The Lenten preaching series is looking at different communal rituals we have as the church community. We began with the ritual of Imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday. Yesterday, we focused on the ritual of gathering as God's people in worship. My week of preparation did not seem to give me enough time to prepare, so I was winging it a bit through the sermon. In fact, much of the second point was freelanced, which means what you read below is not as accurate as the manuscript normally is.
The Dr. Brown part of Move 1 was really interesting to me. It could have been used for a sermon on worship, but I narrowed the focus to the gathering piece of worship. I worked hard to keep the sermon from stopping at the simple answer of gathering = community = touchy/feely sense of community. Brown's comments helped in that regard.
The conclusion worked well. I sang the little diddy based on "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," which I think was effective.
As I told my wife after church, the sermon worked better than I had a right to expect given the preparation process.
“Gathering” March 10, 2019; St. Andrew; Hebrews 10: 19-25; Deuteronomy 15: 7-11; Richard B. Culp
Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience
and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.what he said.
Introduction: Most years, we begin Lent on Ash Wednesday, like we did this past Wednesday, and then we gather on the first Sunday Lent reading about Jesus being tempted in the desert just before beginning his ministry.
This year, we find ourselves not in the desert but instead reflecting on rituals. how rituals shape and form us.
We will be reflecting on communal rituals, that is, rituals we do as a community, but you are invited also to reflect on your own personal rituals, the things you do and how they shape and form you.
that, of course, is the critical issue. If the rituals we do are only patterns of doing things and have no meaning beyond the actual pattern, then the ritual matters little. If, however, the rituals shape and form as us followers of Christ, if the rituals speak to who we are and how God’s calls us, then they have meaning and purpose that speak far beyond the actual pattern of doing the ritual.
Move 1: This morning we reflect on the ritual of gathering as God’s people for worship.
a. there appears to be less and less of that going on in our world today.
1. that is not a comment on fewer people being religious, but more a comment on how the Internet is changing people’s engagement with worship.
2. More and more churches these days are offering services on the internet: Life Church in Oklahoma City introduced an “internet campus” in 2006; in 2017, Connexus Church in Ontario, which had begun live-streaming its services the year before, saw its online attendance surpass the number of people who showed up on a Sunday morning. At Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., you can share prayers via a web forum before even having met another person. And just last month, the celebrity pastor Judah Smith announced Churchome Global — essentially, church via app, with forums and the ability to pray for fellow congregants by pressing your thumbs onto icons while hearts float up the screen. (“Internet Church Isn’t Really Church, Laura Turner, December 15, 2018, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/opinion/sunday/church-live-streaming-religion.html
3. I read recently at in 2015, 20 million Americans had their worship experience come over the Internet. (Phyllis Tickle, speech at General Assembly, 2014 looking toward 2015).
4. Here at St. Andrew we are currently working on a project that will allow us to live stream our worship services so that people who cannot be here can still worship with us, but it could also lead to staying home in your pajamas and live streaming the worship service.
5. In fact, I had someone tell me that if they could have the whole service with the music and prayers (now you can only download the sermon at a later date), they would never have to come to church again. I think they were kidding!
b. Into this world, we continue to cling to the practice of physically gathering as God’s people.
1. A ritual which shapes and forms us as a community of people.
2. A ritual which shapes and forms us a discover what it means to follow Christ.
move 2: the gathering of God’s people for worship is about the people
a. Our arrival to this place with the other people who arrive here with us reminds us fo the relationships we have developed and the relationships that continue to grow.
1. As I look out each week, you know what I see - many of you sit in the same place by the same people each week (in fact, I bet some of you park in the same parking spot each week).
2. some of you are sitting with family or with old friends — gathering is a reminder of those bonds that have connected you in special ways for years inside and outside of the St. Andrew family.
3. Others of you have grown connected to those whom you sit by, although all you have in common is share the same few pews. over time, you have come to know each other and connect with each other over your weekly conversations.
4. Others of you are discovering new people in your pew, or maybe you move around a bit, and in doing so you discover the possibilities for new relationships.
