We continue with pieces from “Holy People” by Gordon Lathrop
In a day when we hear much discussion and reference to a “personal” spirituality that may lead to an individually determined practice of worship, Lathrop has several things to offer us.
Of course, for Christians, this sense of the importance of the personal is not entirely wrong. Worship may indeed take place when one is alone. The Sermon on the Mount itself counsels prayer in one’s own room, behind the shut door (Matt.6:6). Especially in the modern age of the handheld, privately owned book, the Bible can be read alone. But such reading is more than a modern phenomenon. None other than the great Augustine of Hippo, for example, reports that he found his way to Baptism partly by picking up the “book of the apostle” in his solitude and by himself reading Romans 13:13-14.
It is a wonderful act of grace that through an individual encounter with the Word, we can be knocked off our feet and have our lives transformed. Yes, alone one may contemplate on the richness of God’s Reign and find within a few bits of scripture or a word shared by another, a profound event that has the power to lift us up to a new domain in which our lives may be comforted or shaken or both. It is, for example, why people enter into private devotion. We give ourselves time…alone…to have our hearts opened to God’s unending grace. In fact, I would suggest that such private worship or devotion open us up to a more radical experience of corporate worship and study.
Connection: Already you give yourself time to pause and contemplate the day as it is presented to us by our God. Now, I would invite you to consider entering the assembly of believers and taking part in an expression of the Word of Grace that is not within our control or even our “space.”
Lord God, you ignite our hearts and cause us to be open to your gracious Reign that takes us to a new place and time within the ordinary times of our lives. Continue to crack us open to your grace. Amen.
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