"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen"
From the Lord's Prayer
Every theistic religion has a form of worship. Regardless of what day it is, there is usually one day of the week that people take time, the world over, to go to a temple, a mosque, a synagogue or a church to worship. As most of you know, I'm a Christian and an Episcopalian by denomination, along with claiming to be a faithful agnostic. Contradiction, irony, and paradox abounds in my life and, from what I can tell, abounds in life in general.
I like going to church. I really do. I probably have attended more services than most simply because I'm an organist, and after almost 50 years of being an organist, playing for multiple services on a weekends in the past, for funerals, weddings and special services, you'd think I'd be "churched-out,", but I actually go home after playing for the service in my home church and listen to two more services on Sunday afternoons, Trinity Wall Street in New York and the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.. I love being an Episcopalian. I love its open and inclusive attitude, its sincere motivation to put the Gospel in action through its embrace of diversity and love for all people.
I love our services, the music, the liturgy, most sermons/homilies, and the prayers. I go on YouTube and listen to Evensongs from England or listen to my recorded collection of Evensongs and other sung Anglican liturgies. I like listening to the music of the church by candlelight, sometimes laying on my couch and drifting off as a quiet, invisible participant in a universal state of worship with all the saints, the heavenly hosts, the planets and all the stars that are singing in the voices of the choirs I'm listening to or the organ that is playing. I can easily get lost in all the wonder, love, and praise that is being expressed in those recorded moments.
I love our services, the music, the liturgy, most sermons/homilies, and the prayers. I go on YouTube and listen to Evensongs from England or listen to my recorded collection of Evensongs and other sung Anglican liturgies. I like listening to the music of the church by candlelight, sometimes laying on my couch and drifting off as a quiet, invisible participant in a universal state of worship with all the saints, the heavenly hosts, the planets and all the stars that are singing in the voices of the choirs I'm listening to or the organ that is playing. I can easily get lost in all the wonder, love, and praise that is being expressed in those recorded moments.
I realize that my preferential worship experience is not everyone's cup of tea. There are many, many forms and ways to worship. Whatever gets one lost in one's sense of wonder, love, and praise is valid in my book. If golfing or fishing on a Sunday morning sincerely gets you there, good for you.
I am, however, going to explain my worship preference and what it does for me and why I think it is relevant in the world we live today and how its serves the divestiture of power. To that end I feel need to explain liturgical worship, or what might be referred as a formalized, scripted worship experience. The term, liturgy, literally means the work of the people or in other words, public service and its roots can be traced back to ancient Athens and Rome were people of stature were expected or required to perform certain duties on behalf of the people. These duties were largely ritualized acts associated with ancient festivals and the like. Most theistic religions have some form of liturgy that define acts of praise and supplication; when songs are sung, prayers are said, and other rituals like Holy Communion are performed. These can be loosely or highly defined depending on the theism or its denomination.
Liturgy is largely understood, today, as format. I prefer highly structured, thought-through services as opposed to loosely structured ones. There are positives and negatives to both forms but I find in more liturgical services; that is, within the context of formal prayer and praise and in the rituals of sign and sacrament being offered a deep sense of longing and letting go being expressed.
I am, however, going to explain my worship preference and what it does for me and why I think it is relevant in the world we live today and how its serves the divestiture of power. To that end I feel need to explain liturgical worship, or what might be referred as a formalized, scripted worship experience. The term, liturgy, literally means the work of the people or in other words, public service and its roots can be traced back to ancient Athens and Rome were people of stature were expected or required to perform certain duties on behalf of the people. These duties were largely ritualized acts associated with ancient festivals and the like. Most theistic religions have some form of liturgy that define acts of praise and supplication; when songs are sung, prayers are said, and other rituals like Holy Communion are performed. These can be loosely or highly defined depending on the theism or its denomination.
Liturgy is largely understood, today, as format. I prefer highly structured, thought-through services as opposed to loosely structured ones. There are positives and negatives to both forms but I find in more liturgical services; that is, within the context of formal prayer and praise and in the rituals of sign and sacrament being offered a deep sense of longing and letting go being expressed.
LONGING
"My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." Psalm 84:2
It's hard to explain this sense of longing I sometime feel when I'm in a state of worship. To be honest, I don't often have the luxury of feeling this longing when I'm participating in a worship service as an organist or as the homilist and the organist for the day. I'm too busy thinking what I need to do next. That is why I take time to go online and participate in Trinity's and the National Cathedral's services because I don't want to think about what's next. I just want to be in the moment.
When I'm at these places in person and with my family, I experience a pull that is best described as a longing. There is a familiarity in worship that is hard to describe - a deep sense of lost knowing - that I sometimes encounter - a feeling of presence that is both near and far - of now and yet to be.
Formalized liturgical services affords worship this familiarity - no matter where one is at. You recognize a commonality with the people seated in the same place. Whether you know them or not, you have a sense of knowing them through a shared worship experience. This longing is a positive experience. It means I feel a connection unlike any other connection. It is the connection that occurs when one is in a liminal environment - a thin place - as Celtic spirituality would call it. It is as if one is experiencing the thrill of anticipation, the excitement of being on the verge of something about to happen - something at hand, but not quite yet. I call this experience the nearness of God. This longing occurs as I prepare for worship, sitting in the church, whether in silence or listening to the pre-service music.
For myself, I know of no other place that does this for me, other than a church. I am sure this is true for those who attend a temple, mosque, or a synagogue as well. These are all liminal places - places on the verge of encounter with the source of our being.
In high liturgical Christian worship, all of the senses are engaged. Sight, smell, sound, taste and touch are present. The totality of our sensual selves is involved in this longing for the living God. All of this outward display, if done sincerely, drives us inward to the source of our being; to the living presence of God beating in our hearts.
LETTING GO
"Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee" Psalm 55:22
In thinking of religious singularity, the biggest obstacle in attaining it is our inability to let go. We don't let go naturally, in my experience, and religion, as a whole (in the way I define religion) doesn't really get us there unless the religion is theistic in nature. Secular religion has a tough time of letting go. [Atheists, by now you know I consider you theistic.]
The question is what, exactly, are we letting go of?
Power, of course, but what does that mean? Why should we let go of power? How does that help us as a species, since most of our evolutionary history has been acquiring power in order to survive?
In my pondering the evolution of religion, which for the most part centered around acquiring, generating and appealing to power, there occurred a gradual shift in the understanding of power itself. The pursuit of power became more than a necessity for survival, it led to conquest and empire,and the pursuit of power for power's sake as self aggrandizement. As it did, the concept of the divine, the gods, became embroiled in this human pursuit. If your side won, your god or gods were powerful and cared about you. If your side lost, your god or gods were weak or had abandoned you.
It is interesting that the Christian and Judaic Bible reflects this evolutionary process, particularly, the Hebrew scriptures. Where we see this shift in understanding of power is in the prophets and in the Psalms. It is particularly pronounced and underscored in a shift in the attitude towards worship. In Psalm 51 and Isaiah 57 we are told that God no longer desires burnt offerings to garner atonement for sin and favor with God, that God requires the contrite heart and humble spirit.
Although these two places in scriptures are the only places that reference this directly, it is implicit in most of what the Psalms and the prophets are saying. It represents a seismic shift in the understanding of worship and the sense of power. It comes through a recognition that power has its limitations; that, in human terms, the use of power beyond the necessity to survive can and will likely lead to abuse; that the acquisition of power for power's sake corrupts and as Lord Acton said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
After the destruction of the first Temple and the Babylonian captivity, the God of Abraham was not seen as abandoning his people. On the contrary, God was understood to go with them into captivity, as he had when Israel went to Egypt and became enslaved by the Egyptians. In fact, I maintain the Passover story was largely embellished and took on new meaning during this formative period of Judaism. Power became suspect and best left to God rather than in the hands of humans. In fact, Judaism from that moment on took a wary view of regal power. The Davidic throne became more a metaphor for the ideal rule of God than something to be realized.
Our public, communal worship services, however, reflect this divestiture of power, of ascribing to the Lord, strength and honor. The structure of public worship walks us through a divestiture of power. Divesting power is a bit like housekeeping; putting out the garbage, putting things in order; putting ourselves in perspective with our God and our fellow human beings.
