Worship: Experiencing God

Worship: Experiencing God

November 6, 2022

   We are deep into the Signposts of Renewal from Christianity for the Rest of Us by Diana Butler Bass. There are a total of 10 signposts. So let’s review. Who can recall the signpost Rev Sally Stewart spoke about last week?       Justice In order, we’ve reflected on Hospitality, Discernment, Healing, Contemplation, Testimony, Diversity, Justice, and today we will take a closer look at Worship. If you were counting, you know we only have 2 more weeks to go.

I wonder how you might define worship. Does anyone want to take a stab at it?

Responses

I might define worship as giving glory to God? The we must ask:

o   What gives glory to God?

o   Does this happen only on Sunday mornings?

o   Does it happen only in a building?

o   What is the soundtrack to giving glory to God. Is it only hymns or what we might refer to as sacred music?

Butler Bass writes that the goal of worship is to invite people into a sense of openness and attentiveness akin to sitting at the edge of a dock (p. 174). Depending on where that dock is, you never know what you might encounter there. This week I was in Florida. My friend and host, Susan, tells a story about when her granddaughter came to visit. All she wanted to see was a manatee. So, naturally Susan obliged by taking her grandchild to the Marine Center where they always have manatees in their conservation program. Well, I guess they always have manatees, except the week you want them to. Given there were no manatees inside, this family found themselves standing disappointed on the dock outside. Well, what do you know… as her grandchild looked down into the water below, a manatee came gently swimming by, and then another and another. Each manatee was larger than the last. When we open ourselves up and put ourselves in places of possibility, you never know what or who might come by and grab our attention.

Today we have gathered to worship. We hope to give glory to God in how we praise and pray, in how I am proclaiming the good news of worship right now, in how we remember the saints who moved on to glory in the last year, in celebrating the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper – how we commune with one another and God by receiving and then embodying the body of Christ, and in the way we go from this space with praise and good news on our minds and lips to share God’s goodness and love as we bless all those we will encounter this week. And most of all, we hope God will grab our attention, reveal something new to us, and do a new thing in our lives.

Our scripture readings today speak of the all-encompassing and eternal goodness of God. First in Psalm 145. It is an acrostic poem or song, meaning the first word of each verse begins w/a letter of the Hebrew alphabet (as if we made a poem with each line beginning with a, then b, c, and so on all the way to z). The verses we heard today start with the first 5 and the last 5 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This form is often used to communicate that we have covered a subject completely, from A to Z. This is also a psalm of praise, a testimony to God’s goodness. It communicates our desire for communion with God and that this communing with God is the very thing that makes it possible to see and understand God’s greatness. The final line of this psalm tells us our purpose is to worship, to bring glory to God with our words and deeds. It reads “My mouth will proclaim the Lord’s praise, and every living thing will bless God’s holy name forever and always.” (Psalm 145:2)

The passage in Luke is one where people are testing and trying to trap Jesus. The Pharisees believe in resurrection while the Sadducees do not. It should be impossible for Jesus to please both groups if he weighs in on this controversy. Jesus does in fact weigh in by quoting Moses who recognizes 3 patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus says they are all alive to God. What does that mean to you that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living?

There is also an underlying question here about the Levirate Laws of marriage and family values. Jesus addresses this by saying, marriage is of concern on earth, but one’s marital status does not define people in God’s eyes. Amen?

I don’t know about all of you, but I know I have some questions I would like to ask God. I think everyone has these sorts of questions from simple things like, “Why mosquitos? Really, God, were they necessary?” To the more complex things like, “Why does God allow suffering?” Or today, as we remember the saints who have gone on before us, we may find ourselves wondering about bodily resurrection. What does that mean exactly? Jesus had a body and ate and drank with his friends after being raised from the dead. He encouraged Thomas to touch him and see the wounds he still carried in the resurrection. Sometimes we think we won’t have our scars for all eternity, but if Jesus has his, what does that say about my wounds and disfigurements? Questions for and about God are OK and simply a part of life. I want to encourage us all to bring our questions before God, and I think this passage from Luke validates that Jesus does not discourage questions either.

We don’t know a lot about what resurrection will look like on the other side of our physical death; so maybe we should start to look for and practice resurrection right here and now. If we limit our definition of worship to what happens inside this building and other buildings like this one, we may not know a lot about worship either. Will we allow Jesus to expand our understanding? Can we understand that how and where people experience God changes over time? God does not change, but how different generations receive and experience God does.

Anthony Robinson, author and UCC minister, says that worship needs to be an experience of God rather than a reflection about God. (p. 176). The reflection about God happens through what I am doing right now, the sermon while experiencing God happens through music, prayer, visuals like the one I put on the cover of the bulletin today, our display of candles, and a table set with bread and cup.

Experience happens in the heart while listening to or talking about God happens in our heads. In 12 Step circles they say that this distance, from the head to the heart, is the longest 18 inches. For real change to occur, we must get things from our head into our heart. There was a popular post going around Facebook this week. I saw it posted from at least 2 or 3 of my friends. It says, “When you finally learn that a person’s behavior has more to do with their internal struggle than it ever did with you, you learn grace.” The problem with this message is… Where does learning occur? In your head. As Christians we are called to receive or experience grace and then to practice or extend grace. Where do those things happen? Receiving and experiencing grace happens in our heart and then we practice and extend grace out to the world through our bodies – our hands, feet, lips, etc. Are you understanding why the recovery community calls this (head to heart) the longest 18 inches? It’s one thing to know something. It’s something entirely different to practice something or live out what you know to be true.

There are so many ways people experience God. May we discover them for ourselves as we create them for and share them with others. May God grant us the openness to love God and God’s people in both traditional and new ways.

Amen.