Fruitful Congregations: Passionate Worship

Acts 16:11-15

September 27, 2015

Mark S. Bollwinkel

 

It remains one of my favorite Easter moments.   It happened in Reno while Bonnie and I were serving at St. Paul's UMC back in the 1980's.    "Bob" had a mental illness.   A paranoid schizophrenic, he was able to manage independent living as long as he took his medications and checked in with his doctors each week.   It was at the state mental health program that he met "Mary", also a paranoid schizophrenic.   Somehow in the cloud of their disorders they fell in love.  Her parents asked me to perform the wedding, which I did, not knowing up till the last minute how it would all turn out.   It was lovely and the reception in the social hall afterwards was lovely and very, very quiet.

Not long after came a beautiful Easter morning.   The small church was beautifully decorated and packed, well over a hundred people.   Anticipating a crowd we solicited extra ushers and recruited the husband of one of our choir members.  He rarely attended church.  She was there every Sunday.    For some unknown reason, when "Mary" came into the church with "Bob" and her parents, she walked straight up to the tall, well dressed recruited usher and punched him right in the face.  She startled him more than hurt him.  He was so shocked that he threw down his bulletins and walked out of the church never to return...expect on Christmas Eves, sitting way in the back.

As you can imagine there was a huge kerfuffle.  The usher didn't want to call the police.  "Mary" and her parents went back home to make sure she had taken her meds.   And then we began the service.  

But that wasn't my favorite moment.  It happened during the sermon.

"Bob" had stayed at church through all the commotion, sitting in the back, kind of oblivious to it all.  But 2-3 minutes into the sermon, he got up and walked down the central aisle and sat down at the end of the pew about five rows in.   Two to three minutes later while I am preaching away, "Bob" gets up again, walks down the central aisle about five rows closer to the front and sits at the end of the pew.   He is quiet and polite.  His eyes are as big a saucers.  And he is coming closer and closer to the pulpit and me.  

Sure enough as I get into the conclusion, "Bob" gets up once more, walks down the central aisle and sits down in the very first pew right in front of me.   He is quiet, very polite and his face radiates joy.   Like a little kid at Christmas morning he is so happy.  His smile goes from ear-to-ear.   

This was one of my best of all time Easter sermons…and….about the only thing I can think of while I am preaching is “what is Bob going to do next?”  Is this the day that "Bob" decides to join me in the pulpit, dance naked on the altar or punch me in the face?!   A lot of the people in the church were thinking the same thing. 

Well, we get through the sermon, the offering and singing "Christ the Lord Has Risen Today".  The service ends and the congregation goes to the social hall for refreshments.  After shaking hands with everyone at the door I go to find "Bob" still sitting in the front pew with a big smile on his face.  I sit down next to him and ask, "Are you all right?" and he simply says, "You mean that God loves even me?" 

For me in that moment we can see the entire purpose of worship.

In his book Five Practices of Fruitful Living, (Abingdon, 2010) UM Bishop Robert Schnase writes:

 

 During this worship series we are exploring the nature of discipleship.   Inviting people to discipleship, nurturing their discipleship, living out our discipleship to Jesus is what the church is all about.

 

When we join a United Methodist church we make a public vow to live out our faith in Jesus Christ by our "prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness."   Bishop Schnase suggests that there are five spiritual disciplines corresponding to those membership vows which when practiced connect us to God and with each other; deepening faith, passionate worship, extravagant generosity, bold service and social justice, and radical hospitality.   I am convinced that as individuals and as a church we will find our way in life as we practice the five attributes of fruitful Christian living.

Today we focus on Passionate Worship and our membership vow to support our faith with our presence in worship.   And by "worship" we are referring to corporate worship.  Of course, we can individually worship at the beach or in the mountains or in the easy chair next to the bed as we wake up or go to sleep at night.  In this reference we are talking about when we gather as a community to worship together.   As important as it is to develop our personal spiritual practices we are convinced that we find something in community worship that we can't find anywhere else.

 
Schnase suggests that passionate worship in song, prayer, teaching and as we are sent out into the world to offer witness can be an opportunity to...1) Orient Ourselves toward God, 2) Discover the transcendent, 3) Engage the spirit and 4) Bring us back to ourselves.

More than a concert and a lecture, in worship aren't we all seeking a moment to connect with God, who we really are and who we are called to be?

Consider Lydia.   She is the Apostle Paul’s first European convert to Christianity.

She was called a “God fearer” or “a worshiper of God” as translated in the original language of the New Testament.   The term referred to a Gentile who was sympathetic with and committed to worshipping the God of Israel.  One must be born a Jew.   Conversion to the faith is a long process only fully realized by one's children.   Yet throughout the Ancient Near East where ever there were Hebrew communities, there would be those drawn to its monotheism and traditions.  

The gospel writer Luke refers to “worshippers of God” a number of times in the Book of Acts (10:1-f, 13:16, 26, 16:14, 18:7).  In Luke’s gospel Jesus’ heals the slave of a Roman Centurion and refers to him as "worshipper of God", an example of faith that outshines the pious rulers of Israel (Luke 7:1-9).  

Along with being a “God fearer” Lydia is a single woman head of household and a business owner.   This is extraordinary at a time when women were considered subservient to men and had little claim to legal rights or social status.

On a Sabbath day she is down by the river, outside the gates of the Greek city Philippi, where other women interested in Judaism had gathered to worship and pray.  It could have been a small and simple synagogue.  The place could also have simply been under shade of a tree along the river.   Such a spot was a common place of theological study and worship for those without, or with limited, institutional support for their faith (Note; John 1:48, Nathanael is recognized for his study of the scripture by “sitting under a fig tree”).  In a Greek city of a Roman colony, we can assume that the Jewish community was quite small. 

As Paul and his co-workers in the Gentile Mission came to new cities they would often seek out such places to teach about Jesus.   They would find potential proselytes to Judaism with Gentile backgrounds more open to considering Jesus as Messiah than those entrenched in the traditions of the synagogue.  As a person of financial means, Lydia invites Paul’s delegation to accept her hospitality which leads to the baptism of her entire household (also note the same with the household of the Centurion Cornelius, Acts 10:1-f).

As a generous, independent, wealthy, spiritual seeker we can only imagine how lonely and isolated Lydia's life would have been in a society that routinely discounted who and what she was all about.   Yet she was so passionate about worshipping the One God of Israel that she was willing to sit down by the river side just to hear the stories, read the scriptures and pray with her sisters excluded, for the most part, from power and access in their society.   It would be in that faith and community that she would find a place to be all that God was calling her to be.

Passionate worship can be loud; it can be silent.  You can worship passionately sitting down, standing up, dancing in the aisle or kneeling.   It can be graced with classical music or rock n’ roll.  The form of worship doesn’t matter so much as the heart we bring.

I dream of a church where worship is fun as well as reverent; celebrating tradition while not afraid to try something new.  Where people know how to pray and enjoy it; frequently and regularly, privately and corporately, in silence and in song.* I dream of a church that when one becomes a member, that if in town, we expect to worship here every week, not just when we can fit it in.   

Here at Church of the Wayfarer we have a beautiful sanctuary, a talented organist playing a historic instrument.   We have outstanding guest musicians each week.  We have wonderful volunteers as ushers and fellowship hour servants.   The styles and traditions of the worship to which we are accustomed are important and fulfilling.   But those worship traditions we so often love are not attracting new comers to Main Line Protestant churches.    To reach out to new generations of those folks who consider themselves "spiritual not religious" it will mean that we find new ways and times and styles of worship.

The contemporary praise song “The Potter’s Hands” (Hillsong) includes this verse:

You gently call me, into Your presence

Guiding me by, Your Holy Spirit
Teach me dear Lord
To live all of my life through Your eyes

 

That's really why we worship and why we worship passionately; to get a glimpse of the way God sees us and the world, and to respond to the invitation to live our lives accordingly.   And the way God sees us…whether a paranoid schizophrenic like “Bob” or a God-fearing woman like Lydia …again and again is with "Yes", "Yes", "Yes". 

"Bob" on Easter morning got the message of God’s unconditional love for him as did

Lydia down by the river side.  

It is a grace we don't have to discover all alone.  Corporate worship can bring us back to ourselves as we find our voice and sing our song.

 

Amen.

 

*(Reshaping Ministry: Essays in Memory of Wesley Frensdorff, Josephine Borgeson and Lynne Wilson, Editors, Jethro Publications, Arvada, CO, 1990)