It re-establishes the primal religious impulse of needing each other while shedding new light on the differentiating paradigm of religion - a light that sees difference and diversity as a gift and a blessing as opposed to being a challenge and a threat. This can only be properly done if we give up the desire to be powerful for power's sake, to turn our desires and will over to the power that is God - to let go of that which makes us feel powerful in the human sense of power, the grudges we hold, the anger we won't let go of, the fear that prompts us to seek control, the hatred that enables us to dismiss the importance of the those we dislike and deem the enemy. Cynicism, negativity and sarcasm gives us a sense of control and power and motivate us to use power to control and dominate others. It is hard to let go of such negativity on our own and worship helps us to do so.
I can say that because I've had more than my fair share of moment when I was being negative. I also know that worship melts such negativity down to a manageable size. One really can't worship and be negative at the same time. This is were formal liturgies help, in my experience. You might be having a bad day on some Sunday morning and haven't quite shaken the feeling off before arriving at church, but once the service starts and you begin to participate in the liturgy, you find yourself forced to admit you're being negative. If you don't, that will be the longest hour ever spent fuming and you'll have wished you stayed in bed.
LITURGICAL WORSHIP
The Eucharistic liturgy of the Episcopal Church begins with prayer. Prayer is a big part of any Episcopal service and they are well-crafted and verbally economic. They say a lot with a few words. It is through prayer, largely, that Christians and monotheists, in general, divest power and turn it over to God. The essence of prayer is to let go and let God. Prayer is far more than a want or wish list. Rather it is a submission where we as individuals and collectively divest ourselves of the need to control every aspect of our lives to the mercy and grace of God. Prayer, in this sense, is a paradoxical act of liberation through submission no matter what the situation we find ourselves in. In prayer we are liberated from the impulse to control and exercise power over our lives and the lives of others.
In liturgical worship services, this occurs formally in various payers called collects, in the confession of sins, in saying the Our Father or Lord's Prayer and ultimately it is enacted in partaking of Holy Communion. The Christian Eucharistic liturgy is primarily made of two parts, the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of Holy Communion. The liturgy of the Word is the larger part of the service and begins with praise and acts of worship directed towards God and then moves towards the scripture reading appointed for the day. Almost all liturgical churches share the same or very similar lectionaries (scheduled readings) that assign four readings for each day of the year. This include readings from the Hebrew scriptures, the Psalms, the Epistles of the New Testament and the Gospels and then a commentary called a homily or a sermon in which the preacher ties the readings or a portion of the readings to our daily experiences - a time of meditation and reflection that should make us think rather than tell us how to think.
Then follows a creed of some form or fashion. As you know, I'm not a fan of creeds that begin with "I believe..." or "We believe..." Beliefs are tricky business and can lead to idolatrous worship which in monotheistic religion is something to be avoided. In my understanding, a craven image is not just a mere statue but a description that is set in stone or etched in indelible ink. Metaphor is a close as one can get to a description of what we identify as God without getting into the realm of the idolatrous. I believe God, I don't necessarily believe "in" God as a this or a that, which sounds like a topic for another post. I respect other people saying the creed, will stand while it is being said and will lead it if I'm officiating in a service because I recognize its importance for some who feel disorientated if its not being said, but I generally don't say them.
Having said that, I see no need to protest its being said, but I personally feel creeds are dangerous and misleading. In my opinion they assert far too much as being God's truth than can be rightfully said in any language and anything that forces people to say something without their being able to fully comprehend its implications seems ethically, if not morally wrong. In my opinion, faithful theistic worship would avoid making people take a theological position they can't possible understand as a necessity to their inclusion in the Body of Christ, the Church, as it enforces a concretization of belief as absolute truth, and ideological beliefs of any kind, in my opinion, should never be treated as being synonymous or on par with faith. For me saying an apostolic creed is a mild distraction in an otherwise spiritually liberating experience. I use the time it is being said to remind myself that we can never, on this side of life, comprehend the incomprehensibility, the immensity of God. Now trying to put that into words would be a statement of faith worth saying.
