SERMONS 

Worship

Benediction
from Kenneth Patton

Life comes with singing and laughter, with tears and confiding, with a rising wave too great to be held in the mind and heart and body, to those who have fallen in love with life. Let us worship, and let us learn to love.

Sermon

"So, the sermon hymn comes to a close with an unsteady amen, and the organist gestures the choir to sit down. Fresh from breakfast with his wife and children and a quick run-through of the Sunday papers, the preacher climbs the steps to the pulpit with his sermon in his hand. He hikes his black robe at the knee so he will not trip over it on the way up. His mouth is a little dry. He has cut himself shaving. He feels as if he has swallowed an anchor. If it weren't for the honor of the thing, he would just as soon be somewhere else.

In the front pews [someone] turns up a hearing aid, and a young lady slips her six year old a lifesaver and a magic marker. A college sophomore home [for] vacation, who is there because he was dragged there, slumps forward with his chin in his hand. The vice-president of a bank who twice that week has seriously contemplated suicide places his hymnal in the rack. A pregnant girl feels the life stir inside her. A high-school [English] teacher, who for twenty years has managed to keep his homosexuality a secret for the most part even from himself, creases his order of service down the center with his thumbnail and tucks it under his knee.

The preacher pulls a little cord that turns on the lectern light and deals out his note cards like a riverboat gambler."

--Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth

It seems rather unlikely. That we would come together, this precise gathering of individuals, to this place, for this time. Not even a riverboat gambler could have guessed it. The hopeful sitting behind and across from those who are feeling hopeless. One celebrating a birthday; one grieving the death of a parent. One celebrating a triumph; one worrying about a defeat that seems irreversible. As unlikely as it may be, it is not a fluke that we come together. It is deep yearning and irresistible hope that brings us together. Somehow there is expectation in this hour. Most of us, probably, aren't sure what we expect. Many, no doubt, have given up expecting very much at all. And yet, for some reason, for many reasons, here we are, together.

And it is not just us. I don't mean to make you squirm, but there are lots of others here whom we don't see. Some have called these others the "Great Cloud of Witnesses." I think especially of those who built this beautiful sanctuary. Those who ran the thrift shop so that this piano could be purchased. Those who sang in earlier choirs. Those who brought their own joys and sorrows to this place, for all the years worship has happened here. I think also of those who will come after us. They will have their own vision, which we cannot even imagine. And yet we must remember them. It is important to remember it's not just us. We belong to a blessed community of memory and hope.

Well, that's who we are. The question of why may be a little more difficult. What for? There are so many sermons here. And it will not surprise you, I hope, to hear that these are things that really matter to me.

I'll begin, somewhat cautiously, by acknowledging that in the Christian calendar today is Epiphany Sunday. It would have been liturgically correct to sing "We Three Kings" this morning. Epiphany Sunday is said to be the time when the Magi found the Christ child. The origins of Epiphany Sunday are probably in an Egyptian festival celebrating the birth of light. An epiphany, of course, is a moment when something becomes clear. OHHHHHHH. Or Ah-Hah. Or just mmmmmm. Surely one of those rings a bell. Epiphany Sunday is a good Sunday to talk about worship. The expectation that some bring on Sunday morning is for an epiphany. The Christians are clever to isolate this epiphany business to one Sunday in the year. And frankly that's probably too often for most of us.

I believe it is too much to expect worship to always bring an epiphany. That it might some of the time is grace. Remember what Shug told Celie in The Color Purple? It's not so much in church that people find God-but in the color purple in a field of flowing wheat. Or something like that. Epiphanies come when we're open, and with grace. They can come anywhere, anytime. So, sometimes it's Sunday morning. Planning for them, though, it seems to me, makes them far less likely to happen.

There are some things, though, that I consider, or at least hope, are a little more likely to happen here on Sunday mornings at worship. Things we do try to plan for. First a word or two about worship-a little translation, perhaps? It's an important word for us to translate as so many of the images that come to mind with worship may not fit anymore. Like so many traditional terms, though, if we look deeply enough we might just find something that does fit. The root of the word worship comes from two words meaning "shape worth," or shaping value. I like to use this root meaning. It fits nicely. Worship is a communal exercise in shaping that which we value. It is the central activity of a religious community, when members and friends gather to articulate their mission, and indeed to practice it. Our mission and covenant statement goes like this:

We gather in safe and compassionate community, seeking our spiritual truths. We affirm our interdependence, celebrate our differences, and create a thoughtful and harmonious voice for liberal religion. Through the practice of the principles of our faith, we promote social, economic and environmental justice and continue our legacy of respect and acceptance. We covenant together in a spirit of love and freedom.

We gather. We strive to create safe and compassionate community. We seek spiritual truths. We affirm interdependence; we celebrate differences, we attempt to be thoughtful and harmonious in our articulation of liberal religion. We promote justice as we understand it. We promise each other that we will do the best we can to be together in love and freedom. That's a lot.

There's a phrase that is used that may help. It's been used for a long time by Unitarian Universalists. It became very widely used with our last hymnal which was called, Hymns for the Celebration of Life. Worship as a celebration of life. I've been in one little congregation in the south that expresses this in a charming weekly ritual of toasting. It is an odd blend of secular and religious practice, and very touching to see.

I hope our worship is a celebration of life. I would say it differently, though. I'd like for it to be a little more active. (It feels important to me to be clear that worship IS life.) I would say that worship is a time we hope to "come alive." With communal worship there are unique opportunities. Three parts, I would say to this hoped for experience of coming alive.

First I believe worship must help us wake up. Taking notice of the miracle of life. Opening ourselves to beauty and truth and goodness. And waking up to suffering as well. Taking notice of our own inadequacies, the ways we fall short. Looking deeply at the difficult questions of life, the struggles of everyday living and the challenges we face. For me it is equally as important that we wake up to the beauty and miracle of life as it is that we refuse to turn our backs on the difficult realities of life. Some of us need reminding to do the former, others the latter. However we are inclined, in my experience, waking up is an important task for any human being and requires practice.

Next I believe worship needs to point us toward hope. I am influenced by the Christian tradition to believe that in every service there must be "good news." To me that means hope. Reminders of the meaning and goodness of life. Reminders that love is stronger than hate; that life is worth living; that there is good, even in me and you. We find hope when we articulate our common values, when we experience the healing power of being together, when we hear the wisdom of time. Hope is all around us; it takes work to open ourselves to its signs.

The third thing worship must do is send us forth. There must be some opportunity in worship for us to dedicate ourselves to the future in the hope we have found. We do not usually do this explicitly. You are not invited to come forward and dedicate your life. I hope, though, that at some point in most services each of us is moved to consider our commitment to Life. To renew our commitment to doing our part. And so to go forth with courage and renewed resolve.

Through music, quiet, ritual, poetry, service to one another, companionship, words, and beauty we hope to create an experience of "coming alive." To create an experience which leads to a deeper awareness of Life, an assurance of meaning and goodness, and that inspires courage and commitment to live well in all of our life.

I think any experience that leads to this kind of coming alive, a concert, a lecture, a visit with a friend, could be called "worshipful," however, I want to make one more important distinction. For it to be worship, I believe an experience must contain both the vertical and the horizontal dimensions of our lives. This is the way Houston Smith makes the distinction between our relationships with each other and our relationship with Life, or transcendent reality, or God.

A question I try to ask about worship goes something like this: does it address both our interdependence with other human beings and the rest of creation and our dependence on that mysterious source of Life which we call many things? If we focus only on the latter, the vertical, it will feel to me like some of the traditional Christian services I've attended that lacked relevance for me. If we focus only on the former, the horizontal, it will not last. Our own shortcomings, the shortcomings of others, the suffering and tragedy of the human experience does not finally add up, for me, to Life, in all its miracle, beauty, and wholeness. I need experience of both of these dimensions-and I hope to find that experience in our worship.

It happens, too. Oftentimes I experience coming to life again in our services. For me it is usually in the music. Or in your faces. I know that for others it comes at other times. For a motley crew like us we need lots of different opportunities. We need patience when someone else's means to coming alive distracts us. We need openness to new ways that we might come alive. And we need to look deeply, to really challenge ourselves to understand why we want what we want from worship. Is it really bringing us Life? Is it contributing broadly to Life?

I am so grateful to have this community in my life and especially on Sunday mornings. To challenge me to find ways to live fully and well. To remind me that I am not alone in my pain and I do not have to be alone in my hope or my effort to try to make the world a better place. When I see you on Sunday mornings, when we share sorrow and joy, when we simply sit quietly together in expectation, when we join our voices in song, I come alive. Hallelujah for that. Amen.