May 6, 2015

“Ours is an associated worship: there cannot, therefore, be a more erroneous opinion than that upon which the practice of some seems to be founded, that the people are to be only hearers or spectators during the service of the Church.  Our excellent Liturgy is so constructed, that it can neither have meaning nor effect in some of its parts, unless the people join in it with interest and devotion.”
Bishops Claggett and Kemp, Pastoral Letter to the Diocese of Maryland, 1816

Last week I wrote about the unification of Worship and Mission; or, if not the actual unification, a deeper intertwining of the two.  For too long, people have seen worship as what we do in church on Sunday morning, while mission is something in which a few people participate either locally or “over there somewhere.”

And, it would seem, this dichotomy between worship and mission was an issue in the early years of the Episcopal church as well (if you read between the lines).

Worship is, as I said last week, our primary purpose as the Church.  We are to worship God in the beauty of holiness.  We are to worship with all our heart, mind, body and soul.  And that worship should carry over from Sunday into every other day of the week.

Liturgy, you may or may not recall, is often defined as coming from the Greek and meaning, “work of the people.”  What this rightly implies is that our worship, our liturgy, involves everyone present.  We can pray individually, but we worship communally.  When the Presider says, “The Lord be with you,” if there is no response, there is no worship, there are only prayers.  Everyone present has a vital role to play.  As some people have said, worship is a drama with God as the audience.

But last week that standard definition of liturgy was broadened.  The Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers suggest that liturgy be seen as work for the common good, or work for the sake of the world.  This opens up liturgy to have meaning and significance beyond Sunday morning.  This allows us to see our liturgy, our worship, as being something that can impact the world around us.

When we worship with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our body and with all our soul, I believe we can begin to move from being spectators on Sunday morning to joining with Christ for the sake of, and service to, the world.  When we worship that way, everybody is involved.  This will also involve everyone when we participate in the mission of God in the same way.

The first step to mission is to participate in worship as if it made a difference in the world.  The first step to worship is to see mission as a liturgy – as service for the sake of the world.

To paraphrase Bishops Claggett and Kemp: Worship and Mission have no meaning unless the people join in with interest and devotion.

Amen.