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VISION 2020 - WorshipJune 15, 2008 Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Listen to part one of this sermon Listen to part two of this sermon Christ Church welcomed the Highland Park United Methodist Church Youth Choir, who participated in worship today. Let me add one more word of thanks to our friends from Dallas. We’re enormously grateful for your presence here, grateful for your music, grateful for the larger church that binds us together in common purpose, and grateful for the serendipity of your being here on a day we’re celebrating our commitment to God’s purposes in New York City. You didn’t know you would be helping us in this, actually we didn’t either, but being people of faith we anticipate that small surprises like this come along as a matter of course. And you could not have known that you would sing on a Sunday that the preacher would spend a few minutes speaking about the subject of worship, one of the four targeted ministry areas of our strategic vision. At the time our theme for the month was mapped out, we did not know you’d be coming. And now that you’re here I’m inclined to sit down and just let you do your thing, because, after all, talking about worship surely isn’t the same thing as accomplishing worship. Actually I’ve been in services where the preaching sort of wrecked the experience – I bet you have to. So it goes. We’ll hope for the best today…. You might be interested to know that while I attended college in Southern California in the 70’s, during the summers I worked the oil fields outside of Corsicana and I sang with the church choir at First United Methodist Church of Richardson – which, for the non-Texans present, is immediately north of Dallas. The truth is I sang in choirs all my youthful life, right through college, and I credit music with being my first spiritual language, which is the reason I ultimately wound up taking it as my major. It was through music that I first found my way to God, or maybe, that God found his way to me. Ultimately I married a singer so I would always have ready access to that experience, if even vicariously. So I applaud your commitment to your music-making, to your church’s commitment to it, and to your willingness to share it, even all the way up here with your New York cousins. We’re really glad you came. Just between us, I’d give anything to have as many active youth in our congregation. I’m hoping the Christ Church family present this morning would regard that as a goal for the years ahead. And not an unreasonable one, either. No doubt they recognize we would have a space problem if you all attended here. We’re already pressing the bounds of our physical limits. Of course, obvious problems like that should be anticipated by a healthy and dynamic family. I’m hoping we’ll get on that right away. Probably you’ve already figured out that church is a bit different here in New York. New York is a different sort of place in which to grow up. But our life is good. No question New York City needs the church. Specifically, it needs this church anchoring the corner of Park Avenue and 60th Street. That’s why we’ve been working so hard at re-developing our ministry here over the last couple of decades, why we’ve managed to experience a congregational resurrection, and why we’re challenging ourselves to move it into a much stronger position to advance the cause of the gospel. That’s the reason we’re celebrating our vision today, something we call VISION 2020 and the reason we’re encouraging each other to commit ourselves to restoring and adapting our wonderful home that we’ve inherited from generous and courageous forebears as an initial phase of that vision. Though we did not know them, without joining our hearts and resources with theirs, family reunions like this one in this astonishing city could never take place. And all of us can sense how New York would be so much the lesser for it, if this Christian palazzo were not here, not to mention how God’s purposes would be diminished at a very crucial moment in history. We can all feel the potential for accomplishing great things here. I sensed that the first time I walked in to this space nearly thirty years ago. I wasn’t more than ten years older than some of our singers today. A lot has happened since then. And a lot more is in store. Most Christ Church folks sense we’ve just begun. I bet we’ll see one or two of you guys back here some years from now. I hope so. That’s sort of how it goes for us. We have members here today who came from Highland Park. This may sound a bit grandiose, but we think of ourselves being at the heart of the city that’s at the heart of the world. Many paths cross here, sometimes in surprising ways. But then, as I mentioned earlier, people of faith sort of know that there’s always a surprise or two up ahead. So, together, within the glittering walls of this Byzantine basilica, we’re joining hearts, minds and voices in praise to the character up there in our apse mosaic – the exalted Christ – our namesake. We say we’ve gathered for worship here this morning. The woman in our gospel lesson spoke to Jesus about locations of worship as well – how the Samaritans had their special worship place and the Jews, like Jesus, had another special place, namely Jerusalem, also a major crossroads. In their day these places of worship were in competition with each other – the Samaritans and the Jews each thought their location was religiously, spiritually superior. Now that isn’t the issue between Texas Methodists and their New York cousins, at least when we’re at our best, but we surely do know about the many skirmishes that exist among Christians so-called and their competing values around right belief. I suppose its just the lousy side of human nature that even worship inspired by the one who was all about bringing people together would break into various warring camps over who has the right belief. So it goes. I confess that I have my strong opinions on the matter. Still, when we consider Jesus’ response to the woman as John records it, we’re left with quite a lot to think about as it applies to this matter of worship. Remember what Jesus said to her: “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem….But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” [1] Now interestingly, for all of our time and resources spent in preparing and executing complicated services of corporate worship, there’s very little in the New Testament about it. Outside of this passage the narrators never report Jesus instructing his followers specifically on how worship ought to be accomplished. After the experience of resurrection, his followers sought ways to keep his lively memory current and accessible; they drew on robust Jewish sources, of course, blending these with cherished memories of Jesus’ actions among them…like baptism, for instance. Ultimately this led to building ostentatious structures like this one, or like the large campus of Highland Park in the middle of Dallas. How many thousands of members to y’all have? These spiritual centers are very important within our communities. They’re like religious homesteads established for the nurture and feeding of family and friends, and when functioning at their best, participate in the transformation of their communities, even the world; their presence promotes the cause Jesus taught and lived – loving God above all things and our neighbors as ourselves. But now, as for the worship these spiritual centers promote, Jesus makes quite clear that location and practice actually take a back seat to “spirit and truth.” As John relates the story, this had something to do with what God was accomplishing in and through the life of Jesus. It had a future component, as in, where things were headed, but it also had a present component as well, as in, we now have access, through Jesus, to what God intended all along. That’s the essence of the Christian hope and why Christ figures so prominently in our iconography here. But given our current situation, the current state of our fractious church and world, we’re still left wondering what worshiping in spirit and in truth really means. That seems the logical question here. And while we could unpack this for a months’ worth of sermons I want to draw one very simple conclusion that has to do with the matter of integrity. That is, whatever else spirit and truth might mean theologically, at the most basic level it references the integrity of the worshiper. In other words, it’s all well and good to go through the motions of worship, but at the root of all this effort lays the question of intention. What is it that we actually think we’re doing when we gather like this? Now many folks wander into a church on a search for something they want, something they believe will fill them up and match their need. And you know what? I think that’s just fine as far as it goes – I support that initial intentionality. I derive great benefit from corporate worship. But actually, at root, worship is not about getting something – it is instead about giving something, namely, the giving of ourselves to something larger than ourselves. Christ Church members have heard me say in a thousand different ways over the years how all of us regularly offer ourselves to various lesser gods, often without our conscious awareness. That’s the basic human predicament – in theological terms its called idolatry – the worship of false gods. We’re all guilty of it in some way. I know I am. Part of worshiping in spirit and in truth is the naming of this human propensity. Healthy worship inspires an acknowledgment of this truth providing us with the opportunity to claim a greater integrity for our intentions and not just within these walls. You know how this is, if I say one thing in here and behave in another way out there, I lack a fundamental integrity. If I say love, love, love in here, but behave with hate, hate, hate out there, well, you get the obvious point. So worship is the offering of ourselves, wholly and completely to God. Not just in here, but out there too. Not just with our words of praise, on any given Sunday, but with the praise of the content and commitments of our lives. At our best, corporate worship both inspires and supports this kind of integrity. In one sense then, the exercise at the end of worship today is intended as an opportunity towards greater integrity, that is, towards giving ourselves to God. In choosing to walk forward to place a card in a basin could seem either a contrivance or an honest-to-gosh moment of integrity. It will be whatever you make of it. It’s offered as an opportunity for us to commit together to advance the gospel cause. It’s a pretty big outcome we’re after, then again, we worship a mighty powerful God. From where I stand, this is the logical outcome of our claiming to be part of God’s household. That’s true whether we’re members here, friends or visitors. Everyone today is given the opportunity to increase the integrity of their worship in one way or another. I promise you that every name that is placed in the basin I will pray for. I would humbly ask the same for myself – my journey is not unlike your own in this regard – I also long for a greater integrity in my worship. So, together then, the call we hear today is the call to commit ourselves to worshiping in spirit and in truth. Thanks be to God who has been pleased to give us to each other in this wonderful place, at this precise moment. Imagine that... __________________ Previous sermon: VISION 2020 - Community Building • Next sermon: Joining the Ranks of the Cross-Bearers All past sermons |
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