Musings on Worship

A Teaching About Worship
Offered in lieu of a sermon at St. John's Lancaster
28 July, 2013

Summer Worship at St. John's
Photo courtesy of Mike and Wendy Garbrandt

When I looked at today’s lessons, it occurred to me that we have covered the themes involved pretty well this month. The first lesson employs graphic language about Hosea’s personal life to make the point that we have all strayed from God, individually, and as a people. The Psalm makes it clear (as does the rest of Hosea) that God is willing to heal and restore us in his mercy and by his love. The Epistle could really get me wound up for a first class rant, but I don’t think any of you really came to church to hear that today. And the Gospel makes it very clear that we have a God given responsibility to the people around us. You’ve heard a good bit of that from this pulpit as well. But the Gospel also contains St. Luke’s account of that day when Jesus taught the disciples to pray by giving them the Lord’s Prayer. And that is where I would like to go today. Why do we worship the way we do? Why does our service and our music come together as it does?

Many in the church today speak about seeker friendly services, or modern family style worship, or blended services. I suppose that is ok, and I think an argument can be made that God looks on our hearts and receives our offerings when they come from a pure heart. But we should also remember that there are many times in the Bible when God rejects sincere offerings because they depart from what some have called the faith received. There were those in Israel who offered “strange fire” and were consumed by the earth. There were those like marked Cain whose offerings were rejected because their pride and condescension to others led them to believe that what they wanted, or what they enjoyed was as good as anything God might have commanded. And then there were those like the prophets of Baal whose offerings were rejected because their rites and ceremonies were entangled in a system of beliefs so perverse that they stank in the nostrils of God. Anglicanism attempts to establish norms for worship in the Book of Common Prayer which avoid these pitfalls by paying distinct attention to the teachings of Scripture, to the heritage and practice of the Church through the ages, and to the Conciliar nature of the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the world- that is, that we all have a responsibility to preserve together the traditions of the church, and to not change things just because they are more meaningful to us as individuals or as individual denominations.

Have you ever noticed that when you visit a Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or Orthodox Church, the service is very much like our own? It begins with acts of praise to God, contains Bible readings, the Creed, a Sermon, Prayers, a confession, and then moves on to Holy Communion. In like manner, when you attend a Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Methodist service, it looks very much like our Morning or Evening Prayer. There is praise to God, Bible reading, a Sermon, prayers, a call to confession or commitment, and the opportunity to offer one’s self to God’s service. This is no accident. It is a part of the deposit of faith, that patrimony of all Christians whereby we share in forms and ways of doing things which go back to the earliest days of Christianity, and often beyond that to the worship patterns of early Judaism (because remember that Jesus and all of the Twelve were Jews.) So it might be said that we attempt in our worship to continue in that faith received from Jesus and the Apostles by worshipping in forms that largely correspond to their own forms of worship.

There are also some cultural quirks in our forms of worship which may seem out of place to some, but which tie us to the broader Church, or which celebrate the heritage of our own particular branch of Christ. Consider the foreign language elements in our worship as an example. The 39 Articles of the Church of England make it abundantly clear that our worship should, indeed must be in the language of the people. But if you look through the prayer book, you will find lots of wonderful Latin titles like Magnificat, and Nunc Dimmitis, and Sursum Corda, and Gloria Patri. There is even a bit of Greek in terms like Kyrie Eleison. There are certain hymns, certain parts of the liturgy, which are so valued and embedded in the ancient patrimony of Christians that even as the liturgy modified to insure that people could understand it, the older forms were retained as a sort of reminder that God himself is unchanging, and that his love is eternal. We share these forms with other Christians to remind us that we are not alone with Jesus, but that we are a part of his body, which contains people and communities in many places and throughout time. In the same vein, some of our musical selections and traditional prayers retain specific linguistic forms which remind us of our own unique heritage, and call us to remember that our Creator comes to every people and culture in terms that make God’s love understandable to all people. For instance, occasionally you will hear an anthem in German or a carol in French; and we regularly employ the old Scottish Psalter, even though no one here, except perhaps myself and Robin Leonard, can understand anyone from the Scottish lowlands anymore, much less in their language from 300 years ago. But those foreign language artistic expressions of love to God remind us of where we have come from, and that we are now one in Christ, even though our ancestors once fought each other. Jesus has made peace between our peoples, and we are one Church, gathered as the prophets foretold.

And so when we pray, we seek to embody all of that faith we have received from those who have gone before. We realize that we are one people, but also that we each bring our own particular heritage as we offer ourselves to God. A proper understand of this symbolism and diversity of our common worship, of our Common Prayer, ought to guide us into that humility, that mutual interdependence, and that ultimate reliance upon God that Jesus commended to the disciples when they asked how they ought to pray. I encourage you today to think on these things as you experience our worship of God, and as we come to this holy altar to receive the body and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I pray that God will teach us all to pray more sincerely, more profoundly, more honestly, and more regularly in the days to come. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN.