Glory
John Wilkinson Third
Presbyterian Church May 8, 2005
John 17:1-11
This is a day that we have traditionally called Music Recognition
Sunday, and so it is today. For many decades at least, music
had been a central feature of life at Third Presbyterian Church,
and I am grateful each day for our music program, which is so
much more than a program. Music can do what the spoken word
cannot, and our choirs – vocal and bell, children, youth
and adult – enable us to praise God in wonderful and meaningful
ways. I am grateful for their leadership and deep commitment,
and I am particularly grateful for the contributions of Matthew
Brown and the leadership of Christina Lenti and Peter DuBois,
who day by day share their extraordinary gifts in extraordinary
ways. It is appropriate today, especially, that we thank them…
And we have thought to do something new this year, to thank
all those who contribute to our worship life. The word “liturgy”
actually means the “work of the people,” and dozens
upon dozens of people, in many, many categories, contribute
their time and talent and energy to support the diverse and
creative worship life of this congregation. Their names are
listed in the bulletin and they are identified by a carnation
this morning. I would ask any of those who are present to please
stand, as we recognize you as well.
And finally, a word of gratitude on this Mother’s Day
to all mothers and grandmothers, and a word of greeting to any
mothers who may be visiting with us today. Our affection and
admiration is profound. We wish you every good blessing this
day. We also remember fondly those mothers and grandmothers,
and all those mother figures, who have gone before us, and also
all those for whom this day is a difficult one for so many reasons.
Let us pray. Gracious God, who from our mother’s arms
has led us on our way, we give you thanks that you set us in
human families of every stripe, and have given us the gift of
love. We remember this day those who have borne us and nurtured
us, even our mothers and grandmothers, and all in this room
who continue to act with gentility and affection in their nurture.
We further thank you for the gift of music, and the deep rhythm
of worship, our gathering in joy and departing in service, and
we thank you for the many in this place who make the work of
your people joyful and transforming. Bless the living of our
days, and bless our life together, that all we say and do and
are may be as acts of praise. Open now your word to us, and
surprise us with your truth. For Christ’s sake and in
his name we pray. Amen.
***
In seminary each year, there was a competition, with a $500
reward, for memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism. I
was not much for memorizing, but I will remember always the
first question, and its 17th century language, which in many
ways could serve as the tagline for Presbyterianism itself.
Q. What is man’s chief end? A. Man’s chief end is
to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
It is amazing that a dour bunch of English Calvinists, writing
in a time of tension in the 17th century, would claim for them,
and for us, that our chief end, our reason for living, is to
glorify God and enjoy God forever. The words “joy”
and “Presbyterian” are not often found in the same
sentence. And so it is.
It happens in many ways, but it happens every Sunday morning,
each Lord’s Day, when we gather here, and millions of
Christians around the world gather – with different tongues,
different theologies, different ways of doing so – to
worship. And though it feels a bit odd to talk about worship,
rather than just doing it, on a day when we focus on music and
worship, and on a day when John’s gospel paints such a
vivid picture of the call to glorify God, I would invite us
to think for a few minutes on this invitation to glorify God
through worship, and worship as the primary focus of the life
of faith and our life as a church.
We glorify God in many ways – at work, in our family
setting, when we serve others in need. Geoffrey Wainwright writes,
though, that “the worship of God is a primary activity
of the church, requiring no justification beyond itself…a
faithful human response to God.” (The New Westminster
Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, page 454-455)
A church does many things. Each of those things, learning,
serving, building community, has a distinctly worshipful feel
to it, and a profoundly theological character.
But this is different, this gathering thing we do, this distinctly
ritual gathering with unique customs and practices that happen
in few other places and ways. Our Presbyterian Book of Order
states that “Christian worship joyfully ascribes all praise
and honor, glory and power to the triune God. In worship the
people of God acknowledge God present in the world and in their
lives. As they respond to God’s claim and redemptive action
in Jesus Christ, believers are transformed and renewed. In worship
the faithful offer themselves to God and are equipped for God’s
service in the world.” (W-1.001) The language does not
soar, but the worship it describes certainly can.
It will look different, sound different, feel different, depending
on the church, of course. That’s perfectly fine. We are
living in a time of worship transition, by the way, what some
scholars even are calling “worship wars.” Changes
in music, in preaching styles, in what people wear. Some of
it is driven by red state/blue state ideology. some of it is
driven by perceived consumer needs and church membership decline.
