The lead piece is from "Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. In this book she takes many of the words and images of the faith and attempts to put some reality and life to them.
WORSHIP
Worship is primary theology. It is also home, which, as the saying goes, is the place where they have to take you in. There is no one who is not welcome in God's house, and no amount of human pettiness or pompous religiosity can alter that fact. "I work," God says in Isaiah 43, "and who can hinder it?" When people come together to worship, them come as God knows them, with their differences, their wildly various experiences and perspectives. And by some miracle, they sing, and listen, and pray as one.
The worshipping body is not a gathering of like-minded people, or those with high degree of faith or knowledge concerning spiritual matters; I like to think that it resembles Christ's ragged band of disciples in this manner, a diverse group with remarkable variance in personalities and attitudes toward Jesus. They were by no means considered respectable by the religious establishment of their day, and they demonstrate many doubts and questions about this Jesus who has come into their lives. In worship, disparate people seek a unity far greater than the sum of themselves but don't have much control over how, or if this happens.
One of the great advantages of sitting up front and serving as the presiding minister is that I am able to look out over the people gathered for worship and I can see the great variety of people. In our renewed sanctuary the chancel is one step higher than it used to be and therefore the view of the congregation is even better than it was. The diversity of the people is greater than what the eye can catch. Yes, there are people of different skin colors and different sizes and shapes...but there are also the places from which the people come. The human stories as they are articulated within the lives of the individuals present in the sanctuary multiplies the sense of diversity. And yet, worship is, as Norris notes, "the place where they have to take you in"...home. Worship may, at times, be stranger than I anticipate or have a few hymns that don't fit me on any one morning...but in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, the movement of the people in the room, the singing, the children coming forward for their lesson, the odd collection of people I can see sitting within feet of one another and yet in other places would not come close to one another,...and more and more...there is a place - a people - a home...made in the image of our God who takes us all the way through life and beyond...into the very heart of a love that never lets go.
Connection: Get lost in worship this week. So lost that it becomes for you a home. And yes, some homes are not "perfect"...but worship is to be the home that does not hinder the gracefulness of our God among us.
Praise to you Most High God for you are an ever-present power that brings us into the community of saints so that we are not left alone and abandoned for any reason. Anoint our worship of you that we may be encouraged and strengthened and shaped as your beloved. Amen
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