Edgewood United Church

United Church of Christ

It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining. It’s Labor Day weekend—a long three day holiday.

What are you all doing here? Shouldn’t you be out there enjoying the church of the Sunday paper or the church of the lakeside cottage…
 
Why are we here?

I suspect that our reasons for being in worship are varied and in some ways as individual as we are, but why do we do this on a Sunday morning rather than something else, and why a Sunday morning anyway?

What are we doing while we are in worship? Are we praising, celebrating, bemoaning, or gaining sustenance and strength? Being sent out in the name of God, being saved? What are we doing in this hour and change? What is the reason, the point, the essence of worship?

Firstly, worship is about praising God. To praise means to thank. To talk about what is good. We all love praise. It builds us up.

But why does God, if God is powerful and omniscient, knowing everything about us, need praise?
 
“A tailor approaches his rabbi and says, "I have a problem with my prayers. I am a tailor, and from time to time people compliment me on my skills. It is very satisfying to hear their praise. One kind word can keep me going for a week. But if people came to me all day every day saying, "Mendel, you are a wonderful tailor", "Mendel, you are a wonderful tailor", "Mendel, you are a wonderful tailor" it would drive me crazy. It would get to the point I wouldn't want to hear another compliment every again! I would tell everyone to go away and leave me to work in peace.

“And this is what bothers me about prayer. If just once a week we told God how wonderful God is, and just a couple of us did this each week, that is all God would need. Is God really so insecure that God needs us all to praising morning, noon and night? Hundreds, thousands, millions of people praying, all praising. Surely this would drive God crazy?!"

“The rabbi smiled and said, "Mendel, you are absolutely right. You have no idea how difficult it is for God to listen to all our praises, day in, day out, 24 hours a day. But God knows how important it is for us to offer our praise, and so, because of God's great love God tolerates all of our prayers." (ozsermonillustrations.com)

Praise is what is asked of us in worship. To set aside time to thank God, to recognize all the gifts of creation, and to praise God for these gifts. To pay special attention and recognize all we have to be thankful for, and even in our suffering to be thankful of God’s presence, that we are not alone. As Psalm 95 says,

“O come let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to God. Let us come into God’s presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to God with songs of praise.”

Does God need to be praised? I don’t think so. Need is a strange word when applied to God. But does God like being praised? I think so. But more importantly, as is really the punchline of the joke, we need to take the time to praise God. It reminds us, as Paul does in his speech, of “the one in whom we live and move and have our being.”

Stop for a moment and think about the air all around us. You probably don’t think about it very much. But just stop breathing for a moment. Here let’s try it. Ready….

I bet you are thinking more about air and feeling pretty thankful. God is all around us in the world, in our lives, in our souls, in the love in our relationships. The one in whom we live and move and have our being. And praising God reminds us of that relationship and that interdependence. We are not independent beings. In praise we remember who we are and whose we are.

Worship is part of how we “walk humbly with our God.” Do we have to be in a church to worship? No we don’t. Do we have to schedule time at 10am every Sunday to worship? No, we can worship, we can praise, at any time. But if you are like me, I tend to do better when things are on my calendar. Routine is helpful. And if I want to honor my commitment to praise God, to worship, having a time set aside once a week is helpful. Out of 168 hours in the week, having this one dedicated to worship at least ensures that I praise God at one point in the week.

But of course there are more reasons why we worship together as a group on Sunday. Well first, why on Sunday? Why not Friday or Wednesday? We worship on Sunday because Christians are also called Easter people, or those who celebrate the Easter resurrection. Especially in our more liturgical traditions, celebrating the Easter miracle is a major part of every Sunday service. Since most people believe that our scriptures indicate that Jesus rose on a Sunday, we worship on a Sunday. Originally it is more likely that Christians worshipped on Friday evenings as many with Jewish heritage were used to setting aside that day as Sabbath time. And there are some Christian groups like Seventh Day Adventists who worship on Saturdays.

But we could be out in the park on a Sunday, or in our room praying. Why here? Why together? Why worship like this?

In worship we learn from one another, gain insight and compassion from one another. Praying together strengthens us as we lift up others. I don’t know about you but singing a hymn by myself does not compare to singing Siyahamba with all of us together. When we worship together we are stronger than our individual selves and inspired by the gathered thoughts, gifts, and presence of others.

Worshipping together reminds us that we are one of a whole, part of a community, linked to others and reminded of their welfare. “To seek justice, and love kindness and walk humbly with our good.”