“If we just say the right or sign the right song,”
people seem to be thinking, “then people will come back
to church.”
Cultural shifts, aesthetic shifts, matters of taste impact
worship decisions all the time, but worship is called to have
its own integrity, to address the question “what we put
into worship” rather than “what we get out of it.”
As that question is answered faithfully, how worship looks will
take care of itself.
What should worship look like? We Presbyterians are given guidance,
but not a specific prescription. “Centrality of the Word”
is a key theme for us, and so we organize our worship around
the rhythm of the word. We gather around the word, we proclaim
it – read and interpreted, we respond to it, we seal it
through the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper,
and we bear the word and follow it into the world in acts of
service. That’s the rhythm.
Our constitution, which uses the word “shall” to
mandate certain things, uses the word “shall” only
twice when it comes to worship. We shall pray. And we shall
proclaim the word.
Prayer then has a central role. I learned a handy acronym in
seminary – ACTS. Adoration, confession, thanksgiving,
supplication. Worship should include all of those prayers, each
time we gather.
And proclamation, the reading and interpreting of the word,
through sermon, and the sealing of the word through sacrament.
The manner in which we Presbyterians do these things will look
as different as a New England meetinghouse or a 1960’s
contemporary cement block building or a late 19th century building
with gorgeous wood and stunning stained glass...as different
as Geneva tabs and jeans and a t-shirt…as different as
acoustic guitar and a Skinner pipe organ. But the word must
be present, and the people must be called to prayer.
I think often of the rhythm of worship, and the many rhythms
of worship. The calendar year. The liturgical year, which we
have re-claimed in part because of Vatican II.
The rhythms each of us bring to this place. A good day or a
bad one. A season in which are lives are filled with rejoicing
or a season that brings us challenges. We bring our own rhythms
to the rhythm of worship, and are met by God’s rhythm.
Though not un-important, the order of the morning doesn’t
matter so much, though we spend a good deal of time each week
in this place thinking about that, proof-reading, planning,
organizing. Some of you will remember in this church when the
sermon, for example, happened at the end of the service. I grew
up on that as well. Sermon, hymn, home to the pot roast. But
rhythms change. That one changed, by the way, because those
who help us think about worship suggested that the prayers of
the people and the offering should happen as a response to the
word, rather than in anticipation of it. And so we changed,
and survived, as we will continue so to change and so to survive,
and thrive.
With prayer and the word at its heart, we need to say one thing
more about worship this morning. It truly is, as I have said,
the work of the people. A choir contributes mightily to worship,
to be sure, and a good preacher tries not to get in the way
too much. But worship is not a performance by a few. It is the
offering of the whole people of God, the response of all the
saints. You are not the audience. God is the audience of this
glorifying endeavor.
And we all contribute. That’s why the presence of every
child of God matters. Worship can happen every place, all the
time, perhaps, yes, even on the golf course or reading the Sunday
New York Times. But God has ordered things in such a way, set
aside this day, a day of rest, for us to gather. There is something
powerful about the people gathered. You are missed when you
are not here, and you miss something when you are not here.
That makes getting up on a Sunday morning not a grim and burdensome
chore, but a joyful obligation and joyful privilege.
And worship should never feel like Brussels sprouts or calculus,
good for you whether you like it or not. I heard a worship professor
say one time that he had been to hundreds, perhaps thousands
of worship services. Some felt like a rich and sumptuous feast.
Others felt like a bowl of watered-down oatmeal. But none, he
said, had ever failed to feed him in some way, and brought him
closer to the presence of God and his own true self. May that
always be true.
And so we do this funny thing. We get up and out on a Sunday
morning. The rest of the world increasingly ignores us, or if
it thinks of us at all, thinks us irrelevant. And yet here we
are, encountering ancient and often mystifying words, seeking
true and faithful discourse on important topics and singing,
singing, of all things.
Here we are, because we’ve put our hope and trust in
a God who enjoys being enjoyed.
Here we are, because we would be much the diminished without
it, and are much the fulfilled with it.
Here we are. And God is here. May every act we take be as an
act of glory, and may every breath we take be as an alleluia.
Amen.