This is followed in the Episcopal Church by the prayers of the people. These take on many forms, but they are intended to cover a lot of bases; the world and its leaders, the church and its leaders, the imprisoned, the sick, the unemployed, those specifically who requested the prayers of the church, those who have died, those who are celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and then there is a brief moment for anyone to add other petitions or thanksgivings, which people frequently do.
This is followed by a joint confession of sins and absolution. Sin is another topic I will eventually getting around to spouting off about, but the intent of confession is above all to let go of the garbage we've accumulated throughout the past week - that which gets in the way of our relationships with others; the things we do and the things we didn't do, and thus gets in the way of our relating to God. In other words,the carbon residue of our playing with fire throughout the week, stoking the fires of anger, impatience, an intolerance and the heat we are recipients of; fire of anger, impatience, and intolerance others give us. The absolution is the moment of wiping the slate clean, clearing out the creosote of entrenched opinion from the flues of faith. I think it would be more an effective experience if the absolution was said by everyone, as we are required to ask for forgiveness as we forgive, but the traditional approach works for me also.
In most modern liturgical churches we take a short break to greet each other with the peace of Christ. In my small congregation, this involves everybody greeting everyone else. It's one of the advantages of being small.
The highpoint of Holy Eucharist is the moment of Holy Communion itself. There are many views as to what Holy Communion signifies. In my opinion, the relevance of Holy Communion is not so much that it magically or supernaturally forgives sins as a re-enactment of an atoning sacrifice, but rather that in this liminal environment where we are divested of pretense and power, we encounter the intimacy of Christ's body as we become that body in the sharing of bread representing Christ's body and drinking wine representing Christ's blood as a sign an symbol of his presence in our world and in our lives. In doing so we recognize that we are part of one another in the broad spectrum of the cosmos known as the Body of Christ. It's that intimate, that imminent, and that immense. And if done mindfully, it gives me a sense of responsibility towards the people I'm sharing communion with and a responsibility to the world in which I live.
In the Episcopal church we invite anyone who wishes to share in this intimacy to do so whether they are Christian or not. In this encounter, anyone who comes forward and partakes of this sacrament becomes one with us and by being one with us they become one with our common source, God. We Episcopalians are not gatekeepers. We're not about keeping anyone, including little children (especially little children) from approaching Christ - the presence of God in humanity. This is our calling. To do otherwise is to exercise power we don't have and should not want. We may have the keys of the kingdom and the temptation may be to lock people out, but I think it safe to say that being given the keys of the kingdom is more about opening doors then locking them tight; more about taking the risk of inclusiveness than practicing exclusiveness, more about letting go than holding back and building walls.
For most of my life I belonged to a Christian denomination that practiced closed communion or what they now refer to as "close communion." To me it was sinful practice, an insult to the body and blood of Christ who in the being of Jesus gave his life in love for the world. The attempt to make something more holy - more meaningful through exclusion is nothing more than using power to control the love of God. It cannot be done and any attempt to do so is wrong and sinful.
WORSHIP AS A WAY OF LIFE
What Sunday worship - the Christian Sabbath - does for me is give me time to power-down in order to power up for the days ahead. Powering-up, however, is not about trying to push through the days ahead as it about allowing God's presence in my life to come through and seeking God's presence and making that connection to the world I encounter. In that sense worship becomes a way of life - a way of being. It's not about acting holy or pietistic. I doubt that I can even do that. I have periodically exhibited my rougher edges and edginess. Rather worship as a way of life is following the narrow path of inclusiveness. Yes - you heard me correctly. The narrow path is paradoxically a path that seeks God in all things, seeks the beauty of holiness in all things; one that tries to avoid the expansive path of self aggrandizement, seeing one's self as the measure of all things, including God. The path of inclusiveness is not as easy nor is it as warm and fuzzy as it sounds.
There are times when this becomes a real challenge, like the times we're living in right now. In the anxious anticipatory times we are currently living, uncertainty is being fostered by the creation of an "alternate" certainty that does not ring true. Fear has been tapped as a power source to promote selfishness on both a national and personal level, where using the threat of destructive power is being presented as a constructive means for paving the way for economic growth, national security, world peace, and personal success. In a very short period of time we are seeing where this is leading to: The rise of xenophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and fear of the other in general. The temptation is to fight this growing inferno with fire; to meet the strength of selfish interest with the strength of selfish interest in a clash of opinionated anger wars that could and will very likely to lead to physical violence if not resolved.
