Saturday, June 7, 2104 If worship is just one thing we do, everything becomes mundane. If worship is the one thing we do, everything takes on eternal significance.* For some these days, “Worship is out of style,” “Not part of the agenda,” “Silly, superstitious, irrelevant.” Each of those critiques represents a bit of truth in its own way. For some worship simply doesn’t fit their idea or understanding of what’s important. Others have never had much experience with, nor do they take time for a thing like worship. And some aspects of certain approaches to worship lend themselves to the silly, superstitious, and irrelevant. When worship actually happens, it becomes the most unique of all human experiences. It’s that Moment when creature and Creator, the created and the Creator find themselves ‘in touch.’ It happens most often in places dedicated to worship, but is never limited to chapel, cathedral, sanctuary, or auditorium. Two businesswomen sat at the table in a high-rise restaurant overlooking New York City. The sun was just setting filling sky and room with golden brilliance. Their meal sat before them, and they raised their glasses. Finally, one says, “Cheers.” “You wanted to say more didn’t you, Lillian?” the other spoke, her glass still raised, “but we don’t pray do we?” They let it go at that, but it had happened: worship. Just for an instant, but worship. A teacher talking to his Sunday school class told them that, “worship is when we find God’s worth and our own. It’s discovering what’s worth what.” Sunday before last, someone at the door of the church said, “There was more here today than you or us, Keith, much more.” I had felt the same. It’s not ours to create, but when it happens, everything is ‘more.’ Tied down, making sense, uplifting, purpose making. spirit calming, soul being discovered. Some say it can only happen in a ‘contemporary’ service, others insist that it must be ‘traditional,’ a small group of young people were talking and one actually said, “If the priest doesn’t wear vestments, and if the old music is not sung, God is not present.” At least one in the group smiled and responded, “Well God is there, maybe we aren’t.” I worshiped when I looked into the face of the woman I married long ago in another time and place, and again when she took her last breath on this side of eternity. I worshipped when our daughter Tracy graduated from college, and when she and her husband Jeff stood before me to be married, and when the first grandsons came, and just one year ago, when Reese, our first granddaughter was born to us by way of Shelley and Chris. It was worship when our son came home from treatment and we met in the hallway of his apartment building with ‘Prodigal father and son’ tears and hugs. ** And I worship very often on the Sundays when I go to do just that. Not to experience the mundane, but the extra-ordinary. Because God is there and able, it’s just that we must find out how to get the channels open for the Meeting. Worship happens when people look for it, and know that it will come to pass. One other note, and then take this wherever it leads— to a Meeting time, we pray? “Why is it that even when I’m kneeling at the altar to receive Communion my mind is in other places, and sometimes even caught up in bad thoughts?” “Could it be that because you are on your knees and ready that your awareness of what ought to be and what is, increased? Are you with me?” I asked. “Hmm,” he said, “that thought never even occurred to me, I just thought I was unworthy or something.” Worship is about worth. God’s and ours. Always love, always, Keith *Timothy J. Christenson ** Anthony now has thirty two years of healthy sobriety.
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 11:32:39 +0000
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