How do we know what is just, what is right, what is truth, what is good? It is difficult sometimes (which we will talk about this fall in Circles of Faith). By gathering in worship we hear what our scriptures have to say. We listen to Jesus advocating for the poor and upending the status quo. We hear the prophets demanding justice and speaking of God’s hope for our battered world. We hear from our tradition of the UCC working against slavery and apartheid and the abuse of farm workers.  In worship we sing of our call to bring peace. In worship we hear such very different words than we do on television or in advertisements or at the bank or at an MSU football game.

Together in worship we discern how to move forward with God’s justice. Becoming Open and Affirming, becoming Just Peace, speaking out against Proposition 2, etc.  Paul writes to the church in Corinth which is asking him, what should we be doing in worship? Speaking in tongues had become very popular in Corinth and was threatening to divide the church so Paul says to them, “when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. Let two or three prophets speak and let others weigh what is said. So that all may learn and all be encouraged.”

For isn’t that what we do in worship as well—encourage one another. There is a great group of sayings from the UCC God is Still Speaking Campaign about why people love their church. One says, “Why I love my church? Because for one hour every week I get reminded that life is more than getting up and going to work, dealing with problems and worrying about everything under the sun.”

Worship can be the place where we are refreshed and renewed and reminded that God is in the midst of everything in our world. That there is an alternative message even if that is not what we hear every day. That we have power to make change. And that we are asked to do so.

I had a really good conversation with an Edgewood member recently about celebration in worship. He asked if worship is about celebration, why do we seem to do so little of it?

It was a great question and really comes down in part to your theology: what do you think about God and Jesus and the world?

To make some broad generalizations: In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, worship truly is a celebration, a mass that celebrates Jesus’ sacrifice and atonement, or dying for, all sinful people. From their perspective, Christians were saved in that act and thus those traditions celebrate that sacrifice every week, culminating in communion, in part a reenactment and accepting once again the blessing of that sacrifice.

In the more fundamental traditions, worship is often very celebratory and praise music talks a lot about the blessing of having a personal relationship with Jesus, that being saved on an individual level is essential, and a gift of faith, and something to celebrate enthusiastically and weekly.

And then there is our tradition, the United Church of Christ, and Edgewood, part of the group of liberal Protestant churches. We see things a little differently. For Catholics, Orthodox and Fundamentalists, and even some more centrist Christians, worship is celebratory because what needed to be done—Jesus dying for us—is already accomplished. So our job in worship is to celebrate that.

For liberal Protestants, Jesus’ saving work is ongoing, is present, and is part of our work to be done right now. We don’t believe that everything was accomplished by Christi’s death but more that in Jesus’ life and teachings, and preaching and sacrificial death we learn about the struggle for justice and peace. We hear how we are called into the struggle as well, with all its pain and hope.

For us, celebration is a bit different because we are in the middle of the journey. We haven’t arrived yet. And we believe that the work for the kingdom of God is happening all around us and that we are partners in it. Not that those other traditions aren’t working for these goals as well, but their essential truths lie beyond these struggles. But to be fair, we probably should celebrate more in the midst of prophetic words for change, words of solace and comfort, and words of praise and thanksgiving.

So, why are we here? Why are you here this morning?
To worship.
And to worship means to praise.
To worship means to be connected with others on the journey and find rest.
To worship means to discern what is next in the struggle for justice and peace.
And to worship means to celebrate.

Ultimately in worship we remember that it is with God that we live and move and have our being.

To close:

“Paul Brand is a brilliant medical doctor who did pioneering work in the treatment of leprosy. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen, served as the only Westerner on the Mahatma Ghandi foundation, and had medical procedures named after him.

“Brand grew up in India, where his parents were missionaries. At the age of nine he was sent to boarding school in England. Five years later, while a 14 year old student there, he received a telegram informing him that his beloved father had died of blackwater fever. Brand cherished fond memories of his father, a man who had a great love for people and a great love for the natural world around him.

“A short time after he received news of his father's death Paul Brand received a letter from his father. It had been posted prior to his father's death but took some time to reach Brand as it came by ship. Its words impacted deeply upon the young son. Paul's father described the hills around their home and then finished with these words: "God means us to delight in his world. It isn't necessary to know botany or zoology or biology in order to enjoy the manifold life of nature. Just observe. And remember. And compare. And be always looking to God with thankfulness and worship for having placed you in such a delightful corner of the universe as the planet Earth."  Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor (Hodder & Stoughton, 2001).

Amen.