WORSHIP MATTERS, AND WORSHIP MATTERS

Most Sundays I welcome you at the beginning of the service by saying something like “It’s good for us to be here together – whether “together” actually means physically here in this sanctuary, or “together” via the television” – and it is!!!

Our worship time is a wonderful time. There are many smiles as we greet one another. There is joy in our singing. There is delight in reading scripture. There is interest, and I hope, inspiration derived from the sermon. There is reverence in our prayers. There is depth of meaning in both giving and receiving the Benediction as together we give voice to the ‘Amen’.

Clearly, worship matters.

There are many other ways to spend a Sunday morning other than being here – but here you are – by choice.

Commentator Andrew Foster Connors writes: Worship is the most important thing we do together. It is the place that forms us into the people of God. It is the place where we inhale God’s love and grace, so that we can be sent forth to exhale God’s love and grace in a broken world in need of redemption.” (Feasting on the Word, Year A. Volume 1 – pg. 316)

It is good for us to be together. I know it – and you know it – and in our reading from Isaiah, we find that the people of Judah knew it too.

Day after day, they sought God – and delighted to know God’s ways.

They delighted to draw near to God.

It’s as if they could hardly wait to get out of bed and begin their worship.

It seems there was nothing they would rather do than fast.

This is every minister’s dream – to be among a people who delight in worship.

I consider myself one of the very fortunate ones.

We don’t have to look very far or listen very carefully to know that fewer people are attending church – and that sets many a congregation worrying and scurrying to find new ways to attract participants.

A parishioner in one of my former congregations was convinced that if we served coffee to people as they arrived, word would get out in the community of Komoka, and people would be drawn to come and worship with us – until I pointed out that many of the people who were NOT currently attending worship were, most likely drinking coffee in their own home – perhaps still in their pyjamas, since that worship service was at 9:30.

Gimmicks will NOT be the answer to increasing Sunday morning worship attendance – whether it’s coffee and donuts, a relaxed atmosphere, screens and projectors, praise bands, glitz and glitter, or charismatic worship leaders.

Those are the elements of performance and production.

They are the essentials in entertainment – but they are not the essence of worship.

Truly, all that is needed for authentic worship is the presence of God and God’s people who come with thankful hearts, humble spirits and an eager expectation to meet with and be met by God.

You might be wondering, if that is all that is really necessary, why do we bother with the candles, the gowns, the extensive planning, practising and prepping, the bulletins, the liturgical responses, the standing and the sitting, the precision and the pomp?

Are they not all external to what is really needed for worship to occur?

On the one hand, the answer is ‘yes’ – they are external – and authentic worship CAN happen without them.

But on the other hand, the answer is ‘no’ – they are elements that ENHANCE the worship experience of the gathered congregation – and when they are prepared and used properly, well, with integrity and intention – it is hoped that they bring glory to God, as well as bringing God and God’s people closer together.

Each of those elements are worship matters – the things that speak to our hearts and draw us deeper into the experience of worshiping God with our hearts, our minds, our souls and our spirits.

The same can be said about coffee and donuts, a relaxed atmosphere, screens and projectors, praise bands, and charismatic worship leaders.

When they are used properly, well, with integrity and intention - in the proper setting and in the right spirit – they, too, will enhance the worship experience and bring God glory.

God’s people in Isaiah’s day loved their worship matters – their worship practices – seeking after God, fasting.

However, it seems that’s all that mattered – their worship practices did not lead to worshipful living - and God was not pleased.

And through the voice of the prophet, God let it be known in no uncertain terms.

“Look – you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.” (vs. 3b-4)

God knew that for worship matters to really matter, the peoples’ day to day behaviour needed to reflect their supposed devotion and faithfulness – and it did not.

Again, in Andrew Connors words: The critique that God offers through the mouth of Isaiah is that the more Israel became self-conscious about its improved worship life, the less it had remained open to God’s vision for the community.

Praise, prayer and fasting are cherished not as gifts that nurture the covenantal relationship, but as techniques for drawing attention to its human participants. That is why the people spend so much time in worship, according to Isaiah.

They fast so that God will see them. They humble themselves so that God will notice. They fast (so that their voices will be) heard by God.

Isaiah is concerned that the obsession with right worship distracts the people from what really determines the future of the community – its effort to fulfill the ethical obligations of justice…

The future of the community will be determined by its willingness to embrace justice and a new sense of community – the very ethic that forms the content of the people’s worship.

This becomes the cornerstone joining worship and Christian discipleship in our day.

If worship matters, it will make its way from this hour in this sanctuary, into every hour of every day.

It will make its way into every relationship, every decision, every attitude, every everything that we do and say – always and everywhere.

Worship matters are what we do when we are together here –

But worship matters when we leave here.

If all that we do in this hour of worship is nothing but enjoyable to us, then it has not been authentic worship.

Worship matters when it makes a difference in the way we live.

Worship matters when it transforms us.

Worship matters when the community is served in meaningful ways.

Worship matters to God and is pleasing in God’s sight when love and grace and justice and kindness issue forth from us.

That’s when our worship matters matter.

The ways in which this congregation has grown in its community involvement – the ways in which many individuals volunteer their time and efforts in meaningful ways beyond this place – with Girl Guides, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Parents and Tots, Hospice and Palliative Care, visiting in seniors’ and nursing homes, Dory lunches, Good Food Box, McKay Trust to name just a few – are all indications that what happens here in worship, matters.

This time that we spend together on Sunday mornings will be what I miss the most.

And not only the worship time – but the time that I spend preparing for worship.

It is a rich and humbling privilege to be tasked with the responsibility of gleaning from scripture a hidden treasure from God.

It is time well spent crafting prayers or finding prayers crafted by others in order to anticipate what may be on your heart and in your mind as we come before God.

It is a joy to choose hymns for us to sing together.

It is sometimes a challenge to find the words for sermon and prayer – and it is sometimes difficult to choose just the right combination of hymns that will help to tie the service together in a meaningful way – and there have been times when I have come to worship feeling less than confident about what I have prepared, but on those days the Spirit has continued to be faithful, and has spoken to hearts in ways that I could never have anticipated.

My hope and my prayer is that worship will continue to matter to you in the months ahead.

You will have the opportunity to hear other preachers who will bring their own unique gifts and styles and quirks and insights – and you will be blessed – and God will be honoured.

This Church
(from Searching for Shalom – by Ann Weems – p. 54)

We don’t pretend to understand the mystery of what goes on in God’s Church.

We just know we feel a pervading spirit of love that reaches into the niches of all of us and pulls us out into the open, free and alive and belonging.

We believe this spirit of love exists because God’s spirit lives within this Church, this unity of persons trying to be the Good News.

We see this Church as a circle of persons holding hands…and dancing…supporting each other, accepting each other, loving each other.

Each person in this dancing circle is facing outward…reaching into God’s world, listening for the whimpering, watching for the hurting, willing to offer a cup of cold water in Christ’s name.

Sometimes they need the water; sometimes you need the water; sometimes I need the water.

Being a part of the Church means knowing that the cup is always filled in Christ’s name.