Such times as these require that theisms of all types step up to the plate and puts power into proper perspective. It requires that we who worship do so fervently as a means of keeping our desire and the temptation to utilize power in a "get-my-own-way" manner in check. We need TRUTH and we need to speak TRUTH to power, not in a show of force but with the force of love.
Again, this can sound so passive, so impotent in the face of the often belligerently idiotic "fire-cracker"rhetoric we're constantly being exposed to, but truth spoken from a position of love can put out fires quicker than anything I know. The strength of love is not only true power, it is clean power and its not easy to handle because it requires putting aside selfish interests, making sure that those who espouse the wrong use of power are being addressed from a position of being loved.
Such a love not only has the strength to step forward and present the face of truth but has the strength to step back and let go and let God in order to prevent us from falling into the temptation of taking matters into our own hands. This is neither a passive nor is it an aggressive approach. It is a faithful approach.
Worship develops this approach, because worship brings a sense of the liminal to all situations; where hope is anticipated and on the verge of realization. It begins with an aware prayerfulness (as in watch and pray). It does not rush to judgment as judgment is tempered by honest confession (assessment) about one's self. Worship brings the moment into the realm of scripture where it can be questioned and analyzed, and thought through. Worship seeks Holy Communion with all that is, bringing it face to face with our common creator, God.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Although these two places in scriptures are the only places that reference this directly, it is implicit in most of what the Psalms and the prophets are saying. It represents a seismic shift in the understanding of worship and the sense of power. It comes through a recognition that power has its limitations; that, in human terms, the use of power beyond the necessity to survive can and will likely lead to abuse; that the acquisition of power for power's sake corrupts and as Lord Acton said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
After the destruction of the first Temple and the Babylonian captivity, the God of Abraham was not seen as abandoning his people. On the contrary, God was understood to go with them into captivity, as he had when Israel went to Egypt and became enslaved by the Egyptians. In fact, I maintain the Passover story was largely embellished and took on new meaning during this formative period of Judaism. Power became suspect and best left to God rather than in the hands of humans. In fact, Judaism from that moment on took a wary view of regal power. The Davidic throne became more a metaphor for the ideal rule of God than something to be realized.
Our public, communal worship services, however, reflect this divestiture of power, of ascribing to the Lord, strength and honor. The structure of public worship walks us through a divestiture of power. Divesting power is a bit like housekeeping; putting out the garbage, putting things in order; putting ourselves in perspective with our God and our fellow human beings.
It re-establishes the primal religious impulse of needing each other while shedding new light on the differentiating paradigm of religion - a light that sees difference and diversity as a gift and a blessing as opposed to being a challenge and a threat. This can only be properly done if we give up the desire to be powerful for power's sake, to turn our desires and will over to the power that is God - to let go of that which makes us feel powerful in the human sense of power, the grudges we hold, the anger we won't let go of, the fear that prompts us to seek control, the hatred that enables us to dismiss the importance of the those we dislike and deem the enemy. Cynicism, negativity and sarcasm gives us a sense of control and power and motivate us to use power to control and dominate others. It is hard to let go of such negativity on our own and worship helps us to do so.
I can say that because I've had more than my fair share of moment when I was being negative. I also know that worship melts such negativity down to a manageable size. One really can't worship and be negative at the same time. This is were formal liturgies help, in my experience. You might be having a bad day on some Sunday morning and haven't quite shaken the feeling off before arriving at church, but once the service starts and you begin to participate in the liturgy, you find yourself forced to admit you're being negative. If you don't, that will be the longest hour ever spent fuming and you'll have wished you stayed in bed.
LITURGICAL WORSHIP
The Eucharistic liturgy of the Episcopal Church begins with prayer. Prayer is a big part of any Episcopal service and they are well-crafted and verbally economic. They say a lot with a few words. It is through prayer, largely, that Christians and monotheists, in general, divest power and turn it over to God. The essence of prayer is to let go and let God. Prayer is far more than a want or wish list. Rather it is a submission where we as individuals and collectively divest ourselves of the need to control every aspect of our lives to the mercy and grace of God. Prayer, in this sense, is a paradoxical act of liberation through submission no matter what the situation we find ourselves in. In prayer we are liberated from the impulse to control and exercise power over our lives and the lives of others.
