Sermon 12/15/13
Luke 1:46-55, Luke 2:8-15
Advent Conspiracy: Worship Fully
It might sound strange to say, but of our four Advent
Conspiracy themes, the one I find the most challenging, personally, is this week’s: Worship Fully. I spend most of my time
planning and leading worship. This week, Pastor Aaron and Laurel and I sat down
to do some worship planning. And so here, in the midst of Advent, we were
planning for January, and Lent, and Easter, and even worship themes through the
end of June. It can be a little disorienting. And it can be a little
challenging, while leading worship to actually just worship. One of my favorite things about pastoring at Liverpool as
part of a team is that I have regular opportunities to not preach. Preaching is one of my favorite things about ministry,
but I’ve found that regularly having a week where I’m not preaching helps me prepare spiritually better for the weeks I
am preaching. On top of that, I’m blessed by Aaron and Laurel and their
insights into the scriptures. It’s the same reason why I value our lay servants
who help at our 8am service so much. Could one person lead the whole worship
service? Sure. But aren’t we richly blessed by the different words and voices
and prayers and forms of expression we use when together, we worship God.
What does it mean
to worship fully? I believe it means giving our whole hearts to God in praise,
prayer, studying the word, in acts of thanksgiving. The scriptures throughout
remind us that the greatest commandments are to love God and love one another
with our whole hearts. The Lord is our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind, and with all your strength. This is the core, the center, the meaning. We
worship because God is God and we are not! We worship because God is love and
we seek to love in response. We worship because as God chooses us, creates us,
we in turn want to say that we’ve chosen God above all else. It is God who we
promise to love with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And
because of that, and to show that, we love our neighbors, our fellow human
creations. We worship because God is who God is. And we worship because we want
to know this God, encounter this God, hear from this God, be moved by this God.
That’s why we worship.
How do we worship? As you know we have a
group of confirmands going through classes and one-on-one sessions with their
mentors this year. They have a couple of essays to write, and some service
projects to complete, but mostly, I consider the confirmation requirements to
be fairly easy. Accomplishable. I
followed a pastor once who required confirmands to pass regular tests, and if
their grades were too low, they had to take them over and over until they
achieved a high enough grade. It sounded pretty stressful to me, and a little
unfair since adults joining the church didn’t have to do nearly as much! I
think confirmation is vitally important – all of our faith formation activities
are. But I’ve told the youth that with confirmation, like with most things in
life, you get out what you put in. You can probably make it through
confirmation here with some half-hearted efforts. And then joining the church
family officially will probably feel a little half-hearted. But if you put your
heart and mind and energy into confirmation, it just might be one of the best
faith experiences of your life!
We get
out what we put in. That concept works for worship as well. How do you prepare
yourself for worship? How do you come to this space or other times and spaces
of worship? Do you come expecting to encounter God? Do you come offering
yourself to God? Expecting to learn? Expecting to be bored? Expecting nothing?
And what do you bring to worship? How do you give your heart to God in worship?
Have you ever taken a look at John Wesley’s Rules for
Singing? Maybe you didn’t realize the founder of Methodism had rules – unless
you took my John Wesley study this summer – but right in your hymnals each week
you hold his rules for singing in your hands on page vii. He writes,
1. Sing all. See that you join with the
congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or
weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a
blessing.
2. Sing lustily, and with a good courage. Beware
of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice
with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of it
being heard, then when you sing the songs of Satan.
3. Sing modestly. Do not bawl, as to be heard
above, or distinct from, the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy
the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear
melodious sound.
4. Sing in time. Whatever time is sung, be sure to
keep with it. Do not run before, not stay behind it; but attend closely to the
leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can. And take care you
sing not too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and
it is high time to drive it out from among us, and sing all our tunes just as
quick as we did at first.
5. Above all, sing spiritually. Have an eye to God
in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other
creature. In order to do this, attend strictly to the sense of what you sing,
and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God
continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve of here,
and reward when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.
Of course, we get a
chuckle out of these. But especially #5 – what Wesley writes about hymn-singing
is how I feel about worship. “Have an eye to God” in all we do in worship. Aim
at pleasing God more than ourselves and more than others in worship. Offer our
hearts to God continually. That’s worship.
It is so easy for us to become consumers of worship just
like we consume everything else. It’s easy for us to slip into a “the customer
is always right” mindset when we’re worshipping, where we’re the customers and
God is the salesclerk. Of course, I want you all to find our worship time
together meaningful and engaging. But I want that because I want worship to be
a place where God can transform your hearts and souls, where God can invite you
into a life of discipleship and you can learn to be ready to respond, “Yes.” Worship
is for God. When worship is about something other than giving our hearts to
God, it is just another kind of idolatry. Worship is saying yes to God.
We have two scripture readings today. One we read as a responsive
litany in our Call to Worship – from Luke 1. This is commonly known as the
Magnificat, for the opening lines of the words of the song Mary sings when she
meets with her cousin Elizabeth shortly after finding out from the angel
Gabriel that she is pregnant with a child from God. Mary has the opportunity to
respond to Gabriel’s news in so many ways, all of which would seem justified.
But Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” In other words, “My soul exults
God.” “My soul worships God.” Far from thinking about how this child she
carries will impact her personally, even though her life has been in turmoil,
her response to the news from Gabriel is to give herself completely to God and
sing with joy, worshiping God for God’s goodness, God’s saving plan for the
lowly, the oppressed, the overlooked. Mary doesn’t just say “yes” to God. She
says yes with a song, with her whole heart, with joy.
And then today we get a sneak peek at the Christmas
story. The shepherds have no idea what
they’re getting into when messengers from heaven break open their night
announcing the birth of a savior. But the shepherds don’t ask questions, even
though they’re afraid. They just go. They say yes with their actions. And they
make haste – they go quickly. They see and are amazed. And they tell everybody
everything they’ve seen and heard and been told. And then they get back to work
– but they’re praising and glorifying God all along the way. I’m struck by
their willingness to get caught up in this story that must have seemed to
strange to them. But they say yes, with their whole hearts, with utter joy.
As we approach our celebration of the birth of Christ, it
can be easy to get caught up in the traditions that we love, the sights and
sounds of Christmas, the pageantry, the beauty. We are surrounded by such
beauty that it can take your breath away! But let us remember where every
symbol, every song, every candle flame points us: they direct us to the manger,
to worship God-in-the-flesh. To bring us to cradle so that we might offer our
gifts to Jesus. To say, “yes, we’re in,” with our whole hearts. I promise,
you’ll get out everything that you put in, and then some. And then some.
“My soul magnifies the Lord.” “Do not be afraid; for
see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born
this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” “Glory
to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favors!”
Thanks be to God! Amen.
