(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for How Did I Do?, originally shared on December 7, 2020. It was the seventieth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
How is the pandemic effecting our worship
life? Does worship using video conferencing software like Zoom take on a
character that is different than what is the case with unrestricted, or even
restricted, in-person worship over time? What can we do to make it better?
I spoke with a colleague in Tanzania today,
Dean George Pindua, who said that cases of the coronavirus are going down
there. We are going in the opposite direction, and he is praying for us.
Today is also the eighth day in a new
Liturgical Year. Liturgy means, “the work of the people”) The Liturgical Year which
most churches in the world follow, begins with the four Sundays before
Christmas, with the season of Advent, a season of waiting and hope.
The word “advent” means “coming”. We prepare
to celebrate Christmas, the first coming, or first “advent” of Jesus as we
prepare for the second coming, or second “advent” of Jesus when he comes to
judge the world.
I just bring it up because I want to emphasize
that the meaning of liturgical worship makes a necessary contribution to the
integrity of today’s Christian Church in the COVID-19 pandemic.
By contrast, worship in some quarters is designed
as entertainment. In others, it is designed to fill the congregation’s needs
for self-esteem. In still others, it is designed to fill a political or a social
purpose.
Liturgical worship is none of these things.
Worship is the open hearted, open minded, humble,
powerful direction of our prayer, praise, and thanksgiving to the one true
living God, one God in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Some people find liturgical worship boring.
Some churches have been built and continue to thrive by designing their services
for them, describing “our” services as being not like “those” services, their
irrelevant formality, their boring structures, their old-fashioned costumes,
and their droning sermons. And, who knows when to stand or when to sit?
People come to a living Faith in those
churches and they are popular. I make no judgement about them, except to say
that MacDonald’s is popular, and it sells a lot of hamburgers. That doesn’t
mean that a steady diet there is good for you.
One of my colleagues wrote a Facebook post
years ago in which she reported a conversation she had with a seatmate on an
airplane. She marveled at the attitudes of people who find ancient religion
boring, but are endlessly fascinated with themselves.
Liturgical worship is rooted in an ancient
structure, the same structure of the synagogue service in which Jesus would
have worshiped: gathering, scripture, sending. The only Christian innovation
was the addition of Holy Communion between scripture and sending.
Every word in a liturgical service comes
from someplace in the Bible. Every element has a meaning. Every meaning continues
to have deep significance to people of every race, and place, and culture, for hundreds,
and now, almost thousands of years. Its rhythms, its concentration on
scriptures, and its construction around the central events and meaning of the
Christian faith nourish people. Its focus on God and not on a charismatic personality
is not always easily digested, but it feeds us.
The readings from the Bible, one almost
always from the Old Testament (the Hebrew scriptures), one from the Old
Testament book of Psalms, one from one of the Gospels, and one from one of the
New Testament books that is not a Gospel, are arranged so that if you came to
church every Sunday for three years, you would hear the central texts of the
whole Bible.
The three Gospels, or stories of Jesus’ birth,
life, and particularly his death, and resurrection, that are similar in
structure: Matthew, Mark and Luke rotate every three years so that one of them
is read almost every Sunday for a year. John is sprinkled through all three
years.
This structure exposes worshipers to a lot
of the Bible, the primary way in which God speaks to us. It prevents preachers
like me from settling on a few favorite texts, or readings, from the Bible and
preaching on a few favorite, easy to digest, topics.
The problem with comparatively affluent, privileged,
and largely individualistic cultures like ours is that we come to “worship” in
order to have our personal needs met, to be entertained, to be “fed”. Our
highest expiation for worship is that we get something out of it.
That is not what worship is. Not even close.
Today, the worship services we attend is
more likely to be on YouTube (for higher production values) or on Zoom (for
greater personal connections). We might even worship in very small groups
outdoors, though the weather is getting colder (for Southern California), or
under increasingly greater restrictions as coronavirus cases continue to surge.