5. The Gathering begins with the first people arriving, the greeting of one another, the listening to the prelude, the silent prayers, the gathering of God’s people to prepare to hear God’s Word.
6. I am reminded of a man who worshipped for many years in the church I served in OH. I knew he arrived early and that he sat with his wife, and often his adult daughter, but I did not know the details of his ritual gathering until after he died.
I was listening to his daughter talk about what she missed most about her father. She missed arriving in the pew where he was already seated. And, most of all, she missed that he had taken the hymnal he would use and the one she would use (they did not share a hymnal) and mark the hymns. how she missed arriving with a hymnal unmarked.
7. Our ritual gathering reminds us of some power, special ways in which we are connected.
b. But, our gathering as God’s people also connects us in ways we often do not do otherwise.
1. Dr. Brene Brown, sermon at National Cathedral, January 21, 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndP1XDskXHY&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2_tbktYXlp5M82yKIQnjcXhVGIQ4fUFRwBHfRXdxg0zgRDpTKKPHrepWU): three reasons we need to gather for worship: I need to pass the peace with people I would rather punch in the face the other six days of the week. I need to come to Lord’s Table with people different from me; I need to sing the hymns with other voices.
2. She reminds us that in the gathering of God’s people we the image of God in broader terms than we can see by looking in the mirror at ourselves.
3. In the gathering of God’s people, we can faithfulness in different terms lived in different ways by people who are just as faithful, and just and sinful, as we are.
4. In the gathering of God’s people, we engage people we might not ordinarily engage.
c. Dr. Brown notes that we are in a “crisis of spiritual connection.”
1. Last year, the United Kingdom created a Minster of Loneliness.
2. Why? Because they had an extensive study done that showed loneliness is at an all-time high and loneliness is a greater predictor of early death than smoking, obesity, or excessive drinking (Ceylan Yeginsu, Jan. 17, 2018https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/world/europe/uk-britain-loneliness.html)
3. When we gather as God’s people we are reminded that we are inextricably connected to one another and have responsibility for one another.
4. Deuteronomy passage. God’s people are responsible for others in their community.
3. We do not live in isolation
Our ritual of gathering as God’s people is about the people with whom we gather.
Move 3: Gathering of God’s people for worship is more than the people - it is a God thing.
a. “People gather in response to God’s call….” (Book fo Common Worship, 33)
1. Some of us may think we come to church as a response to some decision made late Saturday night or early Sunday morning about whether we have time to go to church;
Some of us may think we come to church mostly because it is a habit - it’s Sunday morning, so we go to church.
but behind those smoke screens of attendance lies the God who calls us.
2. The God whom we gather to worship initiates the call to gather.
3. As our Book of Common Worship reminds us, “People gather in response to God’s call.”
4. Our ritual gathering shapes and forms as people who respond to God’s call to gather in worship.
b. Why does God call us to gather in worship?
1. to celebrate Christ’s resurrection and anticipate God’s coming reign” (Book of Order W-3.0101).
2. We need to gather to be reminded of God’s power to resurrect; t
We need to gather to be empowered by God power to resurrect so we can follow Christ and be transformed;
We need to gather so we can be sent into the world showing proclaiming God’s presence in our midst and pointing toward God’s coming kingdom.
b. I love the phrase from the Letter to the Hebrews which tells the Hebrews to “consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.”
1. they do so, in part, b gathering together.
2. and as they gather to encourage each other.
3. in other words, we gather to push and prod, to support and nurture, so that we can all go into the world as disciples of Christ to share the good news with the world in word and deed.
Conclusion: I read recently about “In one Massachusetts kindergarten classroom hangs a poster with lockdown instructions that can be sung to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, little star”: “Lockdown, lockdown shut the door/shut the lights off, say no more” ("Not Just a Drill," Erica Christakis, The Atlantic, March, 2019, 11)
A ritual singing they do on a regular basis. Imagine how that ritual shapes and forms the worldview of those kids?
and then realize what we do here, living out the ritual of gathering as God’s people each week. Being shaped and formed by the God in whom we place our trust and in whom we in find our lives
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