pray for a certain category of need followed with a response from the people.
The Eucharistic prayer is offered – and then we have the individual silences as people receive communion. Together, we respond with the post-communion prayer in which we give thanks for all that we have received and ask for the grace to take it from this place out into the world.
The Dismissal is also met with a final response – Thanks be to God.
I’ll be with the ECW annual women’s retreat next week. When I return to the pulpit on March 14, we’ll move on to the Peace and the Offertory.
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