In liturgical worship services, this occurs formally in various payers called collects, in the confession of sins, in saying the Our Father or Lord's Prayer and ultimately it is enacted in partaking of Holy Communion. The Christian Eucharistic liturgy is primarily made of two parts, the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of Holy Communion. The liturgy of the Word is the larger part of the service and begins with praise and acts of worship directed towards God and then moves towards the scripture reading appointed for the day. Almost all liturgical churches share the same or very similar lectionaries (scheduled readings) that assign four readings for each day of the year. This include readings from the Hebrew scriptures, the Psalms, the Epistles of the New Testament and the Gospels and then a commentary called a homily or a sermon in which the preacher ties the readings or a portion of the readings to our daily experiences - a time of meditation and reflection that should make us think rather than tell us how to think.
Then follows a creed of some form or fashion. As you know, I'm not a fan of creeds that begin with "I believe..." or "We believe..." Beliefs are tricky business and can lead to idolatrous worship which in monotheistic religion is something to be avoided. In my understanding, a craven image is not just a mere statue but a description that is set in stone or etched in indelible ink. Metaphor is a close as one can get to a description of what we identify as God without getting into the realm of the idolatrous. I believe God, I don't necessarily believe "in" God as a this or a that, which sounds like a topic for another post. I respect other people saying the creed, will stand while it is being said and will lead it if I'm officiating in a service because I recognize its importance for some who feel disorientated if its not being said, but I generally don't say them.
Having said that, I see no need to protest its being said, but I personally feel creeds are dangerous and misleading. In my opinion they assert far too much as being God's truth than can be rightfully said in any language and anything that forces people to say something without their being able to fully comprehend its implications seems ethically, if not morally wrong. In my opinion, faithful theistic worship would avoid making people take a theological position they can't possible understand as a necessity to their inclusion in the Body of Christ, the Church, as it enforces a concretization of belief as absolute truth, and ideological beliefs of any kind, in my opinion, should never be treated as being synonymous or on par with faith. For me saying an apostolic creed is a mild distraction in an otherwise spiritually liberating experience. I use the time it is being said to remind myself that we can never, on this side of life, comprehend the incomprehensibility, the immensity of God. Now trying to put that into words would be a statement of faith worth saying.
This is followed in the Episcopal Church by the prayers of the people. These take on many forms, but they are intended to cover a lot of bases; the world and its leaders, the church and its leaders, the imprisoned, the sick, the unemployed, those specifically who requested the prayers of the church, those who have died, those who are celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and then there is a brief moment for anyone to add other petitions or thanksgivings, which people frequently do.
This is followed by a joint confession of sins and absolution. Sin is another topic I will eventually getting around to spouting off about, but the intent of confession is above all to let go of the garbage we've accumulated throughout the past week - that which gets in the way of our relationships with others; the things we do and the things we didn't do, and thus gets in the way of our relating to God. In other words,the carbon residue of our playing with fire throughout the week, stoking the fires of anger, impatience, an intolerance and the heat we are recipients of; fire of anger, impatience, and intolerance others give us. The absolution is the moment of wiping the slate clean, clearing out the creosote of entrenched opinion from the flues of faith. I think it would be more an effective experience if the absolution was said by everyone, as we are required to ask for forgiveness as we forgive, but the traditional approach works for me also.
In most modern liturgical churches we take a short break to greet each other with the peace of Christ. In my small congregation, this involves everybody greeting everyone else. It's one of the advantages of being small.
The highpoint of Holy Eucharist is the moment of Holy Communion itself. There are many views as to what Holy Communion signifies. In my opinion, the relevance of Holy Communion is not so much that it magically or supernaturally forgives sins as a re-enactment of an atoning sacrifice, but rather that in this liminal environment where we are divested of pretense and power, we encounter the intimacy of Christ's body as we become that body in the sharing of bread representing Christ's body and drinking wine representing Christ's blood as a sign an symbol of his presence in our world and in our lives. In doing so we recognize that we are part of one another in the broad spectrum of the cosmos known as the Body of Christ. It's that intimate, that imminent, and that immense. And if done mindfully, it gives me a sense of responsibility towards the people I'm sharing communion with and a responsibility to the world in which I live.
In the Episcopal church we invite anyone who wishes to share in this intimacy to do so whether they are Christian or not. In this encounter, anyone who comes forward and partakes of this sacrament becomes one with us and by being one with us they become one with our common source, God. We Episcopalians are not gatekeepers. We're not about keeping anyone, including little children (especially little children) from approaching Christ - the presence of God in humanity. This is our calling. To do otherwise is to exercise power we don't have and should not want. We may have the keys of the kingdom and the temptation may be to lock people out, but I think it safe to say that being given the keys of the kingdom is more about opening doors then locking them tight; more about taking the risk of inclusiveness than practicing exclusiveness, more about letting go than holding back and building walls.
For most of my life I belonged to a Christian denomination that practiced closed communion or what they now refer to as "close communion." To me it was sinful practice, an insult to the body and blood of Christ who in the being of Jesus gave his life in love for the world. The attempt to make something more holy - more meaningful through exclusion is nothing more than using power to control the love of God. It cannot be done and any attempt to do so is wrong and sinful.
WORSHIP AS A WAY OF LIFE
What Sunday worship - the Christian Sabbath - does for me is give me time to power-down in order to power up for the days ahead. Powering-up, however, is not about trying to push through the days ahead as it about allowing God's presence in my life to come through and seeking God's presence and making that connection to the world I encounter. In that sense worship becomes a way of life - a way of being. It's not about acting holy or pietistic. I doubt that I can even do that. I have periodically exhibited my rougher edges and edginess. Rather worship as a way of life is following the narrow path of inclusiveness. Yes - you heard me correctly. The narrow path is paradoxically a path that seeks God in all things, seeks the beauty of holiness in all things; one that tries to avoid the expansive path of self aggrandizement, seeing one's self as the measure of all things, including God. The path of inclusiveness is not as easy nor is it as warm and fuzzy as it sounds.
There are times when this becomes a real challenge, like the times we're living in right now. In the anxious anticipatory times we are currently living, uncertainty is being fostered by the creation of an "alternate" certainty that does not ring true. Fear has been tapped as a power source to promote selfishness on both a national and personal level, where using the threat of destructive power is being presented as a constructive means for paving the way for economic growth, national security, world peace, and personal success. In a very short period of time we are seeing where this is leading to: The rise of xenophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and fear of the other in general. The temptation is to fight this growing inferno with fire; to meet the strength of selfish interest with the strength of selfish interest in a clash of opinionated anger wars that could and will very likely to lead to physical violence if not resolved.
Such times as these require that theisms of all types step up to the plate and puts power into proper perspective. It requires that we who worship do so fervently as a means of keeping our desire and the temptation to utilize power in a "get-my-own-way" manner in check. We need TRUTH and we need to speak TRUTH to power, not in a show of force but with the force of love.
Again, this can sound so passive, so impotent in the face of the often belligerently idiotic "fire-cracker"rhetoric we're constantly being exposed to, but truth spoken from a position of love can put out fires quicker than anything I know. The strength of love is not only true power, it is clean power and its not easy to handle because it requires putting aside selfish interests, making sure that those who espouse the wrong use of power are being addressed from a position of being loved.
Such a love not only has the strength to step forward and present the face of truth but has the strength to step back and let go and let God in order to prevent us from falling into the temptation of taking matters into our own hands. This is neither a passive nor is it an aggressive approach. It is a faithful approach.
Worship develops this approach, because worship brings a sense of the liminal to all situations; where hope is anticipated and on the verge of realization. It begins with an aware prayerfulness (as in watch and pray). It does not rush to judgment as judgment is tempered by honest confession (assessment) about one's self. Worship brings the moment into the realm of scripture where it can be questioned and analyzed, and thought through. Worship seeks Holy Communion with all that is, bringing it face to face with our common creator, God.
Until next time, stay faithful.
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