Sermons

 The Power of Prayer

John Wilkinson	Third Presbyterian Church
September 27, 2009	James 5:13-20

When I was a kid, we called it “going to church.” It was not until I went to seminary that the word “worship” entered my everyday parlance, and even then, and somewhat now, it feels a little artificial. You go to church. You go to worship.

And then I learned the even more jargon-y term “corporate worship.” Corporate worship sounds something like worshipping a corporation, Xerox or McDonald’s or Nike…or…at some point in the work day at one of those august corporations, all employees taking a break for a communal Lord’s Prayer, which may be happening more often these days than we realize.

What corporate worship means is the body at worship, a particular body within the body of Christ, as opposed to the worship we do privately, or personally, driving on the Thruway, waiting in the line at Wegman’s.

So here we are – corporate worship. It is perhaps what you think of when you think of church, what we do most – and sometimes best – what we do when the most of us are together, the most important thing we do, from which every other thing flows. It’s not exclusively what we do, nor is it done exclusively here. But it is what we do.

And like most things – books, sports, cooking, other activities – it’s better to do it than to talk about it. But every once in a while it’s O.K. to talk about it, and John Calvin’s 500th birthday and the lectionary passage from the Epistle of James give us such an opportunity.

The verb "worship" means "to shape worth," the condition of being worthy, having merit. That’s important to remember at the outset and at the heart of our conversation – that worship is about God, not us. Worship does all sorts of things, but if it does not begin and end with an acknowledgement of God who is above all and with all and in all, then something is missing and has missed the mark. To use the vernacular, it’s never so much about what we get out of worship as what we put in.

There are no exclusively right ways to worship – but there may be wrong ways, and those wrong ways have less to do with technique, or form, or style, but something to do with the focus and the posture with which we – leaders and participants, worshipers all – approach our call to worship.

And called to worship we are. A duty, but one not driven by guilt, or routine, or inertia, but a joyful privilege, an opportunity – in community – to share the good news we have heard and experienced, and allow it to overflow beyond the 60 minutes and four walls of this gathering into every nook and cranny of our living and our world.

I don’t know what your expectations are when you come to church, come to worship. Different places do it differently. Different traditions do it differently. Culture and architecture and personality have a great deal to do with it – you can’t transplant a worship service from one place and plop it into another and make it work.

And yet, some themes abide and some core practices remain. If you visit Presbyterian churches across the country, or even a Presbyterian church across town, funny things may be going on. People may dress funny, sing funny, talk funny, even believe funny. But look closer – deeper. The order of worship will look very familiar to how we do it here.

* A time for gathering and preparing.
* A time of encountering the word, the Bible.
* A time of responding to the word and departing.

Parenthetically, two significant changes have happened in Presbyterian worship in the last 25 years. One we will experience next week – the evolution of communion liturgy to include expanded prayers and congregational participation.

The second reflects this rhythm around the word – gathering, encountering, responding and departing. A generation ago, everything else would have happened, and then the sermon, perhaps a hymn, and on to football or brunch. Look where the sermon happens now – still central, but as a pivot point rather than a culmination, to allow breathing space for response. Some of you may remember that change, here or elsewhere. It was a big, big deal, and an appropriate development, I believe.

But even beyond order and structure. Look even deeper.

Hughes Oliphant Old writes that “we worship God because (we were created to worship God.)…we are created in God’s image and that image is to reflect God’s glory.” (Guides to the Reformed Tradition: Worship, page 5)

Worship, according to our Presbyterian constitution, “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.”

There is a lot of latitude in how we do things, but very little latitude in how we should approach all of this – focused on God, shaped by scripture.

We think a lot about worship around here. Staff meetings. Choir rehearsals. Sermon preparation. We should be prepared. We should bring our best to this. So we think a lot about it. That’s good in a sense, but there’s also a danger. Anything that makes this appear at all to be about us – performance, entertainment, human achievement – misses the point widely and wildly.

John Calvin thought about this a lot as well – that should come as no surprise to you. Reforming worship was a central aspect of the Protestant Reformation, and the second wave of it led by Calvin. Returning, in Calvin’s mind, the focus of worship to where it rightly belonged. Renewing the practices of the people. Refocusing it on the word.

This went too far at times – the destruction of stained glass in sanctuaries, the rejection of all music that was not biblical in origin. It took us a long time to recover from that, that dismissal of all things Roman Catholic and a return to the affirmation that music and art can help us focus on the glory and splendor of God.

Worship scholar John Witvliet reminds us that in Calvin’s Geneva, it was all about worship, and worship’s revitalization. What did that look like?

* Geneva citizens were required to memorize the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles Creed and the Ten Commandments. These texts were used in public worship, and Calvin wanted to make sure that all could participate.
* Calvin encouraged a culture of singing church songs outside of worship as well as during.
* Calvin preached and taught about liturgical participation.
* The Sabbath was observed not only with the purpose of abstaining from work, but for setting aside time for contemplation.
* During baptismal services, Calvin added a vow for parents to promise to teach their children about the church at home. (Calvin Jubilee presentation reported by Bethany Furkin, Presbyterian News Service)

Calvin’s efforts to revitalize worship were founded on his more fundamental Reformed principles – a theological emphasis on the sovereignty of God and grace that freed us to live fully in that sovereignty, and the democratizing of the church which emphasized the whole people of God and deemphasized the power of the clergy.

Worship, therefore, for Calvin, needed to be well-ordered and simplified. The quest for order – a Presbyterian hallmark and at times a Presbyterian detriment – was to confront the chaos and disorder of the world, the basic human fear of being lost.

The quest for simplification was to remove all human trappings and contrivances that stood in the way of the human-divine encounter.

We are trying to avoid the term “Calvinist” as we think about what it means to be Presbyterian and Reformed Christians. But Calvin’s thinking shapes what we do and who we are, and our common worship life would certainly benefit by considering all of this.

We will think more about the sacraments next week – baptism and the Lord’s Supper as signs and seals of God’s word to us, and means of grace in which we share in the mercy and love of God.

But today, here, now. What would it look like for our worship to be renewed by a sense of the word of God claiming us, a radical shaping and forming of who we are that begins as we gather and continues as we depart? What would it mean to pursue a deeper sense of participation and engagement?

James De Jonge writes that “True worship was John Calvin's main passion…he devoted his life to helping people genuinely honor God through simple uncluttered worship. His reforms…cleared away ‘liturgical trappings' that got in the way of communion with the Almighty. His writings…and church regulations—all had one purpose: helping others know God that they might glorify (God) forever. This was not about technique, or liturgical innovation – (Calvin’s) spiritual simplicity was a means for joining the believing worshiper to the living God.” (Reformed Worship, September 1988)

What would it look like to be renewed by that vision – in the preaching that happens here, in our liturgy, in our music (music that we sing together or music that is sung or rung by one of our choirs), when we gather at the baptismal font as we do today, when we gather around the Lord's Table, as we will do next week.

And when we pray. You have heard from the Epistle of James about what biblical prayer might look like. Pray for and with the suffering. Pray for and with the cheerful. Pray for and with the sick. Pray for forgiveness, and to forgive. Pray to share your failures and disappointments, the things you commit and the things you omit. Prayer is “powerful and effective,” James tells us.

Calvin wrote extensively on prayer, which may be surprising to us, including a huge section of his Institutes. Calvin called prayer “the chief exercise of faith,” and insisted we could benefit daily from it, a reminder that prayer happens not only on Sundays and not only led by professional religious types. In good Calvinist order, he listed six reasons for prayer – e-mail me if you want the list!

He insisted that we pray as if we were in conversation with God, with focus, with sincerity, with humility, with confident hope. Not fear. Not wishful thinking. Confident hope.

Ronald Wallace writes that “Calvin found that…prayer was… simply the pouring out of the heart to God with all its feelings expressed, in complaint, in questioning, request, thanksgiving.” (Calvin, Geneva and the Reformation)

That approach to prayer, the confident hope we would experience in meeting God, defines not only prayer, but worship itself – corporately and personally, in this place – we hope – but in any place that approaches this conversation reverently and joyfully.

John Calvin wouldn’t have it any other way, though he would be horrified to have it stated like that. Calvin would lead us back to James, to the promises of hope embedded in every sentence of scripture, which lead us to truth and transformation, which call us to worship, which make every act as a prayer, and every breath we take an “alleluia.” Amen.