Some worship attendance is going up,
attracting people from all over the country, even the world, who would
otherwise not be able to participate there? Why? A sense of connection in
common worship of the living God? Other, places it is going down. Why? Don’t
get as much out. What were they getting before? Coffee hour?
As far as worship is concerned, it makes no
difference.
Worship is worship. You would think that the
appropriate response to that statement is, “Well, thank you, Captain Obvious!”,
but that would be wrong.
Worship is worship. It is nothing else.
Worship is fully directed at God. Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard
once said that when we leave a liturgical worship service, the question to ask
ourselves isn’t “What did I get out of that?”, but “How did I do.”
“How did I do” in opening my heart to the
prayer, praise, and thanksgiving directed toward the one true living God, the
Creator of all things, the Savior of the world, the ongoing personal presence
of God for the sake of the Church and the world? How did I do in honestly and
transparently confessing my sin? How did I do in joyfully hearing the words of
God’s forgiveness and grace?
“How did I do?” in pouring out my sorrow for
my sins, my need for wholeness of body, mind and spirit, the depths of my
gratitude for the redemption that God in Jesus Christ won for me at the cross.
Full throated worship in the presence of a
transcendent God is what the world needs and wants. There was a time when the
Catholic Church, as well as many Protestant churches, thought that the best way
to reach he people of, particularly, South America, but also other parts of the
2/3 world was to cast the Gospel as a word of liberation of the oppressed, which
moved into political and social liberation.
The direction was to “opt” for the poor. It
became a predominantly academic movement as, n reflecting on the results, it
was observed that the Church opted for the poor. The poor opted for Pentecostalism,
a full-throated worship experience with different paths to liberation.
A United Methodist, Elder Womak, reflected
on Kierkegaard’s critique of worship like this:
“The Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard,
compared worship with going to the theater. (Note. We might also say a movie,
in pre-pandemic days) He said that, for many Christians, going to worship was
like going to see a play. They decided which show to see, dressed properly,
arrived on time, were ushered to their seat and waited for the show to
begin. They were part of the audience that watched the performers —
clergy, acolytes, musicians, and ushers — put on the play. At some time, they
could expect to pay for admission — usually during intermission. After the
play, they had dinner, went home, evaluated the performance and decided whether
to return to that theater or look for another.
How different that is from New
Testament worship, he said. In New Testament worship, the people in the
congregation are the actors who have come to DO something — to worship. God is
the audience — the one who watches and listens. So, what about the pastor and
other worship leaders? They are the “prompters” who help the congregation do
its worship.”
Here are my suggestions for making going to
church, Zoom or otherwise, better and more like actual worship:
2. Preparing yourself means being open to God.
We cannot worship without the presence of the Holy Spirit.
3. Remove distractions. Turn off your cell
phone, unless you are on call for work or some emergency). Blow your nose. Go
to the bathroom. Sit quietly in a quiet place. Get out of the way of what is
about to happen. God is present. Ask that God would open you up and make it
possible for you to worship God.
4. Get out of God’s way. Open your self. Some
say open your heart and mind, but I think that the whole person is involved, so
relax your body as well, your whole self. Make yourself vulnerable. Acknowledge
that surprises are coming.
5. Focus. Be mindful of God and God alone.
6. Release your sorrow, be grateful
7. Don’t be embarrassed now. Confess your sin.
Acknowledge forgiveness. Be grateful.
8. Acknowledge awe as it comes.
9. Worship with your whole self.
10. Direct your worship toward God. Listen to
God’s voice.
11. When worship is finished, seek out people
who want to share experiences, talk about what just happened and how it
connects, and what it means for your lives to come.
12. Don’t ask, “What did I get out of that?”,
but ask yourself, “How did I do?” in truly worshiping God. The paradox is that,
when our focus is on worshiping God, we receive more than we could ever ask for
or imagine.
The apostle Paul writes to the church at Colossae, to
the Colossians:
*Colossians
3:14-17
Share your thoughts in the
comment section below and we’ll respond to every one.]
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