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I've spoken of the sense of community with those we know, those we love, and with those we do not like. I would like to make
one other point about worshiping with those we do not know, worshiping with strangers.
Years ago I went on a five-day silent retreat. I did not get an opportunity to meet any of my fellow retreatants before the
silence began. For five days we ate in silence, occupied the same general vicinity, and gathered for the daily Eucharist.
When the silence was over at breakfast on the sixth day, we discovered a profound community had already developed. As we
learned each other's names, hometowns and other data, we quickly moved into conversations that presumed a remarkable degree
of trust and community which was already present.
Look around your congregation. Are these people with whom you have worshiped, maybe for many years, to whom you have never
spoken. You may not even know their names. They may be like the woman who prayed all night for her pastor to preach the
Word of God. They may have a deep silent connection with you in the community of the Church.
Bless your silent, anonymous sisters and brothers, too. One day God may lead you to discover the Word each of you has to
give to the other.
[story about Dolly Falkner]
We would be sorely short sighted if we limited our sense of corporateness to the congregation. Always remember your bishop
and diocese, and sense your union with your chief pastor and the congregations of your diocese. Then let your sense of connectedness
expand in ever widening circles: the entire Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, the Universal Church, all people of
diverse faiths who are in relationship with God, and especially the Church triumphant in paradise.
The liturgy is forever, and we simply join the song of the angels and archangels, the offering of Jesus our great High Priest,
and the never ceasing sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving of the Church on earth.
In order to fully enter into your place in the common prayer, there is one more step in this process of going out of yourself.
This part may seem difficult. You may even wish to take issue with me. The issue is the motive of our worship.
We do not worship for ourselves, as if to get something out of it. We don't worship to feel better, to learn more about God,
to be uplifted or any of the thousand other ways we can be blessed by our worship. The church is not trying to meet our "spiritual
needs" in worship. Our worship is to help the Church glorify God. Worship is for God and the Church, not for ourselves.
God has already given to us abundantly. Worship is our response to God. We join the Church in the response that "we may
perfectly love (God), and worthily magnify (God's) holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord."
How many times I have left worship feeling like I didn't get anything out of it, as if that were the reason I come to worship!
The Liturgy exists for the purpose of worship,
not for the comfort or edification of the faithful;
we do not therefore take part in it for any personal gain,
but to make the most perfect offering to God
of which we are capable.
And, if we make our Communion and receive Him who is our perfect joy,
still it is not for our own benefit,
but that we may be more wholly given to God in union with Him.
(Ftn. F. P. Horton, The Elements of the Spiritual Life: A Study in Ascetical Theology, London: S.P.C.K., 1932, p.284.)
It may help to make a distinction between worship and prayer. They are not the same thing.
I hope this doesn't seem too much like splitting hairs, but it is important that we do not expect from worship that which
it is not primarily intended to produce: our comfort, security, or spiritual success.
Evelyn Underhill contrasts worship and prayer.
Worship is "Disinterested," that is, it is for God alone without self-interest. Prayer is only partially disinterested.
Worship offers; prayer asks.
The cry of the worshiper is adoration of God for God's sake, "What shall I say, my God, my Holy Joy!" (St. Augustine) When
we pray we seek God because we need Him. "Without thy visitation, I cannot live!" (Thomas a'Kempis.) ...as the genuine religious
impulse becomes dominant, adoration more and more takes charge. "I come to seek God because I need Him," may be an adequate
formula for prayer. "I come to adore his splendour, and find myself and all that I have at His feet," is the only possible
formula for worship. Even on the crudest levels, it has in it the seed of contemplation, and points towards selflessness.
(Ftn. Evelyn Underhill, Worship, p.9.)
The reason I spend so much time on what may seem like a rather esoteric point is that it is so easy for worship to decline
from adoration to demand, demand of God and of the worshiper.
In my opinion, the most common failure in the Church's worship is our tendency toward moralism. Some branches of Christendom
have lost nearly all of the aspects of adoration except in their hymns.
There is such a strong pull to humanize worship, to focus so much on our desires and needs that we ignore the humble and adoring
praise in the midst of mystery that is the response to the revelation of the Eternal. This is a danger.
Our image of Christianity is so bound up in this ethical agenda that if someone accuses another person of "not acting very
Christian," we automatically assume some moral lapse. Remember Felix. "Don't you know that a Christian is constituted by
the Eucharist...?" You do not come to church to become a "better person." You come to church to love and adore God as a
member of Christ's Body.
Therefore, the last and possibly hardest task of preparation is to give ourselves away for the purpose of worship: to give
ourselves to the Church to make the best offering with the Church; and to give ourselves to God, "That we may perfectly love
you, and worthily magnify your Holy Name; through Christ our Lord."
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