Sermons

“On Worship – Part Two: Word”

Genesis 1:1-5; John 1:1-5 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – August 23, 2015

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that we might truly embrace your Living Word in our worship and our lives. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Last Sunday, I began a short, three-week sermon series on worship. We are going to be experimenting a little in the fall with our order of worship, so it seems timely to think a little bit about what worship is and isn’t, and how we can experience it more deeply. Last week, we talked about community. Next week, we’ll talk about God and idolatry. This week, we’re going to talk about the Word. And/or words. We’re going to talk about the capital-W Word and small-w words. There is a lot to say about words, and in fact, I’m going to use words to say it, and as the words pile up, we may start to wonder why I thought we could cover all this in one week!

Let’s begin with scripture, and let’s begin by noticing that we’re doing so and why. For most traditions within the Christian faith, worship is grounded in scripture. Scripture is read, it is often used liturgically, and it is responded to, in sermons and other formats. In this context, it is often referred to as “The Word.” But let us listen closely again to what we heard from today’s readings and see what contradictions they suggest.

It is no accident that both of our scripture readings today begin with the same three words, “In the beginning…” And while these passages are primarily about creation, I have chosen them to undergird today’s conversation precisely because they are also inextricably connected to words. In the beginning in Genesis, we are told that God brought the world into being by speaking it into reality. God called out for light, and there was light. And God named the light Day. And in John’s beginning, we are told that the Word was there, in the beginning, with God. Not one thing came into being without him. These are both theological truths and anthropological truths. For us, for humanity, the beginning is the Word, language. In order for us to be who we are, we require words. Language is how we apprehend the world. It’s how we make sense of things and bring order to chaos. It is no accident that this origin story in Genesis relies on God speaking into the void to bring forth creation. It is a wonderfully reflective metaphor for how our minds work.

And then thousands of years later, John’s gospel revisits that moment and tells us something new about it. We knew the Word was there, because of how it happened, but we didn’t know yet who the Word was. And that’s just it. It turns out the Word is a who, not a what. There is another sense in which one could refer to scripture as the Word of God, but scripture itself tells us that Jesus is the Word of God. And that, of course, makes everything far more mysterious. If the Word of God is the Bible, we can just sit down and read it. But if the Word of God is Jesus, the Risen Christ, then learning it and knowing it and following it is going to be a lot more complicated. For this Word is not simply written down on paper. The gospels give us multiple portraits, and the epistles add to them, but this Word is a living word, one that interacts with us not just from the pages of scriptures, but through our lives, in prayer and reflection, and through our interactions with others and the world. A Word that is alive is harder to grasp hold of, but it’s also more able to speak to our lives in each moment. It’s more powerful.

Let’s think about that for a moment. Both of the passages we read this morning have great respect for the power of words. This is something we’re in danger of losing in our society today. Throughout the biblical witness there is deep awareness of the power of words and especially the power of names. We are instructed to be careful with our words, and especially our use of the holy names. Since the advent of modern advertising, though, words have become cheap and consequently weak. We have learned never to assume they mean what they seem to say. We abuse them and mis-use them, and these days much of the population doesn’t even attempt to spell them correctly. Words have become not so much forms of communication or connection as tools of manipulation.

So where does this leave those of us who choose to gather together to worship God? Words are our most common building block for putting together a service. If they have been cheapened beyond recognition, what must we do to give them back their power? First of all, let’s think about some of the ways we use words in worship. There has long been tension in the breadth of the Body of Christ about whether it is more powerful and appropriate to use a set liturgy that has been honed by centuries of tradition or to let our words by spontaneously inspired by the Spirit. Disciples have generally fallen somewhere in the middle, leaning toward the spontaneous edge. Set liturgy is a bit too close to reciting creeds for our independent taste. But we’re fond of the Lord’s Prayer and most of our Elders and Deacons would tend to write down a prayer before giving it in worship. So we tend to use a combination of prepared and spontaneous words, and even the prepared words are likely to be prepared or at least adapted for that particular occasion, rather than the same words repeated every Sunday. At its best, this is a reflection of our desire to be careful with our words, respecting their power and wanting them to illuminate the situation at hand as faithfully as possible.

Because we are somewhat in the middle on this particular spectrum, we use words in a wide variety of ways in a Disciples worship service. I want to say a few words about some of those forms. First of all, there are words we say together. These are perhaps the most dangerous and yet possibly also the most ignored words in the whole service. Someone, usually the pastor, that is, usually me, selects those words. I do not poll the congregation ahead of time to ask whether you’re okay with having these things come out of your mouth. Many pastors seek out liturgical materials and adapt them each week. I tend to write our materials myself each week. Some weeks are more successful than others, but you should know that I always feel the burden of putting words in your mouth. I never want anyone to feel manipulated in worship, for that distances us from God. But how to avoid it when you are choosing what someone else is going to say?

This leads me to another reflection about the words we use in worship. In both what we read and in what we sing, I believe there is a lot of what I like to call “aspirational truth.” We say things or sing things, not because they are true, but because we want them to be true and saying them over and over together makes them more likely to become true. When we sing about humility, it’s not because we are humble, but because singing about it makes us more humble. When we ask for God’s help, it’s not because we’ve already admitted we need it, but because asking together makes us realize that we do. The communal nature of this creates a safe space for us to bare our hearts in ways we normally would avoid. Like God, in whose image we are created, when we gather for worship, we speak our humility and devotion into being through the power of words.

This brings us to another major use of words in our service, what you might call the prose sections. The primary example of this is a sermon, which entire semester long classes and doctoral degrees are spent dissecting. Suffice it to say here, for now, that what I’m going to say about all our words in worship apply to preaching as well. What I’m more interested in are all the other parts of worship that also qualify as what we might broadly term “testimony”. Whenever someone stands up to tell us how faith affects our lives, we are hearing testimony. Whether it’s the sermon, or an invitation to the offering, or a children’s moment, or a call to worship, these moments when a particular person speaks from their particular perspective can be moments when the Word is truly alive in our midst. Or they can be moments when the words are dead. If we are honest and authentic, truly sharing our lives, then the words we speak can take wings and fly. If we merely repeat empty platitudes that do not reflect our actual lives, we would be better off staying in our seats. Testimony works because it is the truth that sets us free. Words that deny or try to cover over the truth are the opposite of worshipful. Words are powerful, and they must be used carefully. Every once in a while, when I’m writing a sermon, I will catch myself writing a sentence I don’t even believe. “What are you doing?” I ask myself while hitting the delete key. Interesting is good, thought-provoking is great, engaging is helpful, but if a sermon isn’t honest, I need to just shut up. Any of us who are given the privilege of sharing words of faith must watch ourselves diligently and take care to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. Which doesn’t mean we have to tell the whole truth every chance we get! I’m already running out of time to do that!

I want to just mention one more way we use words in worship before I move on, and that’s repetition. Unlike in many Christians traditions, there are very few combinations of words we use every Sunday. I say something similar every week at the Table when I do the Words of Institution, but the only thing that’s the same word-for-word every Sunday in our service is the Lord’s Prayer. I think because it is the only thing like that in our service, it probably has special power. It lives within our hearts; it will be there when we need it. I was once visiting a man in a nursing home who had sustained major brain damage in a hunting accident. He’d been in and out of the hospital for years, and he could barely communicate. But when I said, “Shall we pray?” intending to being a spontaneous prayer myself, he launched into the Lord’s Prayer without hesitation. It’s that powerful. What are the words written on your heart? Are there any besides the Lord’s Prayer? A psalm maybe, or those first few verses from John that we heard a bit ago? It is important to have access to some of the words of our faith in this way, for you never know when you won’t have other kinds of access. One of the side purposes of worship is that it helps prepare us for the rest of life. Having words in our hearts like this is a great blessing.

But on the other hand… If we’re going to talk about something as powerful as words, we must also give a moment to the other hand. There are those for whom words are difficult. There are people who can’t read, either well or at all, and I don’t just mean young children, though their experience of worship is also important to take into account. Some people learn by hearing, and their experience of worship is likely to be pretty good in our tradition. But what about those who learn best by seeing or doing? What are we offering them? Most of us learn best when all of our senses are engaged. Would it not also make sense that God is best praised with all our senses rather than simply words?

In recent years, there have been efforts to diversify our worship experiences, to engage senses other than hearing. Since we’ve had these screens put in and added images to our service, many of you have commented on how that has enriched worship for you. But there are even more ways to involve our whole beings in worship. Prayer stations that require us to get up and use our hands and our creative powers can help us connect more deeply with God. Those who have trouble focusing just on something they’re hearing can be brought back into the center of worship when they’re invited to make something as part of their experience. Another powerful aspect of worship that doesn’t have to involve words is when a congregation creates something together, each person adding their portion to a larger project that reveals something about the nature of God. It is important that we open ourselves to these forms of worship that are less wordy, for the use only one tool is to exclude those who cannot flourish in that medium.

Finally, we cannot talk about words, or The Word, without talking about silence. For some, silence still involves words, but the quiet is necessary for putting those words in order in our own minds. For others, whose minds work differently, the silence is without words, whether before or beyond words, but simply a different way of connecting with the Divine Power. There are many ways of experiencing silence, but silence in community is definitely different than silence in solitude. A gathering of people awaiting the presence of God is a holy moment. When we, together, recognize that our words are not the most important, but that there is a Word awaiting our attention, we have perhaps achieved true worship. For that Word will call Life into being, and the Life will be the Light of the World. Alleluia and Amen!