Worship and Life
Fourth Sunday after Easter - April 13, 2008
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Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him. |
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Isn't that quaint? some might say. When we hear that pop song of 60 year ago or so: You can't have one without the other. The subject of the song was love and marriage. Lots of folks are pretending that we can separate the two, grabbing what they call love anywhere they can. The attitude is reinforced by all of the glamorous people whose affairs, flings and live-ins and photo-op weddings speed by in the news each day. In spite of the ways in which the current culture is acting, there is still lots of truth in the line: You can't have one without the other. Love and marriage.
And it applies equally in another area as well: worship and daily life.
Worship is undertaken in part to discern the direction, purpose, and goal of daily living. And daily living exists a the place where the implication of worship and the changes which we rehearse in worship are played out now. It is always a disaster when one is separated from the other. The Old Testament prophets are scathing in their denunciation of the people who can hardly wait for worship to end so that they can get back to cheating their customers with false weight and measures, false testimony in court, and justice subverted by bribery. [Amos 5:10ff, 8:4-7, and many other such places.]
An important part of the Christian life is hearing the Ten Commandments in worship and learning and studying them in classes and discussion groups, but an equally important part of Christian living is applying those Ten Commandments of God in the ways we treat one another and God day after day.
When we hold catechetical camp in the summer, one of the exercises we do is to take the catechism in one hand and the newspaper in the other, and discover how the catechism gives us a lens through which we can interpret and understand the events of the day.
A story about violent death relates the breaking of the 5th commandment. Melinda's column each week is about a family wrestling with the 4th commandment. Any of the stories about finances and greed will be illuminated by the 5th, 7th, and 10th commands. And every story will in some way be a keeping or breaking of the 1st command, I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other.
Each of us can try it ourselves, first with the newspaper, and then with the incidents of our lives. When we try this exercise carefully, thoughtfully, and honestly, it will make each of us very uncomfortable. Every day in so very many ways, we are all pretending that we can disconnect worship and study from the way in which we live the rest of the week. It won't work: God's good gifts, his grace, is either received or ignored, but it is still offered. God's commands can be received or ignored, but they are still placed in front of us.
It is nice to have a beautiful copy of the Bible at home on the coffee-table or bookshelf, but it is much more important that the promises and commands of God written on our hearts, active in our minds, being done day after day in our lives.
With all of this in mind, let's go back to our First Lesson today, a little passage which Luke wrote to summarize what was happening and what he hoped would happen after that exciting Pentecost festival which launched the church in Jerusalem. Luke says first: The baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. It is easy to pick out the things that are applying especially to worship: the apostles' teaching: --reading the Hebrew scriptures and explaining Christ in it. This is related of course to our scripture reading and sermon. the breaking of bread became a technical term referring to the Holy Communion. the prayers = the Prayer of the Church wherein the needs of the whole world are named.
And there is one more thing named in that sentence – fellowship. Perhaps we can say that it has its root in the Sharing of the Peace in the midst of worship, and then the gift of peace which is announced and offered there is played out in how we relate to each other all the rest of the time.
We night use the Greek word koinonia that means “fellowship”. It is much more than being polite and pleasant: it goes on to include careful listening, the discernment and encouraging of one another's gifts, mutual aid, and so much more.
James Moore writes of what happened at the University of Wisconsin many years ago. There was a literary club. At each meeting, one student read his or her own poem or essay and the others would critique it. It was brutal, line by line analysis. They became known as the “Stranglers Club”
There was another literary club, whose members acted quite differently: their critiques were aimed at understanding and improving the work, not cutting down the author. They called themselves the “Wranglers Club.”
Twenty years later, a researcher checked on the careers of the members of both clubs. Not one “Strangler” had achieved a literary reputation of any kind. But at least a half-dozen of the Wranglers were successful writers. Why? The Stranglers learned to cut one another down, and practiced that, while the Wrangler lifted up each other, and continued to practice that. The Stranglers were death-dealing, while the Wrangler were life-enhancing. There are clear parallels to life in the church. We have confession, a serious recognition of where we are, and then we have absolution, the announcement of God's forgiveness. We have law which is used to diagnose our sinful condition [which will either drive us to despair or to Christ our only hope]. We have gospel, the promise of life re-made. This is critique of the most helpful sort, an X-ray for diagnosis and treatment with the Gospel to make life possible.
When acolytes are beginning to serve, we pair each one with an experience acolyte. It is very positive process, building up and encouraging those who are just beginning.
Similarly, each catechetical student has been paired with an adult who is not a family member, as a mentor. Each month they meet together here at church and work on a number of questions. From their lifetime experiences, the student and mentor together reflect on faith in Jesus Christ, and how the scriptures continue to mold our lives in particular directions. Sunday morning worship is still fresh in their minds on Sunday evening when the mentors and students are together. It is a wonderful exploration of worship and what is and should be happening in daily life.
But all of this is not for these people only; it is for all of us. How does this little verse which Luke wrote as a summary of the life of First Church, Jerusalem, play out in our lives? The baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
May this Pentecost-result story be reflected in our worship and our day to day lives. May that Spirit which changed so many hearts on Pentecost also enliven us, so that in worship and in daily life we may boldly say: Christ is risen, He is risen indeed. Amen.
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