O God, in your abundant grace you sent your Son to be the light of the world: Grant that we may come and see the difference that Christ makes in each of us as we seek to become your beloved community; and as we gather in intentional worship, may we ever be reminded of your transformative love which is the foundation of our faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
“Take the shoes off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” God tells Moses that when you come before God, it is a powerful and transformative experience. One of the ways that we come and see the difference Christ makes is through worship, which is all about pointing us in the direction of that difference.
The word “worship” comes from Old English and means that something is worthy of dignity, honor, and distinction. So Moses is told to take off his sandals because he has come face to face with the glory of God, a glory which is overwhelming. This is why his first reaction is to turn aside. But God calls Moses to draw closer, to come into a relationship, to see the difference that God will make in his life. This is what we do in worship – we draw closer to God, we encounter the glory of the Divine, we experience the holiness of being in relationship with the God who is.
Within our Anglican tradition, worship is the holy ground on which our faith is built. Other Christian traditions find their identity in different places. While all churches are built on their faith in God, this faith is expressed in rooted in various ways. Some churches are built on the assumption that they all read the Bible the same way, or that they all think the same things about theology and social issues. Other churches find their unity in their structures and authority figures. For some, it is a charismatic leader who holds a congregation together. Sometimes it’s a particular historical figure, such as Luther, Calvin, or Wesley, that gives a church its identity. Or it could be that the particular ministries and programs of a congregation are what distinguishes it.
But for us as Episcopalians within the Anglican tradition, where we find our unity and identity is in our worship. Anglicans do not all read Scripture in the same way, we have no single historical figure who founded our branch of Christianity, we do not have a pope, we do not all agree on the same theological conclusions, we vote for very different political agendas, we do not issue theological statements that say what you must believe to be one of us, we are not all from the same ethnic or socio-economic backgrounds. Instead, what we do have is a tradition and practice common prayer.
In this case, “common” prayer doesn’t mean “regular;” “common” means that our worship is held in common for all of us, as in the term “commonwealth.” Our worship is held in a common trust by the church for the benefit of all the world. And so if someone asks you what the Episcopal Church believes, it would be quite appropriate to hand them a Book of Common Prayer. This is a very different way of being a Christian, but one that I’m incredibly thankful for. We believe that faith is incarnated in our lives, and worship does this by putting faith into practice instead of merely describing it. But this approach also presents a challenge, namely that if we do not regularly take part in our common worship, the communal bonds suffer. Given that our Anglican identity is found in something that we do, if we do not do that thing, our identity can be easily lost. This is why worship is so important in our tradition.
Everything that we do as Christians, whether it be serving the poor, being generous in our giving, forgiving those who have harmed us, or loving our neighbors as ourselves is rooted in our worship. Worship sets our priorities, forms us, teaches us, comforts us, challenges us, gives us our moral imaginations, unites us, and reminds us of God’s love for all of Creation. It has been said that “praying shapes believing,” and so worship really is important. Worship is where we learn who we are and who God is.
In the reading from 1 Corinthians, we heard St. Paul caution against falling into idolatry. Idolatry is nothing more than worship directed at the wrong thing. This is why in our identity statement at St. Luke’s we’ve used the word “intentional” to describe our worship. And there are two ways to understand that word “intentional,” and we mean both of them. The first meaning of “intentional” is that our worship is done thoughtfully and deliberately. Because we recognize the power of worship to teach and guide people, we are very intentional about what our worship is teaching.
Nothing that we do when we gather in God’s name is accidental; the liturgical colors, the flow of the service, the actions that we do, the prayers that we pray, the vestments that we wear are all chosen with great thought and care. Our Prayer Book is full of masterfully crafted prayers, some dating back to the 200s and some being written in our own generation. The result of this intentional worship is that our words and actions are poetic, which opens our worship to the Holy Spirit to move through us. And more and more we hear that this is the sort of experience that people are hungry for. We are searching for meaning, for purpose, for transcendence and our worship is the holy ground for us to encounter God in the beauty of holiness. Worship that is intentional taps us into this vibrant and living tradition that orients us towards the meaning-making difference that Christ makes.
There is another way, though, to understand what we mean by “intentional worship.” This second use of “intentional” is that our worship is done with an intention in mind; we intend that our worship has an outcome. Jesus has something to say about this purpose when he speaks about the fig tree that is not producing fruit. Worship is intended to fertilize our faith so that the fruits of the Holy Spirit might grow within us and give life to the world. And this parable that Jesus tells about the tree is a parable of grace. When a fruit tree doesn’t produce fruit for three years, we’d expect it to be cut down, as it’s just taking up resources at that point. But the gardener says, “Let it alone for one more year.” The tree’s fruitlessness is not counted against it, but is graciously given more time to grow into its identity.
This is a good parable to help us understand the intentionality of our worship. It can be easy to get confused about who the primary actor in worship is – it is God, not us. We are not here because God needs our worship or praise. Rather, it is us that need the worship. Often, you’ll hear us speak about “liturgy,” and that is exactly what “liturgy” means. Liturgy means “a work for the people.” It’s an ancient Greek word that was used to describe various public works given to a city by a benefactor – so libraries, aqueducts, and amphitheaters would all have been considered liturgies. In our case, God is the benefactor who gives us the public work of liturgy for our benefit.
Liturgy connects us to God and others. Liturgy reminds us that we were created by God in love and are always loved by God. Liturgy tells us the story of God’s grace, forgiveness, and mercy. Liturgy teaches us to anticipate the peace of God which passes all understanding. Worship is not something that we do for God, worship is something that God does for us. Liturgy is what helps us to grow in our faith.
Liturgy connects us to God and others. Liturgy reminds us that we were created by God in love and are always loved by God. Liturgy tells us the story of God’s grace, forgiveness, and mercy. Liturgy teaches us to anticipate the peace of God which passes all understanding. Worship is not something that we do for God, worship is something that God does for us. Liturgy is what helps us to grow in our faith.
As we all know, repetition and practice are the secrets to growth. And so our worship becomes familiar the more you partake of it. CS Lewis once said that “Worship works best through familiarity; when you don’t have to think about it. It’s like dancing – if you have to count and look at your feet, you aren’t yet really dancing. The ideal worship service would be one we were almost unaware of.” This is why so much of our liturgy is repeated each week, so that the liturgy trains us to forgive, to be thankful, to listen, to sing, to be united, to ground us in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, to see ourselves as the beloved children of God. By regularly saying something like “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” or “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast,” we are trained to be able to forgive others and celebrate God’s abundance out in the world without even having to think about it.
Another Anglican thinker, the former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple, put it this way: “Life divorced from worship loses direction and power. It is the worshipping life that can transform the world. All of life ought to be worship.” What we do in church becomes the pattern for how we orient all of our life to God.
Of course, the challenge in our liturgy is that with familiarity, we can lose that intentionality and fall into routineness. One of the professors that I’ve had at Sewanee says “Most congregations gather for Sunday worship every Sunday at the same hour, but this is not merely keeping an appointment on the calendar, as with the hairdresser or dentist. It is instead an act of memory, faith, and hope.” And so while worship is all about God’s gracious act of giving us a liturgy through which we participate in the divine life, we do have to be intentional about how we approach worship. It’s why arriving a few minutes early to sit in prayer or staying a few minutes after the dismissal can be so helpful. Even if you do not happen to feel anything in worship or “get anything out of it,” we worship for that very reason, we need more practice. And so an intentional posture in worship is a vital one.
Worship is at the very center of what it means to be a Christian, as worship is about orienting ourselves towards God. Worship is also at the heart of the Anglican tradition. Whether it be your own prayer life, Morning or Evening Prayer, Sunday Eucharists, Baptisms, weddings, or funerals, all of our liturgies are a gift from God which are intended to draw us closer to the God that Moses encountered at the burning bush. Through worship, we come to see the difference that Christ makes. Surveys have consistently shown that what gets people to come to church isn’t an advertisement, but an invitation from a friend, neighbor, or colleague. So invite those you know to come and see. God has graciously given us holy ground, holy time, and holy liturgies so that fruit of holiness might grow within us. Come and see the difference Christ makes through intentional worship.
