Gen. 28: 10-17; Ex. 20:8-11    We Sing of Worship and Scripture  E/DC/GR     Apr29/07

1. “Daddy!  Daddy!” yelled five-year-old Vanessa at the top of her lungs.  “You should have seen the circus!  If only church was that exciting, everyone would want to come.”  I got to thinking it’s not likely for the excitement that you go to church.  Is it habit?  A sense of community?  To recharge your batteries?  Why do you come to worship? 

1. We offer worship as an outpouring of gratitude and awe.  As we prepared for worship during Lent, we sang, “You alone are my hearts desire and I long to worship you.”  We long to worship God in thanksgiving for all we’ve recently reminded ourselves about God.  For God’s incredible love for us and desire to be in relationship with us.  For the amazing creation and that creating continues.  That God is not only maker but mender of this universe and us.  That no matter what we do to turn away we can turn back and be welcomed and accepted with grace and love.  The awe comes because it’s beyond our understanding, beyond our ability to speak it fully, and so it remains mystery.  It’s that feeling, like Jacob, or Moses, of being on Holy ground.

1. Worship is the practice of opening ourselves to God.  Practice because that’s what it takes.  A conscious effort to open closed feelings, busy minds, heavy hearts, and be aware that we don’t need to beg God to be present in our worship, but open ourselves to know that God is already here, as well as where we just left!  Letting go of the grocery list, and the next meeting to be called, the long list of jobs in the job jar, the worries and fears, and just worship.  Worshipping with our whole heart.  Singing loudly and off-key if need be.  Giving thanks for everything: a child’s sloppy kiss, the feel of sun on our arm, conversations, good books, laughter, the touch of a friend. We carve out times to open ourselves to quiet, so we may hear God’s still small voice of comfort.  We participate in rushing whirlwind times to hear God’s voice of challenge.  A friend described ministry as comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable.  Our challenge is to hear the word we need to hear and not get stuck in one or the other.

1. We worship through word, music, art, sacrament, movement, and drama inside a building.  And through a whole world of wonder and beauty when we are outside.  And each of us worships best in different ways.  Those of us, who live most easily in the world of ideas and words, find meaning in hymns with many words and sermons with complex ideas.  Others of us prefer the simplicity of choruses repeated, drama and worship that moves the heart.  Others of us worship best in silence.  For others worship and work must be one, and unless we’re out working for God’s just world, worship is not happening for us.  In as many and wonderfully different ways God has made us, so we come to pour out our worship. And as different as we are in the forms that speak to us, we will be most comfortable worshipping in community, or in solitude as well.  Our task is to find the form and the place, or the combination that works for us.

1. But as diverse as the ways we find meaningful to worship, the goal of worship is the same - to transform.  We come to worship to be changed.  From our complacency to action, from our anger to peace.  From our fear to courage.  God changes our lives, our relationships, and our world.

1. An important part of worship is to hear and reflect on scripture.  And so we sing of scripture also.  This is a living word that comes in the form of drama, music, worship liturgy, fact, fiction, wisdom, story, poetry, and Hebrew history – from their perspective of course.  Living word because it is truth for us.  True but not necessarily literal.  Trisha Elliott in Singing a Song of Faith asks, “Do I believe Jonah was literally swallowed by a whale?  No.  But I love that a storyteller somewhere, sometime told the truest of stories about how lonely, dark, and isolating life without God can be.”[i]  And how hard it is to go and save people we think are unworthy.  Deep truth told in an unforgettable story. 

1.  As this living word, it’s intent is to guide and inspire for today.  It is literature and history, but if we leave it at that we’ve missed a significant piece of its impact and importance for our lives.  We receive that inspiration from the human experiences recorded there, and their cultural assumptions.  Which means we have to know and reflect on what they were and what ours are, and what word then we can hear today.  “Turn the other cheek” has turned people away from Christ, thinking him a weakling.  But in the context of Jesus’ day, if someone humiliated you by striking you on the left cheek with a backhand blow and you turned the other cheek, this deprived the oppressor of another backhand blow, since your nose is now in the way.  Dilemma.  Only social equals fight with fists.  This creative act of defiance does not allow the aggressor to continue dominance, and enables the victim to refuse further victimization by no longer submitting to insult.  A non- violent tactic to take charge and reclaim your dignity.  Knowing the context enables us to know it was non-violent social action, not wimping out.  We then can think about creative ways to use non-violent social action in our day.  Let’s sing “Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.”

1. And some parts of scripture are very simple.  Countless people find courage to serve others, not by loudly pounding out quotes and proof texts, but by quietly serving, because that’s what Jesus did.  And they become doers of the word and not hearers only.

1. The Spirit judges us harshly when we abuse scripture by interpreting it narrow-mindedly.  If we use it to oppress, exclude, or hate – any one!  Or for our own advantage.  One of the most misused scriptures I hear is “the poor are always with you.”  When they mean it’s ok to ignore the poor.  But these were Jesus’ words when a woman did a lovely thing, pouring perfumed oil to sooth his jangled nerves as he prepares to go to Jerusalem to confront the powers of darkness, and domination.  “The poor will be with you tomorrow,” Jesus says, “to care for and help.”  He’s not suggesting we do nothing for the poor because we want to keep all the lovely money for ourselves.  That would go against everything he lived and taught.  It’s about priorities.

1. One of my favourite scriptures is Isaiah 40:31  “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  It gets me through tough times.  So does Romans 8.  “We are knocked down, but not knocked out.”  But if I want to think or talk about what God is like, or what does the Bible say about something, I don’t stick in my thumb and pull out a verse to prove something.  That requires knowing the wholeness of scripture.  The stories from the Hebrew Scriptures.  The stories of Jesus’ life and teachings.  The letters to the early churches from Paul and others.  And we begin to see strong consistent messages about love and justice and grace and wisdom running through.  “Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.”

1. Scripture is our song for the journey that tells us who we are: children of a loving God, never forgotten, drawn in by a bear-hug welcome.  Stories of anger, hatred and reconciliation, of loss and recovery, of life and death and life again.  We sing it to ourselves when the night seems too long.  We sing it when our joy is abounding.  We sing so we will know the stories we have not yet lived but suspect we may in the future and we’ll want to have something to sustain us in those hard times.

1. The genius of our ancestors in the faith who pulled together our scriptures: two testaments, four gospels, contrasting points of view held in tension, is that they trusted us to wrestle with, but not worship scripture.  Rather we see it is as faithful witness to the one and triune God, Holy Mystery that is Wholly love.  Let’s sing once more: “Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.”