Hymn

Responsive Psalm

Introduction

Song

Prayer

Message

Song

Responsive Benediction

But that brings me to the third biblical use of “worship”.  Indeed a number of the Bible’s authors use the word to refer to a ritual event:  Going to a certain place to do stuff together!  Something we would, in our time and place, identify as a “worship service” or “going to church” or, here at Houghton College, “going to chapel” or maybe “going to Koinonia”. 

An example of this usage is found in the gospel of John, chapter 4.  Jesus is talking to the woman at the well, who poses to him a question about the proper location for worship.  Is it “on this mountain” she asks, or “in Jerusalem”?   We know that Jesus answers her by changing the subject from geographical location to attitude of the heart, “the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,” he said.  Yet he was talking about a ritual event.  As far as I can tell he did not say “forget those group gatherings; what really matters is just what goes on between you and God.”  No, he and the woman both understood that they were talking about a community gathering for worship.  Here’s my suggestion for a paraphrase of Jesus’s response, for this community this morning:  “It doesn’t matter whether you worship in Houghton or in Fillmore, in free church or formal church, or whether that worship is accompanied with your favorite music or your least favorite music.  What matters is that your worship includes communal gatherings, that it comes from the depths of your being, and that it flows out in genuine love for God, for others, and for all that He has made.”

I’d like to spend a bit more time on this third use of “worship,” maybe because, to be honest, through the years it’s been the most difficult one for me to deeply accept.  Adoring God in privacy, or seeking to honor Him with my life, even if I’m inconsistent in the doing of them, are both at the very least appealing thoughts, consonant with my desire to be a devoted follower of Christ. 

But corporate worship?  Isn’t it just too messy?  There are egotistical pastors out there (not here in this room, of course—but “out there”!), and opinionated choir members, and committee members who talk too much.  Even in the most compatible of Christian congregations there are people whose life experiences are so different that they hardly know how to talk to one another in more than the most superficial of topics.   What can it possibly mean to worship together in spirit and in truth, here and now, in a planned ritual event like Sunday morning worship, or chapel worship?

By the way, in case anyone out there (or up here on the platform) is wincing at my use of the word “ritual event”, let me offer a definition from Webster’s that I hope can rehabilitate the word to usefulness.   Some of us have probably been taught that so-called “ritualistic” worship is inappropriate, and that may be true, though that’s a topic for another day.  For the moment, here is Webster’s definition of “ritual” as I am using the word:  “any formal and customarily repeated act or series of acts”.  According to this definition, each time we gather for chapel we are gathering for a ritual event, “a formal and customarily repeated series of acts”.  Our “ritual” typically includes scanning in, standing, singing songs of praise to God, spending some time in prayer, and listening together to a speaker.    The word ritual is useful in talking about worship, as it identifies a time we come together to an agreed-upon place to do stuff.  But back to my question of a minute ago:  What does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth, at a ritual event like chapel?

One of the documents that came out of Vatican II, in the early 1960’s, though directed to the worldwide Roman Catholic church, has been widely accepted by Protestant and Evangelical bodies as well:  These words come from the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican II:  “In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work. . . The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